Expeditions: Conquistador is billed as a Tactical RPG. And it is that. However, it is in the sub-genre that is sometimes called RPG Lite. All of the normal elements of the RPG can be found in Expeditions: Conquistador, but those elements are largely in a basic form. The bulk of your time with the game is not even spent dealing with the RPG aspects of the game, but is spend gathering the necessary supplies to keep your people alive. That and the story are the two core elements of the Expeditions: Conquistador experience.
Don't get me wrong, there is a character building page - a couple, actually. But in the end, they play second fiddle to the other aspects of the game. They're there, but they do not have the greatest impact on the course of the game. Far from it. As the game progresses, the strategy and story components take center stage, and never leave it after. They even overwhelm the combat portion of the game in a game billed as a tactical RPG.
And thus, the rated aspects of Expeditions: Conquistador will be Combat, Exploration, Resource Management, and Story.
Don't get me wrong, there is a character building page - a couple, actually. But in the end, they play second fiddle to the other aspects of the game. They're there, but they do not have the greatest impact on the course of the game. Far from it. As the game progresses, the strategy and story components take center stage, and never leave it after. They even overwhelm the combat portion of the game in a game billed as a tactical RPG.
And thus, the rated aspects of Expeditions: Conquistador will be Combat, Exploration, Resource Management, and Story.
COMBAT ●○○○ (poor)
I enjoyed the combat of Expeditions: Conquistador - a whole lot actually - but it is bad. Which, at first glance, may seem like a bit of an oxymoron. But it is quite possible when the core of the combat system is good, but there are heaps of glaring issues that riddle that system full of holes. The core system is still fun, though, and one can get a lot of enjoyment out of it, if one is able to look past the flaws.
And the greatest of those flaws is enemy variety. There is none. Well, better to say there is so little that it often seems there is none. There are roughly a dozen classes in the game, but most are repeats of others with a minor variation. And that is a dozen classes for both you and the enemy both.
You see, in every battle, you are facing yourself. Over and over and over. It is such that, in one battle when you actually face a real mirror of your party, it is not one whit different than every single other fight you have ever faced. And with that realization, the entirety of the tension that such a battle should have engendered immediately evaporates.
Yes, there is some variation to the fights. Sometimes you will fight two Hunters, a Doctor, a Scout, and two Soldiers, and other times you will fight on Hunter, a Doctor, two Scouts, and two Soldiers. Of course, technically, you are often outnumbered, so there are further - slight - variations on that one theme. And then there are Indian versions of those classes, which have the remarkable feat of having one (sometimes two) different battle skills than their European counterparts and slightly different weapons.
But, there is no such thing here as fight against a single enemy with lots of hit points. Nor are there fights against masses of weak creatures to be found here. There are no enemies with unique abilities. There are no enemies with unique tactics. Here, there is only the same set battles against the same set enemies.
The real trouble in all this lies not in the above fact, though, but in that fact it is coupled with an the utter lack of variation from one member of a class to another. One Soldier is so close to the same as every other Soldier that they might as well be identical. There are no Attributes in these characters, you don't choose equipment for them, they don't have different battle options. Each and every member of a class is exactly the same barring their one differentiating stat - level. A level that can be 1, 2, or 3, for the most part. And soon after the game's beginning, you don't see 1s any more.
So, every Hunter you meet will be almost exactly like every other Hunter you've ever met or ever will meet. There aren't even the slight variations in function one might expect from, say, an elven Hunter versus a dwarven Hunter, since races aren't a factor in this game. Technically, there are Europeans and Indians, but they have only the barest differences in their combat skills, and thus they function on the battlefield exactly the same as each other.
And when I say that you don't equip your people, that is because there is no equipment in the game. At all. You do not buy equipment in Expeditions: Conquistador, or even maintain it. Characters start with a melee weapon, a ranged weapon, and a suit of armor, and they will keep that same setup for the entire game. You can have a character switch to one of the other two available melee weapons or the single other available ranged weapon by choosing a feat to give you that other weapon. For instance, changing from polearm to sword & shield. But there is, in practice, rarely any reason to spend one of a character's few feats on a minor change to weaponry.
The only "equipment" in the game is the "Equipment Pool", which is a pool of a single resource, much like, say, gold or rations is. The entire party has a pool of equipment, and you can attach these pieces of equipment to your weapons or armor at will, thus increasing their damage or defense value respectively. So, you can stick a bunch of equipment in armor for one battle to improve defense, but decide that for the next battle you want to improve damage, and yank all of the equipment out of the armor and stick it in your weapons. It is a freely interchangeable pool of bonus points, not actual equipment.
This system has several issues, one of which is the lack of diversity mentioned earlier. But there is a worse one here. Since Equipment is a single pool of points, there is no need to go in search of certain equipment. Wherever you go, wherever you are, there is only the one item available to purchase. And the stores periodically reset. Thus making it really easy to acquire enough "Equipment" to max out your characters. And once they are maxed, the Equipment Pool largely becomes a useless stat.
Now, put all of that together. Lack of enemy diversity, enemies the same as the player characters, no variation in combat techniques, no variety of weapons and armor, and only one combat resource. All of this comes together to form a highly repetitive combat system. So, you will develop a few tactics early on to win fights with, and never need to change your tactics thereafter, since there are no different fights.
