Role-playing game with turn-based battles. Lots of content. Epic battles. Cinematic in places. No spoilers.
The game is announced for platforms: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Windows.
In short, the local empire is falling to pieces and a detachment of mercenaries is caught in the maelstrom of events. We’ll play as their commander.
The gameplay is an RPG with turn-based battles.
First we determine the complexity. There is a story mode (very easy), normal and hardcore.
From time to time, as you progress (including very far from the start), educational tips appear.
The passage of the game occurs from the beginning of the story to the end, this is a story game. Every fight, with rare exceptions, is a link in the chain that brings us closer to the finale.
It all starts with a commotion at the tavern, and later we are waiting for battles with terrible creatures, epic battles with enemy armies and storming of fortresses.
The game has a whole bunch of successful distinctive features.
– I really liked the opening video. Although in the future it was not possible to maintain such a high level – in dialogues and plot points they were limited to character models and soapy backgrounds. There is no Russian voice acting, but I really liked the English one, the characters have recognizable voices.
– Design of battles. Although the units are positioned on the field in the usual way, a great thing has been invented – the attacks are animated as if a large-scale battle is taking place and in the middle of it this or that blow is dealt. At the same time, the terrain where the battle takes place is taken into account, it is easily recognizable and corresponds to the view on the tactical field. This, of course, looks simply super in dynamics. And this moment was done cleverly, if according to the plot there are only our heroes, then there will be no extras.
– The quality of development of individual units is immediately striking, including ordinary swordsmen, archers, and so on. There are even facial animations in conversations. Several dozen individually made recognizable NPCs (heroes, significant characters) are presented. Only in our squad there can be up to twenty heroes, each with their own characteristics and appearance.
– The role-playing system is not to say that it caused delight, but it is extensive. There are a lot of significant characters, it is advisable to have conversations with all of them, find out what they need, indulge in nostalgia. This will help cement friendship and give bonuses in battle. And it will reveal the local world well.
Perhaps there is a romantic relationship. I haven’t come across them yet, but it’s very possible that they exist.
Combat system. It is built on the classes that heroes acquire during the game. Initially, “commoner” or “nobleman” are available and distributed to everyone, and further leveling will depend on the character’s actions on the battlefield.
Skills develop depending on what equipment the hero uses. A very good solution was to make it so that fighters (except magicians) can carry two types of weapons. This diversifies the battle itself and allows you to play the local “rock-paper-scissors” game:
– Axes are strong against heavy armor.
– Swords vs leather armor.
– Bows and spears against cloth.
Armor and magic are pumped up according to the same scheme. We wear fabric, which means it develops.
Depending on what skills you obtain, classes open. There are quite a lot of them and they make it possible to use different types of attacks and receive certain bonuses. A good feature is that already open classes can be set before the battle, in the camp, any. That is, in this particular battle we need a berserker – we take a warrior, we need a tank – we put a knight. On easy difficulty you don’t have to worry about this, but on more difficult ones it can come in handy.
The main character has an exclusive class – overlord. You need swords, heavy armor and, for some reason, elemental magic. When I had already completed about 20 percent of the game as a “swordsman,” I suddenly realized that magic was not developed. We had to urgently upgrade from scratch during the battles. It was quite a sight. Everyone is already respectable, in normal gear, and among this there is a hero in starting rags.
Battles generally take place in fairly large locations, divided into square tiles.
The unit is asked to first move a certain maximum number of cells, and then carry out an attack. If the target is within striking distance, you can hit immediately.
There are terrain effects that affect combat. If a unit is wet, it can be frozen, but a fire attack will deal 20% less damage. And there are several such relationships.
There is no “free hit”, which is usual for turn-based games – if the hero stands next to the enemy and moves somewhere, then there is no attack from the enemy. But given any opportunity, everyone counterattacks as many times as they want.
There is an interesting, https://nonukcasinosites.co.uk/cashback-casino-bonus/ but, in my opinion, strange system for introducing enemies into battle. They have something like a protected zone (you can view it individually for each unit) and until one of our fighters enters there, the opponents may not come to the aid of their comrades who are already in battle and are being defeated.
An important feature is that for any battle a certain, not very large number of moves are allocated. If you fail to win during this period, the battle will be lost automatically.
There are also special conditions for victory or defeat, usually the loss of the commander or all units.
If these are people, then the enemies are represented by axemen, swordsmen, archers, spearmen and magicians in various combinations.
