Review - Dishonored

- An action/assassination hybrid from Arkane Studios.

INTRO

Dishonored is billed as a stealth game. However, it is not. Rather, stealth is simply one of the many powers that the main character has at his disposal with which to dispatch enemies, generally en masse. It is not needed - at all - in order to complete the game. On the highest difficulty setting, at one point I faced off against 9 enemies...and won. And that's without using any of the myriad powers at my disposal, such as time stop, which would have allowed me to slaughter them while they stood still. I did use a potion at one point towards the end when I was low on health, but it was unnecessary as I was never hit again and thus would have won even if I didn't use it.

The entire game can be completed without stealthing once, even on the highest difficulty. And while that is billed as player choice, it does cause one important effect - stealth, the core concept of the stealth genre, is unnecessary. And if the core concept of stealth games is stealth (and I hope we can all simply agree that that's true), but your "stealth" game doesn't ever require the use of the core concept of a stealth game, then you haven't made a stealth game. In order for a game to be of a particular genre, it must actually require the use of the core concepts of that genre.

And thus, Dishonored is not a stealth game. Ipso facto. It is, rather, an action game where stealth is one of the many, many powers at the main character's disposal. And as that is the case, the four rating categories of Dishonored will be Action, Equipment, Level Design, and Story. However, I will touch upon Stealth, since this was billed as a Stealth game and Stealth games are important to a lot people, though Stealth will not be a factor in the overall rating.

Stealth

This is not a rated category in Dishonored, because stealth is not one of the major components of the game. It is in the game, but as one of the powers that the main character has, and he never has to use it to complete the game. While this does allow the player to play the game however they want, it is impossible to call a game that never requires the use of stealth a stealth game.

For a game to be of a particular genre, the core element of that genre needs to exist in the game, and that core element needs to be integral to the gameplay. A "stealth" game where you never sneak cannot be called a stealth game. A "platformer" where you never have to jump platforms cannot be called a platformer. It's in the very name.

But, Dishonored does have stealth in it. It is one of the myriad of powers that the main character has at his disposal with which to dispatch enemies. You can shoot them with one bullet from your pistol, you can shoot them with your crossbow, you can teleport above them and insta-kill them with a drop-kill animation, you can throw them around into walls or off ledges or into electric walls with your wind power, you can cause them to be devoured by summoned rats, you can knock them unconscious with sleep-arrows and then throw their body somewhere that damages it, you can cast timestop and kill them however you want, you can time stop after they shoot at you and then posses them and walk their body around in front of their bullet and watch them kill themselves, and you can just confront them directly and slay them with your infinite-block ability and your dagger. And that's all on top of your stealth-attack insta-kill animation power. You are a god, able to destroy mere mortals at your whim.

One can stealth around in Dishonored, but with the ability to teleport and stop time at your fingertips, there's never any real reason to. Using teleport or stop time, one can easily get a "stealth" kill anytime, anywhere, and against anyone. Well, except cutscene bosses. While it is true that those powers cost mana, teleport is not a permanent drain on your mana pool if you take it slow, and time stop does take a lot of mana, but there are plenty of mana vials strewn about everywhere that you'll never run out. The only reason to actually sneak is for the self-imposed challenge, or just because you like sneaking.

Should you decide you want the challenge, one can ignore the powers and actually sneak around. The main character's penchant for attempting "stealth" missions during the daylight hours doesn't exactly make this a simple task. However, the environment is strewn about with a lot of debris, small structures, and chest-high walls, all of which can easily be hid behind. One can even lean around corners, and the enemy cannot spot a leaning character as long as the character's main body is blocked by a wall - as many jokes about "You can't see me, I'm leaning!" have noted. The enemy also don't have much of penchant for looking up, though on Very High they will look a little bit upwards. Between that fact and the ability to teleport, there is rarely any enemy threat that can't be instantly gotten away from just by teleporting upwards, and then it's merely a wait for the enemy to calm down and go back to their routines.

The enemy AI is reportedly not particularly aware until the Very High difficulty setting. On Very High, they are ready to go on alert on a second's notice. One can see their alert status, too, as a large series of lines glowing above their heads. When all the lines fill, that enemy is fully alert. On Very High, they fill really quick, but if you've got split-second reaction time, you can duck back into cover before they become fully alert. And as long as they aren't fully alerted, they will soon go back to doing their normal routine.

What's more, there are alarms that the enemy can ring. But, despite being very loud, these are only localized alarms. Leave the area, and you'll discover that no one else in the complex has been alerted to your misdeeds. Other than the last level, there aren't any alarm levels, either, so there's no real consequence for skipping loudly around out in the open, causing multiple alerts everywhere you go.

In many cases, stealth is also the easiest way to play the game. Many locations have multiple points of ingress. But each point generally is tasked with one method of entry, so there is often one stealth entry accessible by using powers and sneak, and that entry bypasses all of the challenges of the area, thus making an easy game even easier. So, it is balance issue. One only uses sneak for the challenge of sneaking, but sneaking often takes you on a path that lightens the challenge of the game - a game without much challenge even on Very Hard.

STORY  ●○○○ (poor)

The story of Dishonored is mediocre at its best, and it isn't often at its best.

The weaknesses start with the overall concept - as weak stories so often do. The main character is imprisoned for a crime he didn't commit. But before he is executed for that crime, he escapes the prison, and returning to a world much changed in his absence. A nice enough concept. Unfortunately, the main characters has only been sequestered for all of six months. Not much should have really changed in that span of time. Yet, the changes that the city have undergone are sweeping. For instance, a skyscraper-sized building made of metal is planned, organized, and built all within that 6-month span of time. A shocking change, to be sure. And not just because of the usual issues of building time and people, but also because the city was under quarantine during that time, which means no supply sips.

Okay, so in the midst of a plague in a quarantined city that has gone broke because of plague and isolation, the materials for steel girders were purchased, gathered together, transported to the city, and assembled into a massive structure - all within six months. Sure, buddy.

There are many other such headscratching instances that leave one wondering if the main character wasn't at one point going to be imprisoned for a much longer time. 20 years, for instance. And then he wins free and starts to exact his revenge after everyone has forgotten him, Monte Cristo style. Now, that would have been something. But instead, it's six months. Must be magic.

Except only the main character and a few other have magic, and it is largely hated and mistrusted by those in power. So, yeah...

And then there the fact that the main character goes from being a loyal guardsman to a master assassin at the drop of a hat. Was he always an immoral individual, that he could instantly take up that sort of job? Is he a psychopath? Does he enjoy killing people? Well, there's no answer to those questions, as Mr. Main Character a silent protagonist. Lots of game characters talk at you, but you never say anything in return. Just like Master Sergeant of HALO fame and fortune.

Actually, it a lot more like the Chosen One silent protagonists of RPGs, as there is a lot of other RPG stylings found in Dishonored. And here, I speak not just of the leveling up of gear and spells., I speak instead mainly of the structure of the missions. The main character, or the Chosen One if you will, is an assassin who takes jobs for the Resistance rather than a man seeking revenge (as is sometimes suggested). The Chosen One simply follows orders, like any good Chosen One. But he doesn't just follow orders to complete assassinations; he also takes on side quests for the various members of the city. Sometimes quite elaborate side quests.