Now, occasionally Expeditions: Conquistador will throw you a hitch with a unique battlemap that requires a slightly different approach. But the necessary change is always minimal, and those unique battlemaps are few and far between. There is a surprising variety to the normal battlemaps, though. A lot of locations have unique battlemaps - at least in their decoration. Most have a functionally similar battle area, beyond those rare few uniques, but I was pleasantly surprised and pleased with the variety of locational battlemaps available. Would that there were other enemies to fight upon them.
This heavily restricted combat style does have one advantage, though, in that combats are always pitched at the expected difficulty level. This can make for some tense and exciting outcomes. Especially in early days, or especially if you took Hunters into the combat. Because, in another odd decision, melee units always hit with their attacks, while ranged attacks have a percentage chance of missing. This mean Hunters (the ranged unit) tend to be wildly less effective than melee units. That is, they are until they are raised to at least level 3 and have a decent chance to hit.
I will state that again - melee units always hit. Now, place that next to the fact that you are always fighting the same fight. That means, when using melee fighters, there is very little change in outcome. Once you have a winning strategy developed, that strategy will always win. Always.
Since this is supposed to be a tactical RPG, there are a lot of fight here. A lot of fights of the same fight. There is no excuse for that in a tactical RPG. And that is what makes the combat bad.
The sad thing is, it is so close to being good. One little smidgen of variety to keep things new and different, to make you change your tactics, and the combat here would blossom. A simple element added, such as a wider variety of equipment (for the enemies, at least) that requires a change-up of tactics on the ground to defeat would do wonders for building excitement and tension into the combats. Or the introduction of animal enemies. Or, well, anything that made you reconsider your tactics. Any variety at all.
EXPLORATION ●●●○ (good)
But, there is no such thing here as fight against a single enemy with lots of hit points. Nor are there fights against masses of weak creatures to be found here. There are no enemies with unique abilities. There are no enemies with unique tactics. Here, there is only the same set battles against the same set enemies.
The real trouble in all this lies not in the above fact, though, but in that fact it is coupled with an the utter lack of variation from one member of a class to another. One Soldier is so close to the same as every other Soldier that they might as well be identical. There are no Attributes in these characters, you don't choose equipment for them, they don't have different battle options. Each and every member of a class is exactly the same barring their one differentiating stat - level. A level that can be 1, 2, or 3, for the most part. And soon after the game's beginning, you don't see 1s any more.
So, every Hunter you meet will be almost exactly like every other Hunter you've ever met or ever will meet. There aren't even the slight variations in function one might expect from, say, an elven Hunter versus a dwarven Hunter, since races aren't a factor in this game. Technically, there are Europeans and Indians, but they have only the barest differences in their combat skills, and thus they function on the battlefield exactly the same as each other.
And when I say that you don't equip your people, that is because there is no equipment in the game. At all. You do not buy equipment in Expeditions: Conquistador, or even maintain it. Characters start with a melee weapon, a ranged weapon, and a suit of armor, and they will keep that same setup for the entire game. You can have a character switch to one of the other two available melee weapons or the single other available ranged weapon by choosing a feat to give you that other weapon. For instance, changing from polearm to sword & shield. But there is, in practice, rarely any reason to spend one of a character's few feats on a minor change to weaponry.
The only "equipment" in the game is the "Equipment Pool", which is a pool of a single resource, much like, say, gold or rations is. The entire party has a pool of equipment, and you can attach these pieces of equipment to your weapons or armor at will, thus increasing their damage or defense value respectively. So, you can stick a bunch of equipment in armor for one battle to improve defense, but decide that for the next battle you want to improve damage, and yank all of the equipment out of the armor and stick it in your weapons. It is a freely interchangeable pool of bonus points, not actual equipment.
This system has several issues, one of which is the lack of diversity mentioned earlier. But there is a worse one here. Since Equipment is a single pool of points, there is no need to go in search of certain equipment. Wherever you go, wherever you are, there is only the one item available to purchase. And the stores periodically reset. Thus making it really easy to acquire enough "Equipment" to max out your characters. And once they are maxed, the Equipment Pool largely becomes a useless stat.
Now, put all of that together. Lack of enemy diversity, enemies the same as the player characters, no variation in combat techniques, no variety of weapons and armor, and only one combat resource. All of this comes together to form a highly repetitive combat system. So, you will develop a few tactics early on to win fights with, and never need to change your tactics thereafter, since there are no different fights.
Now, occasionally Expeditions: Conquistador will throw you a hitch with a unique battlemap that requires a slightly different approach. But the necessary change is always minimal, and those unique battlemaps are few and far between. There is a surprising variety to the normal battlemaps, though. A lot of locations have unique battlemaps - at least in their decoration. Most have a functionally similar battle area, beyond those rare few uniques, but I was pleasantly surprised and pleased with the variety of locational battlemaps available. Would that there were other enemies to fight upon them.
