Mount&Blade - With Fire and Sword Review @ Eurogamer

Dhruin

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Eurogamer has reviewed With Fire and Sword, finding it too similar to the previous games - but less some attractions - for a score of 6/10:
Despite a fat cache of solid faction-specific missions, the new historically-inspired setting just doesn't seem as colourful or as evocative as the old cod-medieval one. In Warband, when I needed a break from trade or banditry, village-nurturing or mercenary chevauchées, I'd search out the nearest tourney, go a-wooing or, maybe, spar with a few of my merry men. In With Fire & Sword there are no tournaments, no marriages or hands-on troop training. The developer has left them out for reasons of historical accuracy (which is fine) and failed to replace them with interesting substitutes (not fine).
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their are bar fights and deuls which while smaller replace the arena
not sure what they mean about training but their is the option to do training, i can't recall how or where as i didn't do it but it might have been at the different mercenary camps which you can actually train your companions for a hefty sum and time in different skills. if i recall the hands-on troop training was simply the tutorial in warband? why would you need another tutorial? bottom of any wishlist i would have
 
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I played a fair amount of 1p Warband. (I generally prefer single player to multi.) There are some great things about Warband; it has that great combat experience, especially the way that momentum factors into your attacks. And the open, dynamically changing world/political landscape is very cool. But the game also feels very thin and empty in spots. Feels like it's just a couple paces away from being a truly masterful 1p game.

Unfortunately, it seems like this indie dev has bogged down. Warband was only an incremental change from the original, and it sounds like Fire & Sword is only an incremental change from Warband. It seems like all these products are very much on a continuum, and they could have simply been titled Mount & Blade 0.8, 1.1, 1.5, etc.

I think this is a danger of having just a couple people working on the game: not just lack of resources, but lack of perspective. Instead of making substantial changes they keep rehashing what's there, tweaking things first in one direction and then the other, never really moving far from the original design.

I wonder what would happen if they brought in just another couple people. Not just for programming & art help, but for fresh perspective. Maybe the villages would get filled in just a touch more; the character progression would become just a trifle more satisfying; and some optional challenges / game modes could be added to make 1p slightly more structured (for those who wanted it).

As it stands, it is fun, and I think a lot of the multiplayer crowd is enjoying it, but I don't think the devs are planning to improve it in the areas I'd like.
 
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Warband was all about multiplayer, warkwark, the rest was just tweaks. WF&S is made by another studio (Sich) and not the main TaleWorlds studio.

Still, I agree with most reviews. I'm playing it and it is unimpressive so far.

their are bar fights and deuls which while smaller replace the arena
not sure what they mean about training but their is the option to do training, i can't recall how or where as i didn't do it but it might have been at the different mercenary camps which you can actually train your companions for a hefty sum and time in different skills. if i recall the hands-on troop training was simply the tutorial in warband? why would you need another tutorial? bottom of any wishlist i would have

You can train troops in training camps in Warband and basic M&B. It was a neat feature.

Also the review mentions everything you said. Instead of responding to the tidbit in the newspost, do read the review before commenting.
The closest thing to Warband's tense and lucrative arena scraps are squalid pub-car-park fist fights. Most taverns in With Fire & Sword seem to boast a drunk willing to hazard a few coins on a bare-knuckle bout. Accept and you're whisked outside into an empty yard or street for a few minutes of grunty lunging. If these sessions involved a ring of baying locals or occasionally degenerated into mass brawls, they might have been more appealing. As it is, they're pretty tiresome.
 
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while i agree that's my error, i'm adding my opinion as i'm one of the few who've played it. also do most people read reviews of games they already have purchased? thanks for the clip though as i do agree with their opinions on the details i feel that the arenas and tourneys were kind of an exploit in the other games for easy renown and dinero. plus as they said in the newsbit it doesn't fit the history.

another thing is for me personally i would pay many anyhow for quality mods, which i rarely find and since they can often be just as good or better than similar dlc i think that since this is basically a large official mod i would like to support this market as to me it markets perfectly to my interest in mods that have at least some connection to the devs and not just combat, fashion, or ridiculous feats mods like so many in the fallout games.
 
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Hmm, I missed that another studio did Fire & Sword. That makes the lack of worthwhile changes / new features (as reported by reviews, I have not seen Fire & Sword) even more baffling. Maybe the new devs were too concerned about not changing the formula.

Oh well. The series is fun to kick around with for short periods of time, and it's often super-cheap, thanks to Steam sales. Hopefully some other devs will be influenced by the physics-based combat or the very intriguing and fun dynamic realms.
 
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