Its set to come out on 12 September 2013 on Steam.
Pros:
Cons:
Its by Cyanide Studios so it probably trumps all the foregoing pros that I listed. Here is me hoping that I’m wrong about Cyanide flubbing this game.
Synergy AND an odious plot! Sign me up.
Seriously though, Cyanide do pursue lots of interesting projects. They just need more skill in polishing games and they could become a fan favourite studio. Hopefully that will come with time. I’m certainly more interested in this than some of the highly polished snoozefests promoted by bigger studios.
Sweet, this sounds pretty awes-
It’s going to be shit. :(
Blood Bowl had me all convinced that Cyanide had great ideas and wanted to do cool stuff but just had poor programmers what with all the bugs and stuff. Then later it turned out that their actual own ideas were the worst parts of BB and Games Workshop pretty much forced them to put the good part of the game in. After a while when they started releasing other games it bacame pretty obvious that other than a few concept ideas they just suck.
EDIT: From the presentation page:
Fu and action are waiting for you in Aarklash: Legacy!
You hear that? Fu is waiting for you!
Is it wrong that when I see this:
I think this?
Cyanide have been around since ~2000 - that’s closing in on 15 years by now, how much time do you think they need?
That said, I sorta enjoyed Of Orcs and Men (though it still fell way, WAY short of it’s potential) and heard the Game of Thrones RPG wasn’t all bad (it’s on my backlog).
rezaf
The Game of Thrones RPS was more than “not all bad” - It was actually pretty damn good. It dragged out a bit at the end I (I’m 25 hours in and still nowhere near the end), but it had nice graphics, pretty good rpg system with skills, attributes, leveling up, tons of loot, a great setting, and some pretty good ideas. Especially in that you play two different characters in each of their respective ends of the world.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a Cyanide apologist, since their Blood Bowl game fried my computer (They had issued with how they handled graphics, which caused overheating), but they can deliver solid content, as Game of Thrones shows.
To be fair though to Cyanide, I find that their games offer great value after I buy them at 75% to 80% off on Steam sales.
I’m not saying theres a “standard” or “appropriate” amount of time for a company to find its feet. Some indies manage it on the first attempt. I’m just saying they produce alot of projects I find intrinsically interesting, and if they can either hire or grow their company towards more polished products then what they produce could be really awesome. No matter how much they polish Call of Duty its never going to be of interest to me.
So, did anyone take the plunge?
Okay, I put my money where my mouth is and grabbed this. I’m an hour in and having a blast.
The graphics are very pleasing and the combat engine is great. Even the voice acting is 50% decent. The story is tough to judge but could be worse. The game focuses on moving your group linearly from combat scenario to combat scenario rather than dwelling long on party or NPC interaction. The combat has been truly great so far; the tactics have been different each fight, everything moves fluidly and the controls are simple and intelligible. The fights are real-time, but dominated by active pause – not much different from the infinity engine games in theory, but in practice much better implemented. Position matters, timing matters and target choice is critical.
So far I’m most reminded of Icewind Dale though the fighting moves a bit more quickly, is probably more tactical, while the rpg elements are streamlined – read radically simplified. Character and party choices are minimal. You are given a party of 4 to start with – and meet a few more along the way (or so I hear) so you can tailor your party slightly. There is a simple, yet fun skill tree for each character. Party make-up and the skill tree are the only things I see changing from playthrough to playthrough, though I could find out differently later. There is also dropped loot with which you can equip your characters, but no economy. Drops you don’t want can be recycled to contribute to the creation of more powerful gear.
No bugs so far. Very short load times.
More later as I get farther in. First impression though is that this might hit its niche – tactical rpg combat – square in the jaw. It’s not a big scoped game by any stretch, however; and there’s a lot of game left for me, so don’t quote me.
Lol Steam says you are actually 2.1 hours in. Thanks for the first impressions. Looking forward to more info as you pile up the hours.
Well, I did play after I posted. Still enjoying it, ran into a few fights that I’ve had to restart because my approach was bad.
This sounds fantastic minus the simplified character development, which I can live with.
Sheesh, this is not easy. I’m playing on hard so I didn’t expect a cakewalk but I really have to think about what I’m doing in some of these fights. That’s a positive, of course. :)
Thus far the scope of the campaign seems to be similar to Shadowrun Returns. The writing isn’t as good (self-consciously bad is how I’d put it) but the combat is solid, it’s wonderfully optimized and the game looks very pretty.
I’d recommend anyone who’s into turn-based skirmishing to check out some youtube footage of the game to see if it’s in your wheelhouse.
I’m actually amped for this one based on Joe and Hotfreak’s initial impressions. Wish there is a demo available so I can gauge for myself.
Yeah, even on normal, the challenge on some fights is high.
Completely agree with Joe M., Force Strategy Gaming’s footage gives a quite accurate idea of how the game plays. Check that out – next best thing to a demo.
I bought this but haven’t tried it yet.
It looks like it was straight from the peak of rpg gameplay (baldur’s gate 2, icewind dale, etc), but from improvements to make it more user friendly.
I was very nervous about reports of the rpg elements being… streamlined, but i decided to bite the bullet anyway.
This is going to be a hard one to stay away from after watching the video. Thanks for the link!
Ok, i played this for about 15 minutes and i completely love the combat. It seems really easy on medium though. Going to try hard.
The first 15 minutes IS really easy on normal but gets more challenging on about the 4th map. I’m curious to hear how those playing on hard are faring.