This heavily restricted combat style does have one advantage, though, in that combats are always pitched at the expected difficulty level. This can make for some tense and exciting outcomes. Especially in early days, or especially if you took Hunters into the combat. Because, in another odd decision, melee units always hit with their attacks, while ranged attacks have a percentage chance of missing. This mean Hunters (the ranged unit) tend to be wildly less effective than melee units. That is, they are until they are raised to at least level 3 and have a decent chance to hit.
I will state that again - melee units always hit. Now, place that next to the fact that you are always fighting the same fight. That means, when using melee fighters, there is very little change in outcome. Once you have a winning strategy developed, that strategy will always win. Always.
Since this is supposed to be a tactical RPG, there are a lot of fight here. A lot of fights of the same fight. There is no excuse for that in a tactical RPG. And that is what makes the combat bad.
The sad thing is, it is so close to being good. One little smidgen of variety to keep things new and different, to make you change your tactics, and the combat here would blossom. A simple element added, such as a wider variety of equipment (for the enemies, at least) that requires a change-up of tactics on the ground to defeat would do wonders for building excitement and tension into the combats. Or the introduction of animal enemies. Or, well, anything that made you reconsider your tactics. Any variety at all.
EXPLORATION ●●●○ (good)
Exploration is the highlight of Expeditions Conquistador. In fact, it's almost exploration in its ideal form. One doesn't simply explore here to find special stuff. Rather, scattered around the world map are cairns, which kind of represent mapping goals. The cairns are grouped into sets, such as the Swamp Set. Discover all the cairns of the swamp, and you have mapped the swamp. You get a smidge of experience for each cairn you find, and if you find them all, you can then collate your maps during camp and in so doing double the total of experience from each cairn.
The whole process really adds to the sense of you being an explorer of this new world, charting new territory, discovering new realms. And, indeed, that is one of your ostensible goals as a conquistador sent to the new world. Would that this aspect of the game was more written into the game proper. While it is ostensibly one of your missions, it is never mentioned by anyone. It isn't integral to the plot, nor to your overall, unstated goal for Spain (which is to amass a heap of gold). It is, instead, a replacement for treasure chests lying in hard to find places. And in that, it is an excellent replacement.
This, alone, almost makes the game. I have never had more fun exploring the map than I did searching out the cairns. And it almost almost almost gets this aspect of the game top marks, all by its lonesome. Unfortunately, it is by its lonesome. One little tweak somewhere, and this would get top marks. For instance, having mapping the world more integral to the storyline. Not necessarily central to the plot, but a secondary quest, or a part of the tally of your accomplished goals. Instead of simply an experience booster.
Or even, instead, having there be a second part to the exploration. New vistas to see that you can't find any other way. Different people to meet. Or, best of all, a notation of flora and fauna discovered in the new world.
Essentially, the plain, flat maps are what lessens the experience. That, and those obscuring jungle trees. Because of those trees, goodies that might be hidden instead have glowing lines piercing through the trees and up into the sky. You can't really miss them. But they almost have to be there, because if the glowy lines weren't there, it would be hard to see anything through the obscuring trees that lie everywhere. Which could even be a good thing - very jungle-like.
But you're not hacking a path through jungle here. Instead, there are solid jungle tiles you can't enter and paths running around these solid jungle tiles, and you follow along the paths. Very few areas have anything like a plains that you can wander any direction in. You are, really, in a giant overland maze with not all that many possibilities of traveling in. Which is one of the reasons a decorative 2d map would have served this game so much better.
RESOURCE MANAGEMENT ●●○○ (mediocre)
The averaging of all of the above lands the totaling of the review in between two points, so - as always - I get to decide which way to round.The whole process really adds to the sense of you being an explorer of this new world, charting new territory, discovering new realms. And, indeed, that is one of your ostensible goals as a conquistador sent to the new world. Would that this aspect of the game was more written into the game proper. While it is ostensibly one of your missions, it is never mentioned by anyone. It isn't integral to the plot, nor to your overall, unstated goal for Spain (which is to amass a heap of gold). It is, instead, a replacement for treasure chests lying in hard to find places. And in that, it is an excellent replacement.
This, alone, almost makes the game. I have never had more fun exploring the map than I did searching out the cairns. And it almost almost almost gets this aspect of the game top marks, all by its lonesome. Unfortunately, it is by its lonesome. One little tweak somewhere, and this would get top marks. For instance, having mapping the world more integral to the storyline. Not necessarily central to the plot, but a secondary quest, or a part of the tally of your accomplished goals. Instead of simply an experience booster.
Or even, instead, having there be a second part to the exploration. New vistas to see that you can't find any other way. Different people to meet. Or, best of all, a notation of flora and fauna discovered in the new world.
Essentially, the plain, flat maps are what lessens the experience. That, and those obscuring jungle trees. Because of those trees, goodies that might be hidden instead have glowing lines piercing through the trees and up into the sky. You can't really miss them. But they almost have to be there, because if the glowy lines weren't there, it would be hard to see anything through the obscuring trees that lie everywhere. Which could even be a good thing - very jungle-like.
But you're not hacking a path through jungle here. Instead, there are solid jungle tiles you can't enter and paths running around these solid jungle tiles, and you follow along the paths. Very few areas have anything like a plains that you can wander any direction in. You are, really, in a giant overland maze with not all that many possibilities of traveling in. Which is one of the reasons a decorative 2d map would have served this game so much better.