There may also be monsters. These are always powerful beasts. Sometimes you have to fight truly epic creatures. A feature of fights with monsters is the vulnerability of parts of their body to certain attacks. If we hit the right places with the right weapon, we don’t even get a retaliatory strike and cause increased damage. It will not be possible to abuse this system; each weak point can be hit no more than twice.
Peaceful phase. Sooner or later we get to the camp. This is our hub in the game. As the plot progresses, it develops from rather unsightly to quite decent.
Here we prepare for battles, distributing weapons and equipment to the heroes, leveling them up if the conditions for obtaining classes are met, completing various small quests and another 1000 and 1 thing – there are a lot of activities and it’s easy to miss something.
It is extremely important during the peace phase to establish relationships with your fighters. Train with someone, have a heart-to-heart talk with someone. We get a lot of information from these interactions. In addition to better understanding of your teammates and the world, this also brings bonuses in battles when reaching a certain level of friendship.
It is worth catching the moment when the main character gains leadership points. They must be spent “here and now” for various interactions with key characters. All unused balance of leadership is burned and when you visit the camp again there will be a new pool.
The territory of even the very first camp is decent, and it further grows in area. The system of internal teleports is very conveniently made, open the map, it shows all the significant NPCs – select the one you need and find yourself next to him. Although you can run the old fashioned way. The hero moves around the camp in third person view – view from behind.
The camp is constantly changing, in the sense that key NPCs wander around it as the story progresses. New faces, buildings and even locations appear.
There are several notice boards in the camp. It’s worth reading them. There are quests and notes about what is happening in the world and a lot of other things.
Also, when running around the camp, it’s a good idea to look around – you can find a book or note, some of them are related to quests.
Equipment. Surprisingly, there are very few species of it.
Weapons: bow, spear, sword, ax. Mages use one of three types of magical books: elements, light, darkness.
There is a gradation of the quality of items (I personally saw two, simple and rare) and very occasionally some special enhancement on a rare type of item.
I was pleased with the opportunity to put a unit on a horse. The horse takes up one of the equipment slots.
In addition, there are all sorts of earrings/amulets. You can take up to three potions into battle.
A combination of things and classes can play a very cruel joke. For example, one of my knights is constantly at the forefront of attack. And then leather armor fell out, which, according to stats, is much better than plate armor. I put it on him and only after a battle or two I realized that to further upgrade him as a knight he needs to develop plate armor, but he is now upgrading leather armor, which I don’t need at all. The point of the situation is that when accepting a class, the hero receives the appropriate customization and it does not change depending on the equipment worn. T.e. You can mistakenly look at the hero and be sure that he is dressed in this or that outfit, but this will not be the case.
GALLOP THROUGH EUROPE
Everything has been done here for the convenience of the player. At first, when I saw the number of troops in the middle battle, I felt sad. Waiting for each unit to move seemed to be painful.
In the settings you can disable almost all time-consuming animations. In the end, I didn’t turn it off.
Let’s look at the pros and cons of the game and summarize.
+ Good graphics almost everywhere.
+ Excellent music and sound accompaniment. I would especially like to praise the high-quality English voice acting.
+ Great plot with sudden twists.
+ Many significant characters.
+ Excellent class leveling system (what you use evolves).
+ Simple but excellent combat system and dynamic battles.
+ Interesting opponents. I was especially pleased with the story bosses and monsters.
+ Russian text language. The font is a little small in some places, but there are no complaints about the quality of localization.
THINGS THAT CAN BE BOTH A PLUS AND A MINUS:
± Story game. Which means it has a beginning and an end. Unfortunately, it won’t work to constantly farm and participate in random skirmishes. There are side quests with fights, but their number is limited for each chapter, and the opportunity itself appears somewhere in the middle of the game. For some this may be a plus, but I’m already sad to say goodbye to the heroes.
– Backgrounds in dialogues. There the image really hurts the eye relative to the rest of the graphic.
CONCLUSIONS OBJECTIVE
This is a serious role-playing game with turn-based battles. Contents wagon and small cart. And almost everything was done at a high level of quality.
CONCLUSIONS OBJECTIVE
I never liked the steps in which you need to move more than three to five units, it made me yawn. And then I got quite involved. This is achieved due to the presence of a story level of difficulty (two more are available for those who like difficulties). And in terms of content, the impressions are the most positive: excellent appearance, an interesting and immediately understandable combat system, spectacularly designed battles, a good plot, memorable characters and many relationships between them. In general, I really liked it, one might say that I unearthed a hidden gem of the gaming industry for myself.
