Blackguards 2

It’s hard to believe Blackguards 2 is actually being released in 2015. It looks like something that would fit right in with the games of last decade. By no means does this subtract from the fun you can have with the game, but the graphics, the animations, and everything that is visual about this game can be very taxing on the eye. Sure, Daedalic Entertainment’s budget probably wasn’t that sizeable, but it feels like the developers just had a quick look over the game’s visuals and just said “yeah that’ll do.” Thankfully, there are many redeeming factors about this game, which actually make it viable in today’s day and age.

Blackguards 2 is a turn-based RPG developed by German studio, Daedalic Entertainment. It follows the adventures of Cassia, who desires to rule over South Aventuria. She starts with nothing, but it doesn’t take her long to gather a group of followers, including some old characters from the first game, as well as a band of mercenaries. It is set a few years after the first instalment of the series, which was released around the same time last year. Although it isn’t essential to play the first, the inclusion of familiar characters will surely please fans of the series.

You’ve already heard me banging on about the visuals, but now I will expand on it. Surely you have thought about buying a game, but first, you decide to look at a gameplay video or a few screenshots. And then you think, “wow that looks really average.” That is basically Blackguards 2 in a nutshell. You are meant to be conquering the whole of South Aventuria, a vast land of many terrains and environments. Your rise to power is meant to be swift and brutal. I can’t say there was any point in time that I felt like a fight was brutal. It was more like, “oh, cool. I killed that guy with my club.” And this is really down to the graphics and animations. Say you’re stabbing someone with a spear. In the game, it just appears as one rigid motion that hardly replicates the motions that would actually be made on a battlefield. The game looks so flat that I thought I was playing Runescape at times. Turn-based strategy games can often get away with lacklustre graphics, but I think there needs to be a certain graphical point that developers need to achieve before the game can be credited, and Daedalic Entertainment have not reached this point. There were many moments where I was ready to chalk this game up as a big ‘NO,’ but after pushing through the early stages of the game, I realised that maybe there is some fun to be had in Blackguards 2 after all.

In order to conquer the land before you, you must capture settlements, towns, and cities until you reach the goal of Mengbilla, the capital of South Aventuria. To start off, you’re fighting for very insignificant swamp-towns. But soon, you’ll be noticed, and the forces of Mengbilla will try to re-claim it, so you will be forced to defend it. This gives the game a very exciting turf-war feel to it. Think about the gang-wars in San Andreas. It is actually very fun and is definitely the most enjoyable thing about the game. Conquering a town usually consists of killing everyone there and freeing prisoners, recruiting them to your cause.

Strategy plays a big part in combat. Before each fight, you must position your party in such a way that you have a higher chance of winning the battle. For example, you would place your swordsmen at the front, spears men in the second row, and archers and mages in the back row. At the bottom of the screen is an action queue, which displays in what order each action will take place.

The hex-field battleground however, can cause a few headaches in a mechanical sense. Each unit of space is measured by a hexagon, and although this is one of Blackguards’ defining features, this is the source of many gameplay problems. Each unit of space is much too large, and will often restrict the movement of other party members, trapping them and thus, making them totally redundant until the path is cleared. This can be seen as a strategic aspect (fighting in narrow spaces for example), but in most cases it is just frustrating and feels unnatural. Enemy spawn timers are also frustrating. I can see how in the early stages of the game, you will be outnumbered in combat, since your army is still very small. But there were a few times where I was almost certain the game had glitched out and would just spawn an infinite amount of enemies, despite completing the objectives of the mission.

Since this is an RPG, you are able to increase your army’s strength by levelling up your followers’ skills. After each mission, you are assigned an amount of Adventure Points, which you can use to improve the skills of your followers. This allows more depth in combat, since you will have more skills and abilities to use in different situations. For example, some abilities can heal you, ones that decrease the chance for the enemy to hit you, or purely offensive abilities that damage opponents. Loot also play a big part in gaining strength. After discovering loot during a mission, you are able to sell it for money, which can then be used to purchase better weapons and armour. Nothing really to brag about really. Every RPG has the idea of levelling up your character and gaining loot, which can be sold to merchants.

The story, although it is consistent and makes good sense, there is nothing too exciting about it. Cassia wants to conquer the land of South Aventuria. Cool… My lack of words for this story says it all. It’s just so uninspiring and I was never left asking myself, “oh no, what’s going to happen next.” Nevertheless, if you happen to really enjoy the story, there are many NPCs around towns you can talk to and learn about the lore that surrounds the game.

There are plenty other games of this genre that can fulfil your turn-based needs. The graphics are well below par (even for a turn-based game), and the hex-field battleground causes very awkward gameplay. Although the turf-war element is fun to experience, the role-playing features of the game are completely uninspiring and feel like replicas of previous RPGs. No, I don’t think the game is a failure, as it is a decent follow up to the first Blackguards. But if you put this alongside other games of this genre, Blackguards 2 does not fare too well.

Gabriel Polychronis, NoobFeed (@Twitter)