![]() The story works hard to put the dark in dark fantasy, as Cassia cuts her way across the land in search of her ex-husbands head and throne. I’m no stranger to Strategy Role Playing Games (SRPGs) and I still felt I wasn’t quite grasping what Blackguards 2 expected of me, at least not until I had quite a few battles under my belt. Not that I’m complaining, as I was desperate to be given any help on offer – for beginners, this can be a very unfriendly game with criminally brief explanations of the way some mechanics work. Many of the characters from the previous title return throughout an extended tutorial that runs upwards of an hour. I couldn’t help feel that, at least in terms of narrative, Blackguards 2 is slanted in favour of anybody who put a lot of time into the original game. Loosely based on German RPG rulebook The Dark Eye, Blackguards 2 picks up some time after the conclusion of the first game. What do you do? If you’re anything like Cassia, the protagonist of Daedalic Entertainment’s Blackguards 2, the answer is quite obvious – seek revenge by conquering the world just to rub it in his face, all the while debating with yourself whether you’re really cracked or not. Blackguards 2 is available for Windows for $34.99 on Steam and quiz hotshot – your ex-husband Marwan has just thrown you in a dungeon where poisonous spiders will gnaw at your face for the next four years until you’re both disfigured and insane. I found its story to be a little pedestrian, but really enjoyed the gameplay and customizability of the characters. It has one of my all-time favorite battle themes, and honestly pushed the rating up a half-star.īlackguards 2 had a rocky launch, but the 2.0 patch release fixes virtually all the technical and balancing issues that I encountered with it. The soundtrack by Peter McConnell does a solid job of creating a sense of place and establishes both tone and resonance for only being 27 minutes of music for a game that lasted (on average on both playthroughs) about 25-30 hours, without getting old. While I found the story to be somewhat milquetoast pen-and-paper fantasy fare, I enjoyed the gameplay much more the second time around, and found myself nodding my head along with the battle tracks. When I downloaded the patch, I half-expected that I was going to just go back and play the ending and section boss battle with Adamant, but found myself playing through the entire campaign and thoroughly enjoying it. In addition to the bug fixes, the patch massively fixes balancing on these mage boss battles (particularly the battle with Sand Ghost creator Adamant, which originally was ridiculously difficult). Marwan not only has a regular army of enemy units but also monsters cobbled together by The Creators, Aventuria's mages, whom you must defeat in order to gain control of the creatures. Missions are laid out on a faction map, and as you control more territory, your mercenary units upgrade based on the areas captured.Ĭombat tends to involve a fair degree of strategy. You can also control up to nine mercenary units in combat. whom you can customize the axe-wielding Dwarf tank Naurim the spear-wielding gladiator Takate and the caustic wizard, Zurburan. You generally control the four heroes: Cassia. The game plays as a turn-based tactical RPG with a high number of units on the board at once. Cassia's escape prompts her to seek the aid of the original "heroes" of Blackguards, a rogue's gallery of petty villains who in their prior escapade, sort of lucked into saving the world. ![]() The game starts during the events of the original Blackguards and then pick up again three years after when Marwan has conquered the land of Aventuria. ![]() You play as Cassia of Tanos, imprisoned for an unknown reason in a labyrinth beneath the gladiatorial arena in the city of Mengbilla by its ruler, Marwan. The player characters waste no time getting together on an adventure that at times feels as much about seeing what they'll say to each other as it is to stat-boosting and min-maxing for maximum damage. If you've played a pen-and-paper RPG, the story of Blackguards 2 will be quirkily familiar and feels like it was ripped right out of a dungeon master's notebook. Blackguards 2 is based on the European pen-and-paper RPG alternative to Dungeons and Dragons, The Darkest Eye. ![]()
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