Blackguards 2 improves upon the original game in many aspects, and despite a funny and dark story with excellent combat mechanics never feels special in any way.
Blackguards 2 is a hex based tactical combat game, where you along with a few companions try to fight to take over a kingdom. You level up and update skills on their characters, equipping new armour and weapons. There is much freedom in developing the main character but after a few levels the updates feel very passive and generic and the story and missions get boring towards the middle. Using a realm map overlay, you start off in one corner and aim to rule the entire map after a lengthy tutorial by the end of which you are joined by your companions.
Story
The game is based on the dark eye’s fantasy universe (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dark_Eye). You role-play as Cassia, the now imprisoned queen of the realm, by her husband. Finally managing to escape you seek revenge and seek to conquer the known realm because this conquest is all you wished during your captive. The tale is full of jealousy, anger, revenge and betrayal, where characters are motivated by more selfish gains than a greater purpose. Even the recruits you obtain, Naurim, Takate and Zurbaran, are same as from the last game, have their own mini-stories that you can expand upon by talking to them after each battle in your central camp. These stories add a lot of character and are fun to listen, mostly owing to their small bytes after battle. you are also joined by the silent legion with their own motivation and agenda. they provide some extra troops you can take with you on most missions or to defend when an already conquered town is attacked.
The story intrigued me because it is not a classic good vs evil scenario, in fact you can be even more morally depraved and ruthless that the current ruler if you choose to.
Presentation
The presentation is what I feel like the game lacks in the most, the camera rotation is fixed although you can change the perspective to be more from the side or top down. This feels limiting epically when trying to position your troops to the best location next to a large enemy.
They also lack in a visual appeal as the art assets and animations look dated. However, they are ascetically well suited to the game as a whole seem to compliment the game fine, considering this is a budget title. There are some interesting areas, most notably boss fights that may take you through a portal to a completely different environment or introduce encounter special mechanics or items.
There is a lot of voice work in the game and a narration of context before each battle is a great touch. The said voice work is mostly great especially by the main characters while the much smaller once generally not have more than 10 lines. The sound effects are also solid and music is also just interesting enough.
Gameplay
Most of the time, you will be in combat on a hex-based grid with a turn based combat system governed by starts to see who gets to move first and how many times in the current round. Using a map overlay you start off at you base came where you equip and upgrade your companions before finally deciding on which city or town to take over. starting combat throws you in the fore mentioned hex-based map where each unit takes turn till the queue finishes and restarts.
The combat starts of slow, introducing mechanics and various gameplay elements gradually increasing in difficulty as you encounter bosses and enemies with special abilities, slow moving slugs with massive damage or an entire row of archers behind wooden boxes. The maps themselves are overall good and varied enough. Sometimes rushing you to pull levers to close games before you get overrun or taking priority in killing of faster human handlers to win rather than the more powerful monsters they command. The main objective and fail scenario remains the same most of the matches through. Kill the enemy and don’t die. You are not allowed to lose any match and it game over if you do, thoughtfully they have included a try again option in the main menu when in the battle for you to try again a losing battle.
Your characters gain experience at the end of each battle and collecting chest on some levels where they are available also yields additional loot at the end of the battle. These experience points can be used to customise your characters as you want. Either increasing weapons expertise or increased health or endurance (works similar to stamina) regeneration.
The radial menu for the combat is Blackguards 2’s best feature, it allows quick selection of various skills and power attacks. Blackguards 2 speeds up the combat a lot from the initial game however it still feels very slow. I wished there was the option to speed up the gameplay by either increasing enemy movement or skipping their turns using a key. A few maps with lots of enemies become a chore to sit through and watch.
Your characters have a few options, they can specialise in with melee, ranged and spell caster being the main. melee can use power attacks and knock downs. ranged can use similar power attacks and gain maximum benefit from being in the optimal range of an opponent. while spell casters are the most powerful with spells which can severely damage multiple enemies when fully levelled up. It is also a good idea to have healing on at least one character. The skill tree is divided up into 5 segments and may look confusing at first but given a few minutes it is pretty simple, with the freedom to improve passive skills or active combat. Spells have 4 levels and you can cast optionally a more powerful version using more mana. You can also equip armour of various types, cloth, iron each with its own movement penalty which can be negated using said passives. wearing sets grants additional bonus and generally missing items can be bought from the merchant in the camp if you desire to switch out your load out.
Conclusion
Blackguards 2 is a good game although is lacks anything that stands out. Those looking for a solid gameplay focused game will find a lot here, with a story interesting enough to keep you invested till the conclusion of the 20-25 hour campaign. The combats pacing is slow as the NPC who often outnumber you take their turns across the board. For those who like the original this is a no question recommend as it improves a lot on it. There is a lot of planning to do with enjoyable strategic battles and long term character building and some memorable battles if you can put up with some tediousness.
