The interface is simple and easy to learn but the game has enough depth to remain compelling and interesting, the AI is fairly intelligent and I imagine will be highly unpredictable in the higher difficulties although at one point the AI became that of a sea monkey and just ran back and forth allowing me to wail on it without resistance. Blackguards 2 is a turn based strategy RPG on a hexagonal grid and it does this extremely well in my opinion. While a good story is always welcome in a game the one factor that makes or breaks a game is the gameplay. The story is well paced and flows nicely but it doesn’t really do much else with it’s cast and characters, Cassia is just mad and wants to stick it to the people who betrayed her and her companions only follow her because she made a promise to them. The story stays interesting throughout the whole game and has a satisfying conclusion, although near the end of the game you’ll run out of things to say to your party members so you’ll either say nothing to them after approaching them or they will repeat dialogue. At least I still got to know the characters and what they were like in the previous game and how their deeds carried over into the next title. The game also does a reasonable job at reintroducing and re-establishing recurring party members but the characters that didn’t make it into the sequel just get treated with “Death by Off-Screen-itis” and they don’t really go into much detail about them, they were in the previous game but now they’re not in this one and that’s that. I absolutely adore the atmosphere in this game and the madness of Cassia, wanting to rule not for revenge but just because she can. Along the way you will encounter a select few of interesting characters who join you in your conquest some of which came from the game’s predecessor who are all entertaining in their own ways, the angry Dwarf named Naurim is a particular favourite of mine. The game’s story is engulfed in this bleak atmosphere and Cassia only continues to descend deeper into her madness, constantly questioning her every move and her obsession with wanting to rule, it’s this element that makes the story so compelling and interesting. The why’s of your current situation and what you’re about to do during the course of the plot become irrelevant to you because there is no why and this is not about revenge (as she will remind everyone as the plot goes on). After getting nowhere with the guard your next course of action is to try and escape, days turn into months, months into years and gradually you slip into an ever deepening insanity to the point where you have adopted a pet spider and named it after your cat and your features completely warped by the spider’s venom (this is one of those situations where I couldn’t make this up if I tried), also what’s this game’s obsession with bloody spiders? The first character you meet is an ill tempered prison guard who meets all your inquiries and pleas with all the contempt and ire of a worn out Buckingham Palace guard who just snapped after the upteenth time a tourist has pulled a face at him. The game begins with our main character, named Cassia, waking up in a dungeon surrounded by spiders, I’ve always hated spiders, without being told why she has been cast into these catacombs to die. So with that all said let us lose ourselves in the madness of Blackguards 2. However I have not played any of the previous games up until this point so I’m going into this series completely blind so please bear with me. Blackguards 2 is developed and published by Daedalic Entertainment who also developed the first Blackguards, their previous games include a large variety of point-and-click adventure games such as the Deponia series and several games in The Dark Eye setting including the Blackguards series. Blackguards 2 has a story that is utterly dripping in those 4 things we love so much and more. We love stories that involve those sorts of things otherwise a series like Game of Thrones wouldn’t be as popular as it is. Betrayal, intrigue, conquest and madness, if pop culture recently says anything about us it would certainly lend credence to our love for those 4 things.
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