Blackguards - Review @ The Escapist

AFAIR the pop-up in the first level with chests only mentioned chests, not barrels.

Good to know. The latest levels I've been playing have few chests.

Wow, out of all the things to cause such an up roar I can't believe it's this.

Let me clarify some things,

It's only chests that you need to open, barrels and crates do nothing but provide cover, obstacles or set them on fire to burn enemies.

I've played 3 chapters and only remember 1 map with chests, the battlefield map. It's an extra objective to open all the chests while clearing the map. The more chests you open the more loot you get. That is explained to you before you do the map. It does say crates in the game but I have tested it, It's chests

Opening no chests got me 3 items of loot.
Opening all 4 chests got me 14 items
Opening no chests but breaking all crates and barrels got me 3 items
Opening all 4 chests and breaking all the barrels and chests got me 13.
All methods paid out the same Ducats(gold)

Hope that clears it up.

Also I might be able to help some people.

If you are buying this game for story, immersion or exploration, don't. There are infinitely better games in that regard.

However, if you are buying this game for fun turn based combat with the twist of useable environments, multiple optional and winning objectives then few other game do it better IMO.

You don't get a lot of AP (experience) in this game to level up so use it wisely and don't be a jack of all trades. If you don't do your build right ( there is some leeway but not much) you will bilk your guys making the game extremely hard or impossible and require a restart. I can only assume the people complaining about difficulty have bilked their guys. I haven't had the difficulty problems others have experienced but I did take some time to learn Dark eye rules. If you don't this game could get frustrating for you.

Combat is the star (or Achilles heel depending on your viewpoint) of this game. I read somewhere that there are 130 battle maps in the game. The other maps are pretty samey towns.So if you don't like this kind of combat steer clear as that is the main focus

I know I keep saying that but it's just the truth. I keep reading claims of there is a story exploration etc. Well, yes there is and the story is mediocre at best and exploration consist of clicking on 130 different battle maps. So , again combat is the star of this game.

All of this may sound negative but it's really not (unless you only like story, immersion or exploration). If this game just gave me map after map Tetris style with no story in between I would still buy it. The combat is that fun IMO.

You don't get a lot of AP (experience) in this game to level up so use it wisely and don't be a jack of all trades. If you don't do your build right ( there is some leeway but not much) you will bilk your guys making the game extremely hard or impossible and require a restart. I can only assume the people complaining about difficulty have bilked their guys. I haven't had the difficulty problems others have experienced but I did take some time to learn Dark eye rules. If you don't this game could get frustrating for you.

I'll just add that I strongly suggest playing at least one Drakensang game before this one as here many things on the character sheet and what points do are not explained in details as in there. Yes there is a page with rules… But it's "meh".
And by playing Drakensang I don't speak about the retarded bigpoint browser drakensang MMO!

The story is definetly mediocre in chapter 1 and half of chapter 2 (well, that's where I am currently). Exploration? What exploration?

But the fights… Man… I plain love this game!
Serious question - how come we didn't see more of such TDE games before?

I really like the sound effects of parrying, dodging, shooting, fire bolts, and special attacks. Weird, huh?

Originally Posted by sakichop
Wow, out of all the things to cause such an up roar I can't believe it's this.

Let me clarify some things,

It's only chests that you need to open, barrels and crates do nothing but provide cover, obstacles or set them on fire to burn enemies.

I've played 3 chapters and only remember 1 map with chests, the battlefield map. It's an extra objective to open all the chests while clearing the map. The more chests you open the more loot you get. That is explained to you before you do the map. It does say crates in the game but I have tested it, It's chests

Opening no chests got me 3 items of loot.
Opening all 4 chests got me 14 items
Opening no chests but breaking all crates and barrels got me 3 items
Opening all 4 chests and breaking all the barrels and chests got me 13.
All methods paid out the same Ducats(gold)

Hope that clears it up.

Also I might be able to help some people.

