I was intrigued when I saw the game. So much so that I plunked down my cash for early access. But I realized very quickly that youre basically expected to run the game once completely blindfolded before you will ever know how to build the party or what theyre capable of. Mistakes will dog your every step during your first run. Its very tedious and frustrating. But the killer for me, the straw that breaks the camels back, is the ridiculous spike in difficulty from one fight to another. It would be one thing if there was some sort of difficulty precursor before a fight. But there isnt . You step from one fairly mild fight to, suddenly, be faced with a large force led by a high level mage and youre expected to kill everything on the map. IN SEVEN TURNS. Did I mention all the mobs have healing potions? And the leader is on the other side of the hex map? And there are spike traps and tripwires everywhere. So you need to kill 6 mobs, in 7 turns, while they use heal pots, while missing on roughly 30-40% of your attacks. This game is dead to me. I would say it isnt worth the 22 bucks i plunked down for early access. Its a ridiculous waste of cash at the durrent $35 price tag.

I reserve words for certain games. Words which define the game itself and help encapsulate what I'm trying to get across. This game merits one such word, and that word is :

"Chewy"

Here's the deal. Blackguards is a strategy game which has been dipped, liberally, in the world of The Dark Eye, think Dungeons and Dragons germanic cousin and you'll be in the right area. It's got a wonderful, thick, rich backstory, with a lot of history, gods, cults, personalities, politics and intrigue. This is a world that over the course of several games (Check out Drakensang when you get the chance if you find yourself a fan of Blackguards, it's worth the time invested) has become every bit as nuanced and subtle as the more accessible DnD counterpart. The operative word though is accessible.

The Dark Eye is to Pen and Paper roleplay what Dark Souls is to videogames. A stern, rock faced, cold hearted, unyielding dominatrix who seems impenetrable and who demands your complete and total servitude, and at the slightest folly will beat you bloody and raw and tell you to start over again. You will, multiple times, due to a flaw in your build that down the line results in your character ending up stunted and a fight proving a little beyond your reach or poor choices when you level your character.

But each time, you will learn, through the beatings and the whippings, much like Dark Souls, you will learn, and you will improve. Eventually once you get past the gatekeeper and once you've survived the rite of passage that is the near vertical learning curve of the games mechanics, you'll find a world that richly rewards, and deserves every minute you spend within it.

The graphics finally have shaken off a lot of the shoddiness and rough edges that have pervaded a lot of the TDE games, Blackguards is slick, smooth, and carries a glossy sheen with it, it's not QUITE melt your eyes gorgeous, but it's certainly pleasing to look at, and the spell effects certainly carry with them a definite sense of satisfaction as they connect and fly about the battlefield. So too has the voice acting and musical score improved, as presentation goes, Blackguards has matured TDE into a strong, and at last truly sellable product.

But it's not for novices. Noooooooo sir. This is not a new player friendly game. So far to date no actual "Roleplaying game" set in the TDE universe has managed to be even -remotely- new player friendly, this is not about to buck that trend, not when your character sheet runs to five seperate tabbed pages with more numbers to make sense of than the US Federal Budget. Not when the wheel that surrounds your character can offer dozens of possible options as to what action you might wish to take during a turn. Not when a conversation option can turn a story down a route that results in a fight you may not have been prepared for. This game does not go lenient on people who are not careful, not methodical, or not thoughtful.

The main story arc I'm going to leave spoiler free and focus on the mechanical side, the game follows a two-beat system, the world map, being a parchment map overworld that you zip around and visit static settlements to partake in various pleasantly rendered towns and villages, which offer side quests, conversation dialogs, healing and merchants. Then there's the meat of the game, a mix of single encounter and multi-encounter dungeons.

These take place on hex based maps which are closer to things like Kings Bounty : The Legend, however in this case, we're dealing with -single units-, and in this case the strategic rendering is done with TDE levels of detail. Characters are solid, so you can't shoot or cast spells through them, ditto for static objects and moveable objects. This means positioning becomes a factor, you can't just layer your melee in front of your casters, you need to play smart and ensure people are in the right place. Equipment too has significant impacts overall on the fight, with bows having minimum and maximum ranges before major penalties are applied. Spells have granular levels of "to hit" based on the casters skill... you get the idea. We're talking pen and paper levels of detail, rendered lovingly in the game.

Once you set up hotbars for your most frequently used abilities, fights run pretty smooth and fast, and the strategy element is as the word I used to begin with implies - "Chewy" - you'll be constantly thinking and rethinking your moves, and the AI puts up a respectable fight even at default difficulty. Environmental hazards too present a real and significant problem, and throw in an extra layer, thankfully there's no time constraint, so feel free to get a coffee as you ponder each move.

Do I recommend it? Yes. With the caveat. This is not a game that will appeal to everyone. It's a niche game. I celebrate it's existence. It's a strategy game for strategy gamers. If hexes, math, and stats excite you, get stuck in.

It's a sunny day. Clear skies. You and a few of your good friends are in the school playground, gathered in the shade under an ancient oak. You're playing rock, paper, scissors. You lose consistently, over and over, and by the end, your friends kick you in the nuts, and steal your lunch money.

This is Blackguards.

For Blackguards, the whole is less than the sum of its parts.