So, the main character is an assassin in a city with some really dire stuff going on and who is killing for the Resistance in order to save the city and restore the throne to the rightful Empress, and he takes time out to do odd jobs to earn coin and other rewards from the locals. Yep, very video game RPG.

That structure does quite a disservice to the overall narrative. You're meant to be going out and slaughtering some rather vicious individuals, not for coin, but for justice. Which means, you're supposed to be focused on getting the job done. And you, the Player, are supposed to care about getting the job done. The game's story calls out to you to care over and over with (admittedly a bit hamfisted) attempts to tug at your heartstrings. But you spend so much time committing yourself to various side-quests that you end up forgetting what your actual goal is, what they represent, and why you're supposed to care about killing them. Your targets are just a picture on a loading screen. A job. A task to complete to move the story along.

A fate that is not helped by the lackluster introductions to each mission. The (shall we call them quest givers? yes, we shall) quest givers tell you the target, and say that they're bad. Yes, they say that they're "a bad guy" that needs to die - direct quote. And then the quest giver will give a simple explanation of why the target has to do die to help the cause. Not what the target has done to make them bad, but how the cause of the Resistance will be helped by the target's death. Then the mission starts, and there is a short paragraph in plain text on the loading screen explaining a little about what makes the person bad. So, no real character development here. Nothing to actually move you to wanting to complete your mission. And then you go off on your side quests, so to end up forgetting with thin motivation was handed to you.

There are ways of finding out about the "evilness" of the targets during the mission, generally through studying the "lore" in books and notes scattered about the premises, and there's often a short cutscene when spotting the target to add some poignancy to the character and the kill. But that's all after the fact. At the beginning, there's just rote job-like motivation - much as an RPG side quest. Kill these 20 wolves for me because they're bad. Or in this case, kill these two men for me because they're bad.

It's not terrible setup, just empty. Lacking in depth. As is the story of the city. There is an attempt - and a decent one - to create a decadent Victorian noirish atmosphere here in the setting and lore. But the attempt is marred by a lack of feeling in the story and characters, but most of all in the city itself. The city doesn't brood. There are no menacing characters. There is no threat (at least, not to the main character, who can slaughter everything that stands before him). No femme fatale. No dark places. No mood.

In a city beset by a zombie plague, there isn't even any fear of the plague. That particular little aspect moves a few things at the beginning, and then is largely written out of the story. The zombies provide an occasional change-up of enemies for a short stint, but the issues of the plague and zombies wandering about the city are never brought up again. And since that was technically one of the things that got the Empress removed from the throne in the first place (specifically her refusal to deal with the zombies as an enemy threat instead of treating the victims as innocents), the dropping of that element of the story is a grating loss of detail.

And really, that's the overall feeling of the story - that it is a mash-up of ideas that were thrown together over several rewrites, and which ideas never really gel together into a cohesive whole.

That mash-up of ideas is a huge issue in another, perhaps even more important, way. There's just too much story here for the running time. Dishonored is not a long game, any way you cit it. It's actually fairly short. But there's a plague, a stifling of the economy by uncaring foreigners, murder and revenge, issues of a totalitarian rule crackdown, a civil war, a resistance group willing to take extreme measures to win the day, and a decadent aristocracy ruling a besieged and belittled people who are ripe for revolution. And then there's zombies and deadly rats on the loose.

That's all too much - way too much - for the game's running time. With all of that story, none of those aspects gets dealt with fully, or even at all in many cases. Which is really unprofessional storytelling. If an important issue is introduced, you're supposed to at least have it be a part of the story. Even better if you the telling of the story examines that issue in some way, hopefully profound. But instead, the story of Dishonored is all a bunch of teases.

And that isn't just unprofessional, it is also unfulfilling. The players gets interested in some part of the story, and it gets dropped. They get interested in another facet of the story, and that gets dropped as well. And thus, the player is left in a constant state of unfulfillment. That is, if they listen to the story instead of simply being overawed at the nifty death animations (of which there are many).

Having one of those story elements in the story does not make the story about those elements. Just mentioning them doesn't get you any points. A theme like that actually has to be woven into the story, into the city and the motivations of the people within it, for the story to be about that theme. To do what Dishonored has done is the same as namedropping in polite conversation. It's empty and a bit rude.

The actual day-to-day writing of Dishonored is decent, if uninspired. The conversations of the various inhabitants fits, even if it mostly just rote material However, the uninspired writing mixes with the lackluster feeling of the writing to make more of a plodding story experience than a dark, decadent, brooding one. Which is not good for a noir story. Hell, the daylight setting probably wasn't a good choice for noir, either. A strange choice, then, all around. A stealth game and a noir story set during daylight hours.

It all leads to a lackluster story that is easily forgettable. In fact, I've already forgotten most of it.

EQUIPMENT ●●○○ (mediocre)

Dishonored has way too much equipment. Now, before anyone jumps down my throat, having lots of equipment is a good thing, if all of that equipment has some use or there is a tradeoff between different items, thus making all of that equipment useful in some way. In Dishonored, though, there is no use for anything. Without any equipment but your knife, you're already a killing machine. Equipment just allows you to kill things in more fantastic ways.

Specifically, the main character gets access to a wide array of gadgets, from an insta-kill, heat-seeking pistol (that's not what it says on the box, but that's what it is in practice), to insta-drop sleep quarrels and a crossbow, to insta-kill sticky traps. All of these allow you to dish out death quickly and easily in a myriad of ways (as the "instas" suggest).

And then you start getting super powers.

Yes, you're already a killing machine by yourself, with just a dagger. Not only that, though, you're a killing machine with access to a bunch of gadgets that would make James Bond proud. And then you get super powers.

You don't need super powers. You're already way more powerful than anyone you meet in the game, even on the Very Hard difficult setting. But still you get them on top of everything else. And they allow you to stop time (and kill enemies at your leisure), teleport a short distance (and get behind or above enemies to kill them at your leisure), summon a horde of killer rats (which can consume enemies in a disturbingly short time), wind wall (allowing you to knockdown enemies at will, or throw them into various environmental hazards that instantly kill them), amongst other powers.

You have so much insta-death equipment that when you meet an enemy, you have to decide how you feel like slaughtering them today, not consider carefully how you're going to get to them to kill them. No, they're dead as soon as they come into your line of sight. It's just a matter of deciding how you want to do it. You become, literally, a god amongst men.

You're so super-powered that there is absolutely no challenge to the game. Dishonored can be won on Very Hard as easily as if it was a grade-school learning game. Nothing stops you, nothing challenges you, nothing threatens you - ever. In the entirety of a single run through the game on Very Hard (and the only run through ever made), I chalked up only two deaths. The first was when I was testing a trap wall that they said would instantly kill you if you touched it, which I did in order to see if it would actually instantly kill you (it does). The second was when I went out into the open to see how many people I could kill without ever using tactics, powers, gadgets, or potions, just button mashing (answer: 6).