RESOURCE MANAGEMENT ●●○○ (mediocre)
At first blush, it seems that the resource management of Expeditions: Conquistador will be excellent. One actually must maintain adequate supplies of food and medicine to keep one's squad alive, as well as find ways to keep the money rolling in to pay for all of it. Not only that, there are other materials lying in wait, such as rope and metals, which are then used in the construction of traps.
And then, you have further resource management, in that your squad can only travel so far each day, and then they must camp, whereupon they begin consuming those resources. The more people in your party, the more they consume. But you can also use their skills to help you acquire more resources. It's all very exciting.
Until you start to really see it put into play. Metal, rope, stone, and everything else except gold, food, and medicine, are just found lying around in chests. It's an icon that is strangely disengaging. Wander around for a bit, and spot three chests lying on the ground, but these chests represent you mining metals or pulling vines, not finding treasure. Odd choice, when a couple of different static icons would have served much better.
But that's not the rough part. The rough part is, since there's all these chests and not many item types, one ends up with a whole bunch of those items sitting moldering away in your treasure carts. One can build traps with them, sure, but then one just ends up with bunches of traps sitting moldering away in your treasure carts, since one ends up with way more traps than one can actually use.
Food is similarly easy to stack. At the start, if you didn't bring any hunters along, it can be difficult to find enough food, and you'd need to buy some or starve. But bring a couple of hunters, and soon you're raking in so much food that you can actually start selling it in the markets for profit. And that's where the big resource management issue comes in. You can make way more gold doing that than you can adventuring.
This isn't a trade sim we're talking about here. This is an RPG adventure. It's an adventure where, in fact, your goal is to amass a certain amount of treasure. Do so, and you win. Fail, and you only kinda succeed. And you're supposed to be adventuring for Spain and the crown and yourself, exploring and gathering wealth in the name of Spain. But you make way more money and far more easily going hunting or doing odd jobs.
And then, you have further resource management, in that your squad can only travel so far each day, and then they must camp, whereupon they begin consuming those resources. The more people in your party, the more they consume. But you can also use their skills to help you acquire more resources. It's all very exciting.
Until you start to really see it put into play. Metal, rope, stone, and everything else except gold, food, and medicine, are just found lying around in chests. It's an icon that is strangely disengaging. Wander around for a bit, and spot three chests lying on the ground, but these chests represent you mining metals or pulling vines, not finding treasure. Odd choice, when a couple of different static icons would have served much better.
But that's not the rough part. The rough part is, since there's all these chests and not many item types, one ends up with a whole bunch of those items sitting moldering away in your treasure carts. One can build traps with them, sure, but then one just ends up with bunches of traps sitting moldering away in your treasure carts, since one ends up with way more traps than one can actually use.
Food is similarly easy to stack. At the start, if you didn't bring any hunters along, it can be difficult to find enough food, and you'd need to buy some or starve. But bring a couple of hunters, and soon you're raking in so much food that you can actually start selling it in the markets for profit. And that's where the big resource management issue comes in. You can make way more gold doing that than you can adventuring.
This isn't a trade sim we're talking about here. This is an RPG adventure. It's an adventure where, in fact, your goal is to amass a certain amount of treasure. Do so, and you win. Fail, and you only kinda succeed. And you're supposed to be adventuring for Spain and the crown and yourself, exploring and gathering wealth in the name of Spain. But you make way more money and far more easily going hunting or doing odd jobs.
A good illustration is El Dorado. Yes, the legendary City of Gold. With a bit of exploring, one can find it in the game. It's a ways of the beaten path, so the road there is long and rough. And getting in requires a little work, since there's a guard wall that you inexplicably can't build a ladder to climb over when you can easily build rafts to ford rivers. But oh well, that's a bit off-point.
So, you've made your way inside, and you've found the legendary city. Time for your reward. So, this city, this legend, this place that is the central goal of many great stories - your discovery is tossed off in a couple of sentences, one of which is a joke. And that's it for your discovery. Not at all fitting for something that is a legend. Finding El Dorado should mean something in the game. Even if it's not going to have a part to play in the overall story, legends need to be acknowledged. If they're going to be in the game, they can't simply be throwaway like that.
Well, you may say, there's still the monetary reward. And there is. It's 1800 gold. In contrast, you can win over 3800 competing in a tournament back at the beginning of the game. And you can earn more than 1800 hunting for food all the way up to El Dorado, and all the way back, if you have skilled enough hunters.
Finding El Dorado - the legendary City of Gold - gets you pittance. Hunting for food is a more efficient means of earning money than finding the City of Gold. There isn't even something like legendary trinkets that can't be used now, but can be brought back to Spain to earn you wealth and/or prestige back home. There's just 1800 gold, which in the game world is pocket change.1000 is handed out as reward for fetch quests all of the time.
It just doesn't work. Not, it just doesn't fit, though that's true too. It just doesn't work. If one gets more rewards for hunting than adventuring, why go adventuring? If the only pressure on food stores is if I didn't build my party correctly to gather it, then what purpose does it serve during the game? If treasure is so important for me to earn, then why is it one of the least detailed aspects of the game? Why isn't there treasure storage with all of the lovely items I'm bringing back to Spain? Why is there just gold, even when you're running around bartering?
