Blackguards 2

Years ago in my Blackguards post I said wasn't going to buy Blackguards 2 but then it was on sale on GOG for next to nothing at the end of last year and I thought I might as well buy it after all. Although, had I waited just one more day, I could've played it on Origin Access for completely free.

Low budget roleplaying strategy sequel

Blackguards 2 is very much like its predecessor. It had only a year of development time so I didn't exactly expect much to change anyway. At least there was no saves-breaking bug in this one. There's again a world map where you click to travel to a location, combat happens on a hex grid, and point-and-click scenes return as well for dialogue purposes and such.

The first game is a bit hazy in my mind by now but I feel Blackguards 2 has a more controlled narrative. I quite liked how things started; pacing was good and battles meaningful. Later the game opens up and the repetitiveness of turn-based combat starts slowly settling in. Story still progresses constantly but the middle game is definitely the weakest part of it.

The protagonist of Blackguards 2 is Cassia. She has been thrown into a dungeon by her husband Marwan who now rules the land. Cassia plots escape and revenge, planning to overthrow Marwan and claim the throne for herself.

As Cassia you ally with a mercenary band and three of the previous game's party members: Zurbaran, Naurim, and Takate. Location by location you conquer the world map, sometimes defending a place too when Marwan strikes back. Luckily that does not happen often. It would get old really fast if you repeatedly needed to do the same fights like in Dawn of War: Soulstorm for example.

Normal difficulty wasn't challenging except maybe for one map where an enemy caster with rank 4 crowd-control spells and reach to cover every corner made things really hard. The objective required getting to the opposite side of the map where the initial enemies were and then returning back, all the while big monsters spawn behind you. On my successful attempt I had a single core party member standing but that was enough to count as a victory. There was one boss fight of a sorts too that took two attempts and was kind of a mess as well.

A new feature in Blackguards 2 is being able to decide to a degree where your people start a fight but I feel it mattered very little in the end.

Rule system seemed identical and as odd as it had been in the first game. Game balance had been tweaked a bit though; damage spells were viable and worth using. A winner of a spell was Cold Shock that at rank 4 hits every enemy on the map. With Cassia and Zurbaran being casters, I could use two cold shocks every turn, or even four if they were hasted. That was usually more than enough to kill about every hostile target. Probably for that reason almost every map has enemies come in two or more waves so that you can't wipe them out all in one turn.

I remember thinking that the first game's spell effects were cool but for some reason I wasn't impressed this time. That's weird because I don't think they changed them. I think Cold Shock also plays the same sound effect for every enemy at the same time, multiplying its volume and making it really loud.

At the start of the game, Cassia is reading a book about how to be a good ruler. "A good ruler is loved. A good ruler is feared." I attempted to go for the latter. (I assume a good ruler can't be both at the same time.) I think I failed at my quest because instead of being loved or feared, Cassia ended up hated. I didn't care that much however; I wasn't very invested in the story. It did have cool little details though.