Dishonored is so light on challenge that it is ridiculous. A setting of Very Hard implies that it should be at least hard. But nothing impedes your godlike progress. The only reason a competent action-game player needs ever to even contemplate reloading the game is if they're looking to get a clean run. That, or they're obsessive and won't use potions or powers (because those cost mana, which requires potions to replenish).

All that said, the powers are a joy to use, and it's a pleasure to pull out an old-school pistol and blast away with its single shot. Everything feels great to use, and it looks even better in action. The trouble is only how terribly overpowered everything is. After all, when did muskets become smart weapons (which is the only way I can think of that a shot from the hip fired merely in the general direction of an opponent always results in a shot to the heart and an install kill, and that on Very Hard).

It's all just plain ridiculous. And that sucks all of the joy out of the gameplay for anyone who is actually looking for a any sort challenge. On the other hand. those who are looking to fulfill their dreams of being a demi-god, Spartan, power-suited Master Sergeant, they will be overjoyed at what Dishonored has to offer them.

ACTION ●○○○ (poor)

The action of Dishonored is strangely absent. Well, not so strange, really. Without challenge there is no real action. Without challenge there is no hook with which to heighten the tension. Without challenge there is no substance upon which to build a foundation of excitement.

Without challenge there is just an empty hollow where a game should be.

Using your powers and gadgets is easy and exciting, and stealthing around has its usually thrilling charm. But none of it matters, since you're just playpenning with it all. And soon enough, the lack of challenge drains the excitement out of even the most fantastic powers. Being able to cast time stop and do anything you want to the enemy is thrilling a couple of times just for the sheer novelty of it. And then the fact that you're hitting unmoving objects begins to take its toll.

What sense of victory can there truly be if the enemy never stood a chance in hell? In Dishonored, you are Superman, flying around beating up on civilians. There's nothing much here but ego-tripping.

The only challenge that exists is in the rare boss fight. And that is when Dishonored is at its best - dueling against another opponent who also has magic. Those opponents can face you on something like your own terms, even if they don't have as many powers as you do and have no support gadgets. Those people, and only those people, have a chance of killing you. (At least they do on the Very Hard difficulty setting. It's doubtful they're much of a threat on lower settings.) What's more, those battles are the most well-thought-out. They are compelling, since you know these people and what they stand for and their place in the world long before you ever confront them. They fight with unique abilities, making them interesting and at least challenging in having to adapt to their fresh abilities. And they fight you in a unique location that is adapted to their particular skills. All that makes for good and compelling combat.

On the other hand, Boss Fights and Stealth are anathema. Stealth and mandatory fights or pretty much anathema. Thank god Dishonored isn't a Stealth game. As an action/assassin game, there is no reason at all why it can't have boss fights. And as the only remotely challenging part of the game, they would be sorely missed if they were removed.

Of course, if the rest of the gameplay were made at all compelling, I might change my tune on that particular aspect of the game.

LEVEL-DESIGN ●●○○ (mediocre)

The locations of Dishonored are often inventive. Maybe not inventive in choice of locale, which is pretty bog standard, but in the interpretation of that locale. Each location has its own unique take on the classic locales. Such as a bridge that must be crossed being a giant drawbridge with the ability to walk under, over, above, or on it.

But level design is much more than fanciful fantastic scenery. Though I was often impressed with the sights before my eyes, I was not impressed with the rest of the level design.  Though I enjoyed the fact the most locations had multiple points of ingress, good open level design is more than just slapping multiple entrances onto a location.

First off, the goal for a location with multiple points of ingress should be to have each entrance have its own challenge to achieve, each in its own unique way. But with Dishonored, the stealth entrance to a complex generally allows one to bypass all of the challenges of that area of a level. You evade all of the enemies, not just by sneaking by them, but by moving outside of their range of sight completely. When traversing that path, you are never at any risk of being spotted (or almost never on Very Hard), and since you teleport around, there's never any risk of falling or missing a difficult jump in order to reach a difficult entry point. Instead, the stealth entrance is the easy entrance. The only difficulty is in spotting the path to reach it.

The challenging path is to simply charge in, guns blazing. And it's not that challenging. Particularly with time stop and an insta-kill gun. And then there's often the true challenging path, which is using stealth to sneak along the ground. But you do that only by self-limitation, not because the game asks you to.

And on the other side of things, the enemy aren't all that astute, which becomes a problem because there aren't enough of them. Maybe there would be plenty if they were tougher, better armed, and/or more astute. Or if they could work together. As it is, though, they are usually thin on the ground and easily avoided even if you don't use powers. If you do use powers, they are often easily avoided so far out of their range of sight that they have no chance of ever even spotting you.

There isn't a lot of variety of enemies, either. So, it's not like there are later enemies with better eyesight. There are guards with sword and pistol, and on the criminal side there are thugs and then there are tough thugs. All of those being slight variations on Fighter. Then there are zombies, who are just what they sound like, though there aren't many of them in the game. Hordes of rats are very occasionally run into, but aren't really a challenge. Maybe if you cause more chaos than I did (which causes more rats to appear), enough would gather to make a viable opponent. Maybe. And there are some piranhas-like creatures in the water, not usually encountered unless you choose the water entrance as a route. And that's it for the bulk of the game.

Look at that list of enemies again. They're all normal creatures. Not a one has any defense against magic. And that list of enemies is what you run into for the bulk of the game. Thus, you are a god amongst mortals. There aren't even any regular variations, like archer or rogue to change things up. In an odd choice, it isn't until near the very end of the game that two new enemies are introduced - the only two special units that require a change-up of tactics. But even then, these two special units are few and placed such that they can be completely avoided. Not avoided as in being sneaked by; avoided as in moving so far around them that they are never encountered, only seen at a distance.

Much could have been done with those enemies, utilizing their powers and inventive level design to create interesting challenges for the player. But, as is the case for the entirety of Dishonored, the game carefully avoids presenting any challenge whatsoever by placing these new enemies where they are easily avoided. The only way the player must face them is if the player chooses to face them.

Traps do make an (exceedingly rare) appearance, but there is only one type of trap - tripe-wire launchers, or should I say, trip-rope. Yes, the traps use a nice, thick rope that is easily spotted. And that is the only trap in the game. Stationary turrets and electrified walls could be considered traps, or even opponents, but they are large, glowing, obvious, and also slow (in the case of the turret, as the wall is, of course, unmoving). The turret is no more a threat than the stationary wall is, and is usually even more easily dispatched since the wall is often placed in a guarded position, unlike the turrets.

A lot has been done to make the appearance of each location unique and decadently beautiful - a stunning feat considering what appears to have been a limited building palette. I was frequently impressed with the interesting take the developers had on what would otherwise be the same-old, same-old locations. It is only too bad that there was very little gameplay across all of these stunning locations.

The best and most memorable level turned out to be the aristocratic party. Most people would say it was the whorehouse, which has some interesting scenes, to be sure. But the whorehouse is remembered for its shock value, which isn't all that shocking with the limited palette and limited animations on show. The party, in contrast, is the only level the tells you about the world intrinsically in the way that it is built. You actually learn about the people of the city, and even do it by interacting with them in their own abode. And you interact with them not just for the sake of interacting, but with multiple level-based goals in mind. Everything in the level channels in towards the assassination of the target, even the sub quests. And the locked upstairs remains locked to even someone of your powers, and thus must be approached through alternative means. Not particularly challenging alternative means, to be sure. But still.