Which brings up another resource issue. The bartering economy could be quite interesting. Particularly if you couldn't barter for gold, but could only barter for other items, or if there was another coin in operation, a coin of everyday use. But instead, gold is one of the only four items on offer, and thus you can drain the economies of every village you come to, and then come back for more when they auto-restock.
But, at least there are resources, and at least you need to use them. They aren't just for show. Your people do need to eat. Keeping them fed isn't particularly difficult. And you can even feed them double rations, which automatically raises their morale.
Morale being another resource with issues. Your characters have personalities, and your actions in the game can affect their morale, which can lead to mutiny. Exciting concept. But in practice, you just need to hand out double rations for an instant fix for morale for any decision you make, however hated, and then you can keep everyone's morale at its highest level.
Which, all together, leads to the average rating. The resource system in Expeditions: Conquistador isn't bad, it's just raw and underdeveloped. "Lifeless" is the way I would describe it in one word. Lifeless and lacking in substance.
STORY ●●○○ (mediocre)
So, you've made your way inside, and you've found the legendary city. Time for your reward. So, this city, this legend, this place that is the central goal of many great stories - your discovery is tossed off in a couple of sentences, one of which is a joke. And that's it for your discovery. Not at all fitting for something that is a legend. Finding El Dorado should mean something in the game. Even if it's not going to have a part to play in the overall story, legends need to be acknowledged. If they're going to be in the game, they can't simply be throwaway like that.
Well, you may say, there's still the monetary reward. And there is. It's 1800 gold. In contrast, you can win over 3800 competing in a tournament back at the beginning of the game. And you can earn more than 1800 hunting for food all the way up to El Dorado, and all the way back, if you have skilled enough hunters.
Finding El Dorado - the legendary City of Gold - gets you pittance. Hunting for food is a more efficient means of earning money than finding the City of Gold. There isn't even something like legendary trinkets that can't be used now, but can be brought back to Spain to earn you wealth and/or prestige back home. There's just 1800 gold, which in the game world is pocket change.1000 is handed out as reward for fetch quests all of the time.
It just doesn't work. Not, it just doesn't fit, though that's true too. It just doesn't work. If one gets more rewards for hunting than adventuring, why go adventuring? If the only pressure on food stores is if I didn't build my party correctly to gather it, then what purpose does it serve during the game? If treasure is so important for me to earn, then why is it one of the least detailed aspects of the game? Why isn't there treasure storage with all of the lovely items I'm bringing back to Spain? Why is there just gold, even when you're running around bartering?
Which brings up another resource issue. The bartering economy could be quite interesting. Particularly if you couldn't barter for gold, but could only barter for other items, or if there was another coin in operation, a coin of everyday use. But instead, gold is one of the only four items on offer, and thus you can drain the economies of every village you come to, and then come back for more when they auto-restock.
But, at least there are resources, and at least you need to use them. They aren't just for show. Your people do need to eat. Keeping them fed isn't particularly difficult. And you can even feed them double rations, which automatically raises their morale.
Morale being another resource with issues. Your characters have personalities, and your actions in the game can affect their morale, which can lead to mutiny. Exciting concept. But in practice, you just need to hand out double rations for an instant fix for morale for any decision you make, however hated, and then you can keep everyone's morale at its highest level.
Which, all together, leads to the average rating. The resource system in Expeditions: Conquistador isn't bad, it's just raw and underdeveloped. "Lifeless" is the way I would describe it in one word. Lifeless and lacking in substance.
STORY ●●○○ (mediocre)
The story of Expeditions: Conquistador is a difficult thing to assess. The descriptions and dialogue are such that they put many high end games to shame. Most people probably won't notice, since there is no voice acting, but the dialogue in some parts adds a great deal to the setting and the mystique of the adventure, particularly during those times when someone is showing a personality fitting for the days of the conquistadors.
You are even allowed to take racist individuals into your squad, and later take racist actions that will keep them happy, or marry a native and make them very unhappy. And there are many such excellent setting touches interspersed throughout Expeditions: Conquistador. Which is a solid benefit to the experience, which effect is magnified even more by many excellent descriptions of people and places - a trait that is largely lost in this era of 3d visuals and spoken dialogue.
It has been so long since I have read a vibrant description of a locale, something that spoke to me of place and time. Instead of showing you only visuals, "describing" things with empty rooms and sparse repeated furnishing, here you have full descriptions.
Sometimes.
Sometimes, though, you don't get much of anything. Sometimes, there is a sense of bits missing. Like there was an intention of doing a much larger and longer quest with a lot of different aspects to it, but time and money ran out, and the entire affair got cut down and patched over with a simple fight to close things up and give it some sense of completion.
The overall goals also lack a sense of focus. You aren't even just not told that your actual goal is to amass a bunch of gold, your character actually doesn't even have any personal goals that are described to you. You are told that you have come to Mexico in search of adventure But upon arrival, you don't actually go in search of adventure. You go in search of fetch quests, ultimately.