If you are buying this game for story, immersion or exploration, don't. There are infinitely better games in that regard.

However, if you are buying this game for fun turn based combat with the twist of useable environments, multiple optional and winning objectives then few other game do it better IMO.

You don't get a lot of AP (experience) in this game to level up so use it wisely and don't be a jack of all trades. If you don't do your build right ( there is some leeway but not much) you will bilk your guys making the game extremely hard or impossible and require a restart. I can only assume the people complaining about difficulty have bilked their guys. I haven't had the difficulty problems others have experienced but I did take some time to learn Dark eye rules. If you don't this game could get frustrating for you.

Combat is the star (or Achilles heel depending on your viewpoint) of this game. I read somewhere that there are 130 battle maps in the game. The other maps are pretty samey towns.So if you don't like this kind of combat steer clear as that is the main focus

I know I keep saying that but it's just the truth. I keep reading claims of there is a story exploration etc. Well, yes there is and the story is mediocre at best and exploration consist of clicking on 130 different battle maps. So , again combat is the star of this game.

All of this may sound negative but it's really not (unless you only like story, immersion or exploration). If this game just gave me map after map Tetris style with no story in between I would still buy it. The combat is that fun IMO.

Yeah, I'm getting the feeling I shouldn't have bought this - but what the heck. I don't mind supporting a smaller developer, and I'll probably get around to it at one point.

But the way you describe it makes it sound like I originally feared, as in a game that's nothing but combat - and not just pure tactical combat but with puzzle setups (which I HATE in tactical games, as it never reflects an actual combat scenario) - but I'll see for myself eventually.

I'm sure the chest thing isn't bad - but I stand by my opinion that the concept in itself is stupid.

I'm a huge fan of both TDE and deep, story-driven RPGs with exploration, NPC interaction and stuff. When I've learned some month ago that Blackguards won't be a game like this, that combat was the one and only important thing, I was quite disappointed.

I bought it nevertheless as I like TBS (or TB combat in general) as well… and of course because I won't miss a TDE RPG).
After playing the game for some hours, I can say that the game indeed is what it has promised to be. Tough tactical combat with deep character skilling. And the game is good at that.

What I really dislike so far is the need for the somewhat cheesey strategy to artificially lengthen the combats to heal your party for consectutive combats. These combats sometimes don't happen, so I'm just wasting minutes of my precious playtime.

I thought it'd have some story and interactions and such that is a dissapointment, I love ogre tactics that is more or less just combat after combat, but at least it has C&C as well as a good story.

If there is only combat and no C&C and no story, then I am not sure I want to get this.

Originally Posted by Morrandir
What I really dislike so far is the need for the somewhat cheesey strategy to artificially lengthen the combats to heal your party for consectutive combats. These combats sometimes don't happen, so I'm just wasting minutes of my precious playtime.

The other way around: They sometimes happen, but 90% of the fights are single encounters. You can almost always rest when you're back on the world map or area map. Arena fights come is packs of 3.
I don't really like it too. Maybe the developers didn't expect the players to react like you described.

Originally Posted by GothicGothicness
I thought it'd have some story and interactions and such that is a dissapointment, I love ogre tactics that is more or less just combat after combat, but at least it has C&C as well as a good story.

If there is only combat and no C&C and no story, then I am not sure I want to get this.

Just try the free demo.

Originally Posted by GothicGothicness
If there is only combat and no C&C and no story, then I am not sure I want to get this.

There are both story and interaction. The story is as good or bad as in most other RPGs. There are quite a lot of dialogs, even between your party members, and you can often choose sides. In dialogs with NPCs you often see options with a reference to a party member's stats … but the consequences aren't often immediately clear.

There is no time spent on exploration or walking. Instead of running though the town for 10 minutes to meet a healer and a shop, you do it within 3 minutes on Blackguards' static city screen(s). This makes the combat look even more dominant, although the stuff they left out was mainly a time waster and you're doing the same things you would do in Gothic, for example.