This was a cohesive and coherent level that actually said something about the world that we are interacting with.  Out of all of the levels after the first prison level, this is the one that said - you are here in this city and this is why you are here to do the deed. The level could have used more reliance on stealth and stiffer resistance from the enemy. But that can be said of all of the levels, even the ostensible last (but not final) level.

Speaking of the ostensible final level, even on Very Hard difficulty, the final level, usually a bear of a level, in Dishonored is a breeze. In fact, it can even end up being shockingly short, if you do everything right. Which actually was a nice way to do it. This isn't a remarkable level, like the party was, but it was level made with a cohesive design, and one where your actions actually mattered to the coarse of the level. Not to mention, the level is the only stealth level in the entire game. Which is not to say that stealth is necessary to complete the level. It's not. But it is a level where stealth is challenging (to a degree) and it matters. This is a taste of real stealth. Unfortunately, it is too little, too late, coming as it does very near the end of the game.

The background level-design of Dishonored is often beautiful, and sometimes shows sparks of great inspiration. And the multiple methods of entering complexes are a joy to see and use. Would that the gameplay parts of the level design were equally as varied and inspired. Would that the level design also offered challenge. When the Very Hard difficulty setting offers no challenge whatsoever, there is something seriously wrong.

INTERFACE ●●●○ (good)

The appearance of the world of Dishonored is compelling. Some amount of artistry went into the world design. Similarly, the player's interface with the powers and abilities of the main character are smooth and simple. The game does use a console wheel, but there is also a key line for PC users, in addition.

Despite the game's console roots, there is no hiccup when using a mouse and keyboard here. Porting was very well done, generally speaking. The icons for the powers are interesting, but even moreso, the effects when using the powers not only alert you clearly to your use of the power, but add a great deal to the exciting feel of using the power. For instance, teleport could have felt remarkably bland, since it's just a disappear and reappear somewhere else on the map. But the graphic of Blink and the slow-to-rush-jolt of movement adds hugely to the experience.

All well and good. On the other hand, when the best thing about your game is the graphics and UI, you've got some issues.

The music and sound is the main weak point here. Neither of those aspects adds to the intended ambiance of the game. Both are merely utilitarian. Only during the final push does the sound ever rise to the occasion and help to give impetus to the melancholy feeling that the ending was intended to give. And even then, I wasn't sure that the sound actually struck the intended note and did not simply strike a note. 

When looked at overall, because of the weak gameplay, the fine interface simply adds to the feeling that Dishonored is a slick exterior over a hollow core. Which does not surprise me, as that is also the feeling that arises when attempting to eke out enjoyment while slaughtering nearly the defenseless, unintelligent mooks that are all the game has to offer as enemies.

ENJOYMENT 

Dishonored looks cool and feels cool in action. But it's all surface appearance. Like a shiny summer blockbuster, it's all flash, no substance. There is some style, a bit, hidden away here and there, and those flashes leave me feeling better about the game than I otherwise would so. However, in so many ways, Dishonored is a jumbled mess of ideas.

And I have my suspicions (wholly without documentation) that Dishonored is a game designed by committee or suit-dictate, throwing together whatever sounded cool at the time, altering the game's plot and levels as needed in order to accommodate the new additions of "coolness". Which usually leads to a jumbled hack of a mess that is quite uncool and unfun. But somehow, despite its unenlightened committee design process, Dishonored managed to retain some of the "cool" from its messy mass of "cool" features. At least, that's my suspicion.

For the Final Verdict here, the average is between two points, so - as always - I get to decide which direction to round in. The average is really close to the upper point, which I do take into consideration. Plus, I did finish the game, which does not usually happen for me with games with such poor gameplay. I play games to be challenged in some way, not to live out power fantasies. But I did finish it, and that would normally mean that I enjoyed it, at least a little. And that would mean going up to mediocre.

But here, I am not sure. The game is short. Short enough that it doesn't wear out its welcome despite its meager gameplay. Were it much longer, I'm not certain that I would have finished. The "coolness" did not have its intended awe-inspiring effect upon me. And thus, I am forced to round down - rounding down because of the sheer lack of gameplay.

It should be noted here, though, that most people will not be as mortally offended by that aspect (or rather its lack thereof), and would instead round up. In fact, enlivened by the "coolness" and the ego-trip of being a god amongst mortals, they are likely (as many have done) to round up an extra point or two. Because people like cool, just like they like slick summer blockbusters.

At least, they will round up extra for a while. Until time moves on and the graphics are no longer anywhere near the cutting edge, when the shiny cool fades away. Then it's back down to mediocre it goes, or even down to poor for those of us who want actual gameplay.

FINAL VERDICT ●○○○ (poor)

* this review was made after completing Dishonored on Very Hard difficulty on the PC

Review - The Dark Eye: Blackguards

- An RPG/Strategy Game hybrid from Daedalic Entertainment.

INTRO

A Role-Playing Game is classically a mixture of adventure, exploration, character building, combat, and possibly (though not necessarily) also story. Blackguards has exactly zero of the first two. There is absolutely no exploration or adventure here. This is a game of combat with character building and story. In other words, it is a series of combat maps with persistent characters - much more akin to something like Elven Legacy or Final Fantasy Tactics than classic or even modern RPGs. It doesn't go all of the way there, but it certainly does ride the line.

So, the four rating categories of Blackguards will be Character Building, Combat, Resource Management, and Story. However, I will touch upon Exploration and Adventure, since those are important to a lot of RPG players. 

EXPLORATION & ADVENTURE

This is not a rated category in Blackguards because the game has no exploration or sense of adventure. None. Zero. Your experience with exploring the world of Blackguards consists of clicking on an icon on the world map representing a settlement and loading up a marketplace view, said view having a few icons to click on that load up the various types of stores or that occasionally (a different icon) offer quests. And that's it.

There is no travel, per se. One clicks on an icon on the overhead map, and a line is drawn between settlements representing movement. The process takes a couple of seconds, at most. And that is your sense of travel.

The various settlements are highly detailed, but all of that detail exists on static backgrounds. (They take way too long to load for static backgrounds, though, which does make me wonder what is going on under the hood.) In almost all cases, what that static background depicts is the settlement's marketplace - which, in and of itself, also cuts heavily at the sense of exploration and adventure. There is little to no sense of place offered in any of these settlements. With the choice to depict the marketplace view rather than a backdrop shot of the settlement, one sees essentially the same scene wherever one goes - seen one marketplace, seen them all.

The backdrop pictures could have offered a great sense of place simply by utilizing a nice exterior shot. Indeed, this being a fantasy world, and one where there is a large variety of locales and size of settlements, exterior views could have added a great deal of wonder and adventure to the player's sense of the world. As it is, though, settlements are just a series of the same four stores with minor hints at the diversity that the world has to offer from a few extra flourishes added to some of the marketplaces.

This sense of sameness is not helped by the game's voice acting. The adventure of Blackguards takes place across several different countries that supposedly have differing customs and languages. However, the game is fully voice acted, and the voice actors of the minor characters speak with the same accent, for the most part. So, there is no sense of place offered in the characters of the world, either.