It's a strange thing. The story is obviously meant to be one where you and your squad arrive intent on doing some conquistadoring, but then you get swept up into a tale of local politics. Which you can then manipulate to your advantage in multiple ways. It's a great idea, and it's even well done at many points.
But it doesn't have the initial groundwork. You walk into Mexico, and the only things you can do are hunt, look for hidden secrets like El Dorado to get a pittance of cash, or begin the fetch quests and final plot. You never get to do the conquistadoring groundwork. And while the main plot lets you be a conquistador, if it doesn't bug out, it only lets you do so in a limited way, here and there during the story.
Your people fare just as lightly. You actually choose specific adventurers to take along with you on your journey to the New World, picking ten people out of several dozen (though battles disappointingly only let you use six at a time). Each of these adventurers is supposed to have their own personality. And they do, sort of. But they don't have an individual personality.
It's an odd little thing, actually. Each adventurer has 3 personality traits. For instance, Racist, Adventurous, Pious. And during the course of the adventure, occasionally you'll run into a story moment involving your characters. But it's not an individual character who has a story moment, instead it's a personality trait.
So, you're walking along, and you hit the Adventurous trigger. If one or more of your squad has the Adventurous trait (and it's likely, as there aren't that many traits), then one of those with the Adventurous traits is randomly chosen to have a conversation quest with you. So, as long as you have a character with that trait when the event is triggered, you will see that event.
Which is interesting. But at the same time, limiting. There can be no real squad interaction, since the members of the squad don't have their own unique personalities. There can be no diversity if everyone is just a limited number of slots to fit a given set of pegs. While it does ensure that these events occur, and don't remain hidden by not having the right people in the squad at the time, it also ekes out a little of the replayability of the game, since you are very likely to encounter every single character based event over the course of one game.
Like a lot of the facets of Expeditions: Conquistador, the story feels like a great idea, left unfinished. Even the name of the game somehow offers that sense. "Conquistadors" would be a good title, evocative of the game and the time, while also offering a touch of underhanded excitement. "Conquistador: Expedition to the New World" would be a decent title. Fitting an descriptive, at least. But instead we have what we have, and "Expeditions: Conquistador" feels more like a placeholder name waiting for the committee to give final approval on the actual title.
INTERFACE ●○○○ (poor)
Portraits for your people have an absolutely beautiful painted look, as do the pictures of locations and the posters for the loading screens. Unfortunately, more of these resources seem to have been devoted to portraits and loading screens than for locations. As in, there's a village graphics and a couple of city graphics, and they get re-used to cover all locations. But you have a couple dozen portraits. If the painting are going to be limited, this should be reversed.
Since there's no flavor to the world map, the location picture becomes key to giving a visual differentiation to the locales. That can also be done with words, but you've really got to have a flair for evoking place, and then have that description available at all times while there - like in a corner box. Expeditions: Conquistador does neither, which merely adds to the sense that being at El Dorado is no different than being at Tenochtitlan.
The interface for combat is much better handled. But it's purely functional, not evocative. It does the job, nothing more. Which is fine, but then, since nothing special is invoked here, and nothing special is evoked in the world map, and nothing special is evoked in the location pictures, that means there's never anything special being evoked anywhere.
There's no sense of place. No meaning to being in historical Mexico. No feel of history and location. You could be traipsing any jungle anywhere. And since the storyline is constantly struggling to establish a sense of place (and not always succeeding), one is left with an empty, ever-present struggle with the camera as the main connection you have with the game.
STABILITY ●●○○ (bad)
You are even allowed to take racist individuals into your squad, and later take racist actions that will keep them happy, or marry a native and make them very unhappy. And there are many such excellent setting touches interspersed throughout Expeditions: Conquistador. Which is a solid benefit to the experience, which effect is magnified even more by many excellent descriptions of people and places - a trait that is largely lost in this era of 3d visuals and spoken dialogue.
It has been so long since I have read a vibrant description of a locale, something that spoke to me of place and time. Instead of showing you only visuals, "describing" things with empty rooms and sparse repeated furnishing, here you have full descriptions.
Sometimes.
Sometimes, though, you don't get much of anything. Sometimes, there is a sense of bits missing. Like there was an intention of doing a much larger and longer quest with a lot of different aspects to it, but time and money ran out, and the entire affair got cut down and patched over with a simple fight to close things up and give it some sense of completion.
The overall goals also lack a sense of focus. You aren't even just not told that your actual goal is to amass a bunch of gold, your character actually doesn't even have any personal goals that are described to you. You are told that you have come to Mexico in search of adventure But upon arrival, you don't actually go in search of adventure. You go in search of fetch quests, ultimately.
It's a strange thing. The story is obviously meant to be one where you and your squad arrive intent on doing some conquistadoring, but then you get swept up into a tale of local politics. Which you can then manipulate to your advantage in multiple ways. It's a great idea, and it's even well done at many points.
But it doesn't have the initial groundwork. You walk into Mexico, and the only things you can do are hunt, look for hidden secrets like El Dorado to get a pittance of cash, or begin the fetch quests and final plot. You never get to do the conquistadoring groundwork. And while the main plot lets you be a conquistador, if it doesn't bug out, it only lets you do so in a limited way, here and there during the story.