I wanted to wait until I beat the game to review it. I felt obligated to do this. If you’re like me you bought in to all the good reviews this game had on Steam. A mature, turn-based rpg, starring anti-heroes? How could it be bad?

Well, for starters, the “Key Features” that Blackguards lauds itself on are deeply flawed. Character choice and combat tactics are undermined by balancing issues - certain abilities and spells are clearly better than others to the point where your characters will be at a severe disadvantage if specced the wrong way and beating some of the harder fights will be near impossible if you don’t have one or two specific spells.

Additionally, the game suffers from sudden spikes in difficulty that leave the game almost unplayable. Battles go from challenging and needing strategy to just plain unfair and needing luck to win out.

Outside of combat, Blackguards doesn’t fair much better. The story is piecemeal and uneven - with the whole second chapter being nothing but a combat-only reenactment of “Gladiator” that only seems to be put in place to fill time. The rest of the main quest is further hampered by a multitude of random side quests that hold no weight in the game world and only serve to distract you from your objective. Narrative elements and choices are frequently brought up only to never be talked about again. And finally, when the story actually manages to come together, it’s a rushed case of too little too late - leaving you with an ending that is worse than Mass Effect 3. Because despite what the game says, you don’t decide the course of the story at key points - nothing you do matters.

Characters are also largely underdeveloped and remain that way. Although, the voice acting, for the most part, is passable aside from one annoying companion. However, the male protagonist is the clear winner between the two gender choices (think the opposite of Mass Effect).

When the game asks, “What happens when the only hope of a threatened world lies not with heroes in shining armor, but in the hands of a band of misfits and criminals?”. It turns out the exact same thing that would happen if it were heroes in shining armor - because for a game starring “criminals”, you spend most of your time helping people and doing the right thing.

Blackguards has so much potential. It’s just like that really cool looking kid that has tattoos and fashionable clothes but when they open their mouth you realize that looking cool doesn’t mean you have substance. And as much as I wanted to like Blackguards, I can only recommend it to someone if it were deeply on sale.

I have only played 6 hours of this game, and I have stopped.
This game will appeal to some of you, but it doesnt work for me.

Blackguardsis a style of game I just dont like.

To be clear I prefer game that at least give you the appearance of free will and self determination.

Blackguards has set out to control your play, not allowing for any random encounters and engineering the enounters that you have so that they are all "challenging". Which would be fine, except that your toon build really, really matters.
With limited points to spend and "challenging encounters" it seems as if there is a certain build type that will work for each toon.
If I am right, and it feels so, then giving me freedom to build 'incorrectly' as is my style of play, means I fail.
With no random encounters to build toons otherwise, it means either re-start and build differently, or follow the guild for builds as in the forum.(There is a forum guide on 'best' builds for your toons.
Seriously, I would prefer auto build if i have that little choice, where certain builds work and others just dont - where you follow the games perfered build or fail.

If you prefer Dark Souls over Elder Scolls or Fallout, then this may well be the game for you, else if you like to play YOUR way, wether it is turtling, over leveling your toons, or just building them the way you want, to play the way you want.. then perhaps stick with games that let you do that.

Full Video Review here - http://youtu.be/G5S2mAGsoKA

As an avid RPG player, and one who is all about story, I hold any RPG story I play to a high standard. Daedalic have been great storytellers in the past and blackguards is no different. The game is dark and mature, just what I like. Often in RPG's the more morally grey characters are the most enjoyable, relate-able and overall liked characters of a given game. In Blackguards this the type of characters you play, instead of a group of moral paragons, you play a band of rogues, trying to get by in the world and dealing with events that have been thrust upon them.

You start the game as your chosen character hovering above the corpse of princess Elenor who is being eaten by a wolf, after killing said wolf you are blamed for her death, but the strange thing is, you can't quite remember what exactly happened before you saw the wolf. After being tortured and being questioned for a name you know nothing about. Enter the fire loving, fight craving, elf hating dwarf Naurim and you’re soon on a prison break with the intention of finding out just what the hell is going on here.

The Battles in blackguards are very addictive, they tend to be relatively short but by no means easier. The great thing about blackguards combat is its difficulty, some battles require real thought and careful planning. The game is very challenging but by no means overly difficult and while it can be unforgiving at times, the game auto-saves after every battle and even if you die you have the option to start the battle over at any point from the pause menu. Fans of tactical turn based Rpgs will really get a kick out of the challenge blackguards provides. One of the star features of combat is the interactive environments. In certain levels you will have objects placed around that you can use. You can cut a rope causing the hanging chandelier to crush the enemies below it, ignite flammable swamp gas to burn opponents and more. There are over 190 beautifully crafted battlefields in blackguards, these are no mere random maps, these are hand drawn, carefully thought out maps that not only feel unique but really leave a lasting impression.

If your an RPG fan, a turn based strategy fan or you just love a bloody good story, I cannot recommend blackguards enough. It is one of those rare games that I literally lost track of time playing. The story telling is good and engaging. Battles while not lengthy have great solid mechanics and good depth to them. The world is fantastically immersive, Daedalic have envisioned southern Aventuria beautifully. Check out the full video review for a more in depth look.


http://youtu.be/G5S2mAGsoKA

Cosmic.