Nor is there a sense of place in the equipment offered in the stores, which is largely the same everywhere, with only minor variations from one location to the next. Occasionally - very occasionally - there is localized dress, but for the most part, the only difference between stores in different locations is how many of the same items are on offer (10 healing potions or 2).

Generally speaking, one's interaction with the world is on the level of an mmo. There are stores to click on and buy stuff, and there is the occasional quest giver that is met once or twice, says his generic spiel to send you off on your generic quest, and one never sees them again after. Leaving the game with no sense of underlying world or personality.

There is no sense of the people, the world, or of adventure here. And since that aspect of the RPG is important to a lot of RPG players, the choice by Daedelic to remove all of it is a rough one. It cuts out a fair portion of the potential customer base, and leaves the game's popularity and sales solely in the hands of those who love story or combat.

STORY  ●○○○ (poor)

There are several parts to a game's story. There's the overall concept, the character personalities, the dialogue, and the core writing. While the core writing is the main thing that players interact with, all of it combines together to form the overall story and one's impression of that story.

The overall concept of Blackguards is generic Chosen One gets chosen for unknown reasons to save the world. It's a bland and generic concept, but there's nothing inherently bad about it. One can take a generic concept and sprinkle originality upon it to make an exciting concept. Operative word being can. With Blackguards, the one conceit to originality is that the characters are "blackguards".

Except they're not. The main character is, in actuality, falsely accused of a crime he/she didn't commit. And he now roams the badlands, an outlaw hunting outlaws...a RENEGADE.

Some of your cohorts have committed crimes. But other than a few - very rare - jokes, this never really comes into play. The only character who is actually a criminal during the game is quickly killed off. The rest of the characters are more in the "gang of rogues and misfits" territory. And the things that that band of rogues and misfits are called upon to do during the game are the usual generic RPG quests. Find the lost "ring", rescue the damsel in distress, kill these bandits and then those bandits and the bandits over there, etc. There's no underhanded or even unique things to do here. It's all the usual goody-two-shoes messenger work.

With only that unused conceit to count towards originality, there is nothing original in the Blackguards storyline. It is, unfortunately, the usual generic, bland template upon which to hang an RPG. But it actually gets worse than that, because the various enemies and situations are also generic, and the core development is a jumbled mess, leading to no driving reason to progress through the story. (Stressing here that there is no driving reason to progress through the story, not the game.)

As stated earlier, most of the characters in the game are only met once or twice, and they typically are simply quest givers with no real function in either the story or the game world, a la mmo style. These individuals hand out generic quests and generic rewards, and that is the extent of the interaction with them. They have no place or function in the world except as quest/reward givers.

And the elite antagonists, the so-called villains of the story, are no more well developed. Most are also only met once or twice, if even that. All too many are given only an intro to make them seem a big-bad, and that's the entire lead-up to meeting them. There are a couple of guys who are meant to be leading villains, but they never actually do anything. Their interactions with the world and the party are so minimal that they never become hated villains. They're largely just a named bad guy instead of generic bad guy. That's the entire connection to them - they have a name. Thus they become just like named bad guys in - again - generic mmo style, despite some half-hearted attempts to make them seem more.

There's a core of a good story lying within Blackguards. Evil villains, saving the world, high adventure. But none of it ever gets used. Instead, the overall story sits in the background while the characters get captured - again - and drug around doing random combats against generic foes that have no personal stake in the overall story. The number of times that the party actually fights people who are involved in the threat to the world before reaching the final chapter is depressingly low. Instead, in a world threatened with destruction, it's mostly bandits, gladiators, various animals, and independent undead that the party meets.

The characters of the main party have some personality; however, that personality tends to be two-dimensional. Their personalities are well-written. But there is little there to most of them, and those personalities do not drive the story. The only driving force in the story is the Chosen One main character. The other members of the party simply offer some localized color here and there. And unfortunately, the best personality is killed off early and replaced by someone as bland as the Chosen One main character, who is one of the usual bland Chosen One archtypes, though the Lazy Chosen One hasn't often been used in games, to be sure, The remaining personalities are well-written, but bland. Which, as you may have noticed, is a common theme in Blackguards.

Meanwhile, the core writing is unfocused. The events of the story unfold with little sense of order, logic, or pacing. For instance, the game starts with the Chosen One captured by the authorities and falsely accused of murder, then making a daring escape. All well and good. Exciting so far, But soon after making their escape, the Chosen One and his/her allies are captured by slavers and taken along a long side-trip as gladiators. So a captured plot leading to another captured plot. Not a good decision there.

But not only that, there's a sidequest tied to those that sees you getting captured again and fighting more gladiator battles right after. So you can end up getting captured, which leads to getting captured, which leads to getting captured. And then you get captured again not long after. It's so ridiculous, it almost becomes farce. (Not to mention, the whole gladiator sequence of chapter two is already so silly as to almost be farce in and of itself.)

What's more, none of the time spend as gladiators furthers the overall plot, the development of the characters, or the development of the world. It is exactly what it says it is - a long series of gladiatorial combats. In fact, at one point 9 combats in a row (though a chance to rest after sets of 3 was later patched in at audience recommendation). And it takes up 1/6th of the game.

And after all that, you eventually end up going on a long series of sub-quests with no relation to one another in order to find the macguffin you're searching for, having multitudes of senseless combats along the way. Until at long last, a story combat arrives. It's all a jumble of seemingly random events that are randomly strung together, which would far better serve a road-trip adventure than a save-the-world-from-dire-evil adventure. And the entire reasoning of all of those random events randomly strung together is hung solely on the hat of the main character being the Chosen One.

Essentially, nothing in the story happens at the cause of either the protagonists or the antagonists. None of them actually do anything until the very end. There's just a random series of events, such as being captured by slavers for 1/6th of the game, that happen one right after the other with little rhyme or reason.  It all happens because the main character is the Chosen One, and for no other reason at all.

In effect, the story becomes just a series of filler excuses to have another fight (or usually a series of fights). Now, filler stories can work quite well. But they work at their best when told in a minimalist fashion - like many level-based strategy games use. As in a few paragraphs to tell what happened after the last battle and to introduce the goals of the next battle. But in Blackguards, there is entirely too much story for it to be minimalist. Thus, the player spends an inordinate amount of time following along with a series of jumbled and bland events, watching multiple cutscenes that attempt to string it all together, and largely fails in that attempt.

Which brings up one of the major points that are often brought up about games like Blackguards - "It's not about the story; it's about the combat. If you're paying attention to the story, you're playing it wrong". And while it is true that the centerpiece of Blackguards is combat, one also spends a lot (a lot) of time watching cutscenes following along the story. If the story isn't actually a major part of the game, then it shouldn't occupy a major part of the time of the game. If it does occupy a large portion of gametime, then it is a major part of the game. End of story.