Your people fare just as lightly. You actually choose specific adventurers to take along with you on your journey to the New World, picking ten people out of several dozen (though battles disappointingly only let you use six at a time). Each of these adventurers is supposed to have their own personality. And they do, sort of. But they don't have an individual personality.
It's an odd little thing, actually. Each adventurer has 3 personality traits. For instance, Racist, Adventurous, Pious. And during the course of the adventure, occasionally you'll run into a story moment involving your characters. But it's not an individual character who has a story moment, instead it's a personality trait.
So, you're walking along, and you hit the Adventurous trigger. If one or more of your squad has the Adventurous trait (and it's likely, as there aren't that many traits), then one of those with the Adventurous traits is randomly chosen to have a conversation quest with you. So, as long as you have a character with that trait when the event is triggered, you will see that event.
Which is interesting. But at the same time, limiting. There can be no real squad interaction, since the members of the squad don't have their own unique personalities. There can be no diversity if everyone is just a limited number of slots to fit a given set of pegs. While it does ensure that these events occur, and don't remain hidden by not having the right people in the squad at the time, it also ekes out a little of the replayability of the game, since you are very likely to encounter every single character based event over the course of one game.
Like a lot of the facets of Expeditions: Conquistador, the story feels like a great idea, left unfinished. Even the name of the game somehow offers that sense. "Conquistadors" would be a good title, evocative of the game and the time, while also offering a touch of underhanded excitement. "Conquistador: Expedition to the New World" would be a decent title. Fitting an descriptive, at least. But instead we have what we have, and "Expeditions: Conquistador" feels more like a placeholder name waiting for the committee to give final approval on the actual title.
INTERFACE ●○○○ (poor)
The interface is one of the weakest points of Expeditions: Conquistador. The overall presentation of the world is 2.5d isometric, which is fine. But not as it's presented.
Essentially, the world map is a 3d build zoomed in tight on your character in 2.5d. Which is a huge waste of resources, especially the way Expeditions: Conquistador uses them. Despite the low-end look to the graphics, Expeditions: Conquistador is a huge memory hog. It plays fine on the island, but move to Mexico, and it becomes a huge drain on resources. An update has thinned the memory demands out a great deal, but it can only do so much when the game is build around being a huge resource hog. What's actually going on under the hood, I don't know, but it's probably processing the entire map all the time, or some such.
And there's absolutely no reason for it. A flat 2d map would have worked just as well for what you do on the world map, and wouldn't have caused this issue. The 3d assets that the world is built from don't add anything to the atmosphere. In fact, most of the time, they detract from it. You're traipsing through jungle most of the time. Which means endless jungle trees (of which there's not a lot of variety of type) scattered everywhere in 2.5d, with you buried underneath them.
Full 3d might have given people that sense of immersion that everyone always talks about, despite the low end graphics. While in 2d, the huge amount of resources that went into developing that 3d map could have all been spent making an absolutely gorgeous and varied 2d map backdrop that you wander across.
But instead, what Expeditions: Conquistador gives is the worst of both worlds - the ugliness and repetitiveness of standard 3d graphics coupled with the awkward interface of 2.5d, ending with you constantly having to futz with the camera just to try to see where you are and where you're going. Not that it really matters where you're going, since there aren't many 3d assets here. It's all jungle all the time, and the same few trees making that all jungle all the time happen.
And there's no reason for it. Because you don't really interact with anything at that level. It functions exactly like an overworld map of many an RPG, where you just traipse across it, and then when you get somewhere, it loads up the actual location - including whenever there's a battle loading up a separate battle map. There's no reason for the world map to be that awkward and hard to use, since it doesn't add anything to the immersion.
Essentially, the world map is a 3d build zoomed in tight on your character in 2.5d. Which is a huge waste of resources, especially the way Expeditions: Conquistador uses them. Despite the low-end look to the graphics, Expeditions: Conquistador is a huge memory hog. It plays fine on the island, but move to Mexico, and it becomes a huge drain on resources. An update has thinned the memory demands out a great deal, but it can only do so much when the game is build around being a huge resource hog. What's actually going on under the hood, I don't know, but it's probably processing the entire map all the time, or some such.
And there's absolutely no reason for it. A flat 2d map would have worked just as well for what you do on the world map, and wouldn't have caused this issue. The 3d assets that the world is built from don't add anything to the atmosphere. In fact, most of the time, they detract from it. You're traipsing through jungle most of the time. Which means endless jungle trees (of which there's not a lot of variety of type) scattered everywhere in 2.5d, with you buried underneath them.
Full 3d might have given people that sense of immersion that everyone always talks about, despite the low end graphics. While in 2d, the huge amount of resources that went into developing that 3d map could have all been spent making an absolutely gorgeous and varied 2d map backdrop that you wander across.
But instead, what Expeditions: Conquistador gives is the worst of both worlds - the ugliness and repetitiveness of standard 3d graphics coupled with the awkward interface of 2.5d, ending with you constantly having to futz with the camera just to try to see where you are and where you're going. Not that it really matters where you're going, since there aren't many 3d assets here. It's all jungle all the time, and the same few trees making that all jungle all the time happen.