The camp caused some boredom – in order not to miss anything, we literally need to talk to all the key NPCs every time we find ourselves there (they change their location), track the appearance of quests, not fail to assign gear and class to each character, and so on.
PS: I probably didn’t cover all the aspects, I might have missed something. I will be glad to add/correct the review or answer questions along the way in the comments.
Have a good game everyone!
Best comments
Me: So, I have a lot of unfinished games on Steam, I need to clean out the backlog..
Me too: Oops, new turn-based tactics, “To the Desired”
But seriously, since he himself suggested asking questions:
1) Since the game is linear, how long did it take to complete?? Bugs and glitches did not stifle
2) How’s the balance?? There are some strong biases in the spirit of “archers are useless / magicians are damn imba”?
I finally finished the game, I can finally express my opinion. I really liked the game, all connoisseurs of this genre should check it out too. I’ll start with the pros:
1) The first and main advantage is the even pace of the game. The battles are difficult both at the beginning and remain so until the very end (the main ones, side effects don’t count). And it makes me happy. For example, in the recent Kings Arthur, after the middle of the game, the battles noticeably sag, because you are already too pumped up, your gear is nowhere better, in the end the enemies are simply swept away, without the slightest effort. It’s getting boring. But not in Lost Eidolons. From start to finish, every battle here is a challenge, a natural chess game in which every move matters, where one wrong step at the very end of the battle can lead to collapse and replay of the entire battle.
2) Visual. Beautiful, pleasing to the eye. Video inserts with a bunch of soldiers during attacks, this is a great find, it gives the feeling that you really are commanding armies, and not individual men.
3) Not a bad fight. At first it seems simple and boring, not deep enough, but this is an extremely misleading impression. When you finally immerse yourself in it, you will begin to appreciate it. Instead of individual builds, combinations of classes, weapons, spells and consumables play a role here. Damn, I only found out towards the end of the game that poisonous fumes can be exploded with fire. It’s not possible to complete the entire game with the same squad (at least it didn’t work for me), sometimes you have to radically change the composition.
4) Plot. It’s pretty good, although relatively simple, and even smacks of gambling, complete betrayals and murders. Boobs and incest are just not enough. Basically everything rests on the characters, they are all very interesting, each with their own history and character.
There are also disadvantages, but they are few:
1) Although the video inserts with soldiers are pleasing, the deaths are presented in a boring, monotonous manner, just a sepulchral groan and fall. They could have done it better, depending on the weapon, or even shown how they mow down an entire squad with arrows or magic. In general, there was not enough entertainment. This also applies to magic, it is not at all impressive.
2) Quests in the camp. On the one hand, they reveal the characters, but it’s still boring to do them. A bit boring.
3) Side battles. There are only 3 types of them, alternating, and all are extremely boring, in addition, they are also too easy compared to the main battles. Gentlemen, the developers cheated.
4) The plot still leaves a feeling of incompleteness. Although, the phrase after the credits leaves hope for a continuation or at least dlc.
5) Final boss. It’s just a scribe. Wildly creepy and dishonest. I spent three evenings on it to complete it perfectly, without losses, I went through a bunch of options for units and gear. I don’t know how it is on other difficulties, but on maximum he really gestures.
Overall, the bottom line is this: I had a lot of fun with this game. I’m waiting for the DLC or continuation.
Py. Sy. There is an extremely pleasant and atmospheric song in the end credits, another small plus.
If you can switch them on the fly, during battle, it sounds really good. In general, definitely bookmarked.
At the moment I have completed about 50% (10 chapters) of the game. It took 13 hours of persistent overcoming. If you turn off animations in the settings and move around the camp more dexterously than I did at the start, then it will be faster. Didn’t find any bugs.
I played on easy difficulty, which means that in the worst case my heroes received 4 units of damage with a maximum of 30hp, and usually the damage from enemies is 1-2, so my journey takes place in story mode. Accordingly, if the difficulty increases, then the battles can become much longer.
Balance is expressed by the local “rock-paper-scissors”, that is, how they are strong against each other according to a certain pattern, so everyone is useful. In addition, a character can carry two types of weapons and be even more useful in the “game” of efficiency. Mages are a little outside of this and, as I understand it, they don’t care who they hit.
During his turn he can switch, and as many times as he wants while the turn is going on. But in any case, there will be one movement and one attack.