Thus, the story is a major part of Blackguards. But much of the Blackguards's story is bland. From the overall concept, to the personalities, to the enemies, to the world - it's all flat and generic. And in the final two chapters, it's also rushed and dumb. And chapter three seems a bit rushed, in hindsight, as well. That seems to be the theme of Blackguards - an excellent setup in chapter one, followed by a increasingly rushed content through the remaining four chapter that heavily stress the cracks in the story and gameplay, which wasn't settled upon a solid foundation or ever really fully thought through.

RESOURCE MANAGEMENT ●○○○ (poor)

At first, the resource management of Blackguards seems like it will be an exciting and detailed system. But like so much else in the game, none of what is met in that first impression is ever fully realized.

Armor is broken up into body locations, and different armor parts can be placed in each location, with a bonus to armor encumbrance efficiency granted if the same type of armor is placed in each location. So, if a chain suit set is place on legs, arms, chest, and head, the character can use that suit with less of an armor penalty from encumbrance. A great deal could have been done with such a system. But in practice, there is never any reason not to place the same armor type in every slot, since there isn't much variety of suits of armor and what there is almost always is available in full-suit form. There's no reason to miss-match if one doesn't ever have a single armor piece that one wants to don despite it not being a full suit.

In fact, other than those (many) times when the game takes all of your stuff away from you ,your mages will be wearing the same armor-set for almost the entire game. Once you get your stuff back from whatever, it's re-don the same old robes or shirt and hat from the beginning of the game.

Warriors, on the other hand, have a few upgrades along the way. Stress - a few. But instead of going to one of the many armor stores and upgrading armor as you go along, it's more along the lines of - when you reach a certain part in the story, you find an armor upgrade, and you immediately put it on one of your warriors because there's no reason not to as it is superior to what you have in every single way. But you only ever put it on one warrior as you will only ever find one suit of that non-magical armor. At some point, you will find a different suit of non-magical armor, and then put that on your other warrior. And one day near the end, maybe you'll even find plate mail.

There are more weapon upgrades than there are armor upgrades, and there are even a number of magical weapons, though not many. Once again, though, other than those times when everything is taken away from you, you're not really choosing which weapons to use, as there is always a clearly superior one. Characters have to raise their skills in each weapon type in order to use them effectively, so each character will tend to use only certain types of weapons, but within that type, there is always a clearly superior one. So, if a character specialized in sword, there is no debate as to which sword the character will choose to wield, as there is always one sword that is superior in all categories, and thus there is no reason not to wield it.

The game also includes expendable resources, such as potions, arrows, traps, and rations. And at first, once again, this seems like it it is going to be an important and detailed aspect of the game. But none of it is ever really used.  The most glaring of these is rations. The sole use of rations is to allow the group to camp out on the world map. Yet, since there are no wandering monsters and no risk or real time involved in traveling, there is no reason not to simply click on a settlement and rest at its inn rather than lug around heavy rations units (other than the obscurely long loading times for the settlements).

Rations or inns, they heal the party completely, and there are only a few points where even time is a factor, so there is no reason not to take a few clicks and heal to full after every single battle. So the more usual RPG resources of hp and mana are not even a factor here. The only time when rations ever actually come into play is during the rare "dungeon". In these dungeons, a series of battles are strung together on a small, mostly linear grid. The party can tackle the grid points at their own pace, and can rest after each battle - if they brought enough rations. And this is the moment when the game is at its best, having the player manage rations and potions, fighting battles without a chance to restock. These dungeons are few and far between, however, and too many of them also allow retreating back to the world map and a store, making the resource management for those dungeons non-existent.

Ammunition is plentiful and cheap, and potions and traps quickly become of minimal use. At the beginning of the game, potions and traps can be utilized to great effect in the battles, giving the party a much-needed edge in tough fights on the Hard difficulty setting. But all too soon, nothing stands up for long enough to make any of the useable resources necessary. Taking the time to lay down a trap simply slows down the unstoppable juggernaut that is the party. Traps and potions just become another item to sell to get more (unneeded) cash, except for those rare instances when the mages need a mana infusion or an even rarer situation when a warrior needs a health infusion and there's no mage available to heal them.

There is a lot of meat here. The consumables system is highly detailed, with a lot to offer a game that put pressure on those resources. But there is never any pressure. None of the resources matter. The only one that is regularly bought are arrows, for those rare times when there aren't bundles of them found on the enemy, or when - much more often - all of your equipment has been taken from you.

As with so much else in Blackguards, resource management is a highly detailed system that a lot could be done with, but that never comes to fruition. Soon after it's introduction, it becomes left by the wayside. Yet another instance of everything seeming great and going somewhere in chapter one, only to soon dissolve into disuse and ill-thought-through consequences.

COMBAT ●●○○ (average)

This is widely reported as being the heart of Blackguards. Except it isn't. It is its saving grace, but the heart of Blackguards actually lies elsewhere. The combat starts out highly enjoyable, and would receive an excellent grade if it maintained the quality it has in chapter one and iterated upon it in the later chapters.  But instead, the game fades out, with good (instead of excellent) combat in chapter two, drifting to okay combat in a fair portion of chapter three, and collapsing in chapter three into becoming rote routine through the rest of three and all of chapters four and five. What drags it down is, in part, what turns out to be only a small number of ideas for antagonist combat styles, but is largely due to the heavily imbalanced character development system.

For all of the famed glory of the Blackguards combat system, there actually isn't much to it. The party is made up of five members, and they usually fight from 6-7 enemies, occasionally more, sometimes less. The battles take place on a hex-grid, and they take place in turns based on individual character speed and an initiative roll.

More than a few times, there are interactable elements on the battlemap, such as levers, traps, doors, etc which can be used to great advantage during the battle. And at first, that seems like it is going to add a great deal of variety to the combat. However, during the battles where there are interactable elements, generally those elements either must be interacted with to complete the combat, or they are so powerful that there is no reason not to interact with them. Those battles become, in essence, puzzle maps, with the player having to figure out how to trip the interactable in as efficient a way as possible, rather than how to fight the battle in the best way possible. And unfortunately, the game kind of plays its entire hand in chapter one here. You won't see anything new in this area in the rest of the game. One only sees variations of the same few interactables and interactable ideas introduced in chapter one. Worse, there is the very ill-thought-through "stealth" sections, which are really just movement puzzles, since there is no actual stealth in the game.

Still, those interactables do remain a nice change of pace, even if they remain underdeveloped. And its a change of pace that is woefully needed, since there isn't actually a lot of variety in the combat.

Unfortunately, the enemies are underdeveloped. There is not a great deal of enemy variety. There are a large number of enemy portraits to fight. But there are not a wide variety of methods of attack. Most enemies are melee grunts who attack using the same pattern and a single attack, whether they are mindless zombies, animal-level-intelligence scorpions, or (supposedly) intelligent bandits. There is no teamwork, and there are no special abilities beyond poison and power attack. A few combats have enemies with ranged ability, which they use in a largely random fashion, instead of a focused aggressive one. And a rare few have spellcasters, which use their spells in a largely ineffective fashion. Combats against opponents with special abilities beyond that are really rare.

And that's it. Making the combat of Blackguards for the most part a slog through simplistic melee mooks who lack intelligence or coordination.