And there's no reason for it. Because you don't really interact with anything at that level. It functions exactly like an overworld map of many an RPG, where you just traipse across it, and then when you get somewhere, it loads up the actual location - including whenever there's a battle loading up a separate battle map. There's no reason for the world map to be that awkward and hard to use, since it doesn't add anything to the immersion.
Portraits for your people have an absolutely beautiful painted look, as do the pictures of locations and the posters for the loading screens. Unfortunately, more of these resources seem to have been devoted to portraits and loading screens than for locations. As in, there's a village graphics and a couple of city graphics, and they get re-used to cover all locations. But you have a couple dozen portraits. If the painting are going to be limited, this should be reversed.
Since there's no flavor to the world map, the location picture becomes key to giving a visual differentiation to the locales. That can also be done with words, but you've really got to have a flair for evoking place, and then have that description available at all times while there - like in a corner box. Expeditions: Conquistador does neither, which merely adds to the sense that being at El Dorado is no different than being at Tenochtitlan.
The interface for combat is much better handled. But it's purely functional, not evocative. It does the job, nothing more. Which is fine, but then, since nothing special is invoked here, and nothing special is evoked in the world map, and nothing special is evoked in the location pictures, that means there's never anything special being evoked anywhere.
There's no sense of place. No meaning to being in historical Mexico. No feel of history and location. You could be traipsing any jungle anywhere. And since the storyline is constantly struggling to establish a sense of place (and not always succeeding), one is left with an empty, ever-present struggle with the camera as the main connection you have with the game.
STABILITY ●●○○ (bad)
This is the category I hate to include. But in the case of Expeditions: Conquistador, it must be included. This game has some serious issues. The memory issue has already been mentioned. This game can really push computers hard in Mexico, despite its low-end graphics.
But there's more than that. Much more. There are frequent crash-bugs. One that a lot of people encounter is when leaving the island for Mexico, the game crashes when loading Mexico. The issue is your squad, strangely enough. And the workaround is to unassign all your squad on the selection screen, then reselect them. This bypasses whatever issue it is. Sad, but true.
And it's not even a new issue. This is an old issue, still not fixed.
Another was save corruption in Mexico, occurring when you made a save, then loaded an earlier save. That one I encountered, too. It may have been fixed in the latest patch, but I didn't test for it. The workaround is - never reload an older save while in Mexico, always only load your latest save.
Even then, the save loads in with errors. The main error being - it borks the auto-map. All of your discovered locations remain on the map, so it's not so terribly bad, but the territory picture in between those points disappears every time you load a save.
Then some quests are bugged. You can even bug out the main quest and be unable to complete the game on your current save. Coupled with the save corruption issue, this one was nasty.
And on, and on. This is not a stable game, and don't expect all of its issues to ever be fixed. You will have to fight some serious bugs now and again to keep playing. There is a sense here, at all times, that Expeditions: Conquistador was sent out the door incomplete. Incomplete not just in features, but in programming.
ENJOYMENT
But there's more than that. Much more. There are frequent crash-bugs. One that a lot of people encounter is when leaving the island for Mexico, the game crashes when loading Mexico. The issue is your squad, strangely enough. And the workaround is to unassign all your squad on the selection screen, then reselect them. This bypasses whatever issue it is. Sad, but true.
And it's not even a new issue. This is an old issue, still not fixed.
Another was save corruption in Mexico, occurring when you made a save, then loaded an earlier save. That one I encountered, too. It may have been fixed in the latest patch, but I didn't test for it. The workaround is - never reload an older save while in Mexico, always only load your latest save.
Even then, the save loads in with errors. The main error being - it borks the auto-map. All of your discovered locations remain on the map, so it's not so terribly bad, but the territory picture in between those points disappears every time you load a save.
Then some quests are bugged. You can even bug out the main quest and be unable to complete the game on your current save. Coupled with the save corruption issue, this one was nasty.
And on, and on. This is not a stable game, and don't expect all of its issues to ever be fixed. You will have to fight some serious bugs now and again to keep playing. There is a sense here, at all times, that Expeditions: Conquistador was sent out the door incomplete. Incomplete not just in features, but in programming.
ENJOYMENT
This is a tough one, though. I can't really recommend a game that is this unstable. On top of that, there are so many incomplete or undercooked features here, such as fighting the same enemies over and over and over again. But (and this is a big but), this is the game I've had the most fun with so far out of the latest crop of RPGs. And that's because, lying underneath all of the undercooked layers, there lies the core of a really good game here.
A little bit more polish, and that core could be brought forth to shine, exposing the gem that currently lies so very hidden. Unfortunately, Logic Artists will never be able to perform that polish. As in indie company without a bunch of extra funds lying around, they've got to keep moving or die. So, there will be patches, but there will always be issues. When playing Expeditions: Conquistador, you just have to accept that.
In the end, I decided to round up, simply because of the amount of enjoyment I had while playing, and all of the interesting ideas this game incorporates. Expeditions: Conquistador is a rare treat, and I dearly want to rate it higher. But in its current state, it can only be given a:
FINAL VERDICT ●●○○ (mediocre)
* this review was made after almost completing Expeditions: Conquistador on Hard on PC, but getting bugged out of completion. Grr!