On the other hand, it is good for the party that enemies remain stupid and unfocused, as the party are always outnumbered and usually fighting on empty square battlemaps, and thus a focused effort would likely easily overwhelm the party. As it is, the enemy AI strikes largely randomly, effective (such as it is) only by its superior numbers.

Likewise, the enemy do not have all of the special abilities that the party do. Again, this is a must for the survivability of the party. Technically, in the Dark Eye RPG that Blackguards takes place in, the enemy should have access to all of the abilities that the party does. But if the enemy were given full access to all of those abilities, then the party would just fall over when facing them. Much as the enemy does with the party during the latter parts of the game. The power feats that are available are just so intensely powerful, and there is so little defense against them, that having any of those abilities is essentially an I-WIN button.

And there are a lot of I-WIN buttons in Blackguards.

The character sheet is essentially divided up into Attributes, Skills, Abilities, Feats, and Spells. The names may be different, but that's what they are. The Skills are all combat skills, such as Two-Handed Sword or Polearms. Abilities generally provide interesting but minimally useful information, such as how many hit points the enemy have. Attributes provide bonuses to all of the other areas and - most important of all - are prerequisites for the Feats. Spells work exactly like skills, with a need to have a high spell-level in order to have a chance to effectively use a spell without missing/failing.

But the core of it all is Feats. The Feats tree is what the warriors use in combat to dish out damage, and everything else is just in support of those Feats. The thing of it is, though, the power gain from Feats is huge, and the Feat tree is fairly shallow. And it's a completely open system, allowing characters to buy whatever they want with their experience points. Which, all together, means character can gain immense amounts of power really quickly.

Specifically, the feat tree is largely a series of combat attack lines devoted to a particular fighting style. So, there's one line for two-handed weapons, one for spears, one for dual-weaponing, one for archery, etc. Then there's a few defensive trees, and one fighting-master tree. But most trees have exactly zero branches and are exactly three items deep (not much of a tree, true). Plus, most are essentially Power Attack. As in, first rank is Power Attack, second rank is Improved Power Attack, and third Rank is Super Improved Power Attack.

Each rank in a Power Attack line is technically a new attack type, but in practice, there is no reason to use a weaker Power Attack once a stronger is attained. So, once a character has Power Attack, they never make a regular attack again. And once they have Improved Power Attack, they almost never use Power Attack. And once they have Super Power Attack, they never do anything else - because it's super. The only actual negative for using a higher-grade Power Attack is a negative to hit. But the negative has so little gameplay effect, and the power gain is so huge, that it is not a real choice. You always attack with the higher-grade Power Attack.

So, in actual game effect, each new rank in Power Attack becomes an improved attack. And all the warriors then do in combat is run around hitting the attack button. It's now Super Improved Power Attack, but it's still Attack to all intents and purposes.

The power gain is just too huge to do otherwise. Damage output ramps up from 10 to 15 to 20 to 50 (with over 90 on a critical) with each power upgrade. There is just no reason to NOT attempt to do 50 points of damage instead of 10. While the chance to hit when a character first gains Super Improved Power Attack is low, it does not outweigh the damage output. Plus, in the early days, the mages can put a few experience points in the elemental attack spell, which has a high chance of knockdown, and there is a 100% chance to hit an opponent on the ground no matter the attack. That's automatic hit with Super Improved Power Attack!

And later in the game, the characters can ramp up their chance to hit so much that every attack they can make has largely the same chance to hit, leaving not even the slim old reason of a weaker chance to hit for choosing to make any other type of attack than Super Improved Power Attack.

On top of that, the mages gain access to haste at about the same time the warriors gain access to Super Improved Power Attack. So, the warriors abruptly jump from doing 20 points of damage a round to regularly doing 100, and sometimes 180 (on a double critical). It's an utterly ridiculous jump in power. Especially since only a handful of enemies can survive even one 90-point damage attack, much less 2.

Once the party has Super Improved Power Attack and haste, they can use just those two abilities to conquer 99% of the rest of the combats in the game. And half of the remaining 1% demand only the use of a couple of heals or an elemental knockdown on top of the above strategy.

The game does limit one's access a bit to the Super Improved Power Attacks by making those attacks only available at certain trainers. But the party can gain access to those trainers fairly early in the game. And after that, it's game over. The remaining 4 chapters (of 5) are a cakewalk. 1 chapter of tactical battles and 4 chapters of cakewalk does not a balanced game make.

Which leads to the main issue with the combat - the gameplay is badly balanced. It's simply a fact that open character development systems are really difficult to balance, far more so than class-based systems, and Blackguards is not even remotely in the balanced ballpark. There are some aspects of the character sheet that are hugely beneficial (Super Improved Power Attack), some that are only of minor benefit (Read Enemy hp), and some that are of no benefit at all (fireball). Thus, the difficulty of the game lies almost entirely in the character sheet.

And that means nothing you do on the battlefield matters. Not after chapter one. Tactical gameplay is thrown out the window, and the game becomes a game of character building strategy. Battles are won and lost by wise choices on the character sheet, not through brilliant tactics in the field. Which means the vaunted tactical combat of Blackguards gets lost in a haze of character builds and spreadsheeting.

CHARACTER BUILDING ●○○○ (poor)

This is the actual core of the game. And that is almost entirely because of the rapid power curve on a shallow character development tree that is the core of Blackguards. 

Different players will have hugely different experiences with Blackguards. Somebody who knows RPGs and who carefully reads all of the ability descriptions will have super characters about the end of chapter one, and the rest of the game will be boring. Such people would have to intentionally dumb down their character development in order to maintain some level of challenge across the bulk of the game.

Players on the other side of the spectrum, those who place points in fireball for instance, will swiftly find themselves on the opposite side of the power curve, their characters far weaker than the enemies who are suddenly using Power Attack on their characters and thus killing them, since the fireball-throwing party has no ability to Power Attack back and the enemy outnumber the party - always. That, and because fireball is nearly useless. It's the goto attack spell in most RPGs, but here it is weak and most enemies have resistance to fire, making it even weaker.

Because the game system is so unbalanced, the game developers couldn't realistically balance the enemies to an expected power curve for the party. There is no expected power curve. At any given point after chapter one, the party's fighters might regularly be doing 10 points of damage, or they might regularly be doing 50. And it's impossible to pitch enemies to the challenge level of the party when the divergence in power levels of different players is over 5x. After all, stick a tough enemy with 80hp in a fight with several cohorts, and the team doing 10 points of damage will struggle to get the 8 hits necessary to take him down while being attacked by the cohorts, while the tough team will kill him in one blow that does 90 points of damage, and then the attacker who killed the leader will turn and slaughter one of the dead leader's cohorts with their hasted second attack.

So instead of balancing the game on equal terms, the game developers had to keep the enemy weak, dumb, numerous, and 'suped up with resistances and magic in order to maintain a roughly even progression of skill level for the player. The enemy couldn't be given the actual abilities of the game system, as then they would slaughter the party. Instead, they have to become damage sponges. Which makes fireball even weaker than it would otherwise be (weak damage attack on enemies with resistance to fire and bloated hp)

The enemy can't even use Super Improved Power Attack against the party, since a 90-point attack on the party would instantly kill a party member too, and the enemy already outnumber the party. Were those things to be mixed with the ability to case haste (which they also can't do), then the party could be wiped in one round. That's wiped with just normally abilities that the party can regularly use against them. So, the enemy has to be dumbed down to make the system as it is even function.

This leads to gameplay that, while enjoyable in chapter one, becomes only enjoyable to power mongers after. Skilled RPGers will eventually become bored with endlessly rote battles of clicking on the same rote powers, while newcomers will find themselves so far behind the difficulty curve that they can't catch up, and it's restart the game from the beginning or give up. The initial enjoyment the game engenders in chapter one thus soon evaporates for all concerned, save for power mongers and the rare few who chance to remain in the narrow sweet spot that the game that the games power curve has to offer.

There isn't much variety on offer for character design, either. There are essentially two classes - fighter/mage and fighter. And since the system is open, a player can take whatever they want, Mixed with the fact there is so much xp awards simply thrown at the party that the player can max everything they want by the end of chapter 4, and I mean everything, and then will have a full chapter's worth of xp to spend on stuff they don't want, and, well, there isn't much reason to replay the game for a different combat experience, since the character will have maxed skills in everything you wanted to try out already. On top of that, most feats are simply variations of Power Attack, all skills are weapon skills and there is no variety to the actual function of weapons, and most of the spells are of little use.

Essentially, there are only two differing playthroughs here. One can go through the game as a spellcaster, and then can go through as a non-spellcaster if the player want to see what physical power ranks their character could achieve if they don't spend some of their points on spells. All mages are fighter/mages, so a mage can also max out any of the fighting skills, and there is plenty of xp to do so, but they probably won't max anywhere near as much as a pure fighter would, since they are likely to spend a fair amount of xp on spells, even though most of the spells are useless. After all, when one is mage, one at least wants to see what the spells all do.

With such an open character building system as Blackguards uses, in order to make a balanced difficulty curve, the xp gains have to be so low that the player is forced to think about what aspects to develop, or the power curve has to be smooth enough to maintain an even challenge for the bulk of players. The trouble with Blackguards is the power gain is so steep, swift, and abrupt that the gameplay cannot be balanced for most of the audience. No matter where the enemies' power curve was developed for, most of the audience is going to be either bored or overwhelmed. The system is just too unbalanced to have any other end.

After all, with a one-second jump to damage output of 20 to 100, the enemies from one dungeon to the next would have to suddenly have 5x the hp in order to stand up for an equal number of blows. But in an open character system, the developers never know at which point the players are going to make the buy that takes their characters from 20 to 100. So, they don't know where to put the dungeon with the sudden 5x increase in power.

And so, character building largely ends up being broken. Not out of any inherent weakness of the abilities, but because the overall system fails to support the players' needs in helping them to meet the challenges of the game at an enjoyable difficulty level. The only people the game does support are the power mongers who simple enjoy laying waste to enemies with their superior character builds, and then those few who happen to chance to keep their party's power level meshed within the power curve of the enemies.

And in the end, this is what breaks the combat. What starts out as intense tactical battles can't be maintained because the enemy lack the variety and power to actually challenge the party in different or direct ways. They can only have their stats pumped in various ways, but staying well below the difficulty that is achievable by the party so that people who make some mistakes in spending xp can still succeed. Because the power level of the party ramps up so quickly and easily, most enemies just end up falling over. And when you finally meet what should be a super-challenging creature that you think - aha, finally a tough fight again. No, it falls over in two rounds, just like everything else. All because the damage output of your characters ramps up from 15 to 50 by taking two Feats.

The character sheet is the heart of Blackguards. Since the potential power gain is so huge for some abilities, the experience that the players will have of the game lies on the character sheet. When and how they gain those abilities determines not only how difficult the game will be for them to complete, but how much enjoyment they will have with the bulk of the game. And that, in the end, is what drags the combat down from being excellent, to being mediocre, and finally into boring, rote busywork.

INTERFACE ●●○○ (average)

The graphics for the game are nice, overall. Nice, but not good. The locations are heavily detailed, but largely sterile.  Locations have the overall look of an average 3d build that was made into a still. There's a lot of detail, in that there are a lot of items and textures, but everything has the usual 3d generic look. There are very few unique details at any of the locations that help them to stand out.

Characters are also largely 3d sterile, with no emotion on their faces and little animation to anything they say or do. The main characters are all well-voiced, on the other hand (unlike the npcs), and some of their dialogue is rich, so they do have character.  But overall, their personality comes from their static appearance and voice, not from their actions or animations.

Combat is in 2.5d, and it largely functions well. Spells and abilities are easy enough to access, even if the interface wheel is clunkier than it needs to be with additional tasks that are non-situational. The wheel remains the same no matter what, while a dynamic wheel with only the actual options that could be used depending on what was being clicked and who was doing the clicking would be far quicker.

Moving characters across the grid is largely simple and self-explanatory. However, there are times when the camera angle and the limited access to the grid mixed with what appears to be some poor programming makes it difficult to access one particular hex to select it. When that one hex is the hex you need to move a character to, this can become highly frustrating. Movement involves highlighting and requires a confirmation click, so there rarely are any mis-clicks caused by this issue, but it remains angering when it takes five minutes to pan the camera into a position that exposes one clickable corner of the needed hex that actually allows you to click on it instead of simply appearing like you should be able to click it.

Menus and saves are functional. Character sheets are clunkier than they need to be, but not so much that it detracts from the experience. Descriptions of items and actions are often difficult to read due to poor formatting, and sometimes important information is left out, causing important aspects of the game to remain forever unexplained. A veteran RPGer will have no issues, and will simply power through these areas, but newcomers will have a terrible time figuring out what's going on.

Music is nice, but forgettable. Not much style or personality. There are different melodies for each in-world country, but the differences aren't really stark enough to provide setting detail. There also isn't much variety of music within each country, so the melodies will tend to get repetitive after a while. As with much else about Blackguards, the music does its job, but is otherwise bland and underdeveloped.

ENJOYMENT 

In the end, I have to thumbs-down the game. It is fairly enjoyable, for a while, but the enjoyment does not last through most of the game. The weaknesses of the game soon overwhelm its few good points, dragging the entire experience down into mediocrity.

In a world with few RPGs, though, Blackguards is better than most of the RPGs currently on the market. So, for RPG fans, this is still a thumbs-up. RPGs can be far better than this, but one wouldn't know it from what's currently available. Bland and underwhelming beats poor and non-existent any day of the week.

In the wider world of games, though, Blackguards is far too mediocre and unbalanced to be recommended. There's simply nothing here to attract those who are not wholly devoted to RPGs, and not that much to attract even RPGer who aren't wholly devoted to stat-building on character sheets, since the game outside of the character sheet is lackluster at best, while the character sheet is complex, diverse, and even artful in its design.

The Final Verdict is in between two points on the spectrum, and I usually would round down. But the afterglow of that initial first impression during chapter one lasted long enough for me to finish the game. The memories of those good moments cause me to average up here instead of averaging down. It's a close choice, though. I almost went the other way.

FINAL VERDICT ●●○○ (average)

* this review was made after completing The Dark Eye - Blackguards on Hard difficulty on the PC