Blackguards 2 (PC) Review

Far too often, when searching for a 'dark' fantasy game, it is easy to stumble on to a confusing and often surprisingly bland mishmash of games that take the term to little more than a shallow skin. These are the games where elves are people-eating forest-dwellers, the games where dwarves would sell their own mothers for coin, and where the undead are, arguably, the least disturbing aspects of life. Therefore, after years of being shown fairies that are little more than flying imps with terrifying bodies, why does Blackguards 2 elect a sigh of relief?

Well, simply put, it finally gets it right. Right from the starting scene the game makes it clear that it is NOT about to sugar-coat things as its very own opening cut-scene features a cat being murdered before introducing players to the main character, Cassia. She is a young noblewoman whom has been cast down into a spider-filled dungeon and left to die at the hands of sacred spiders. Sacred spiders whose venom destroys either the victim's mind or the victim's body and the average survival time is less than a month. Cassia lasts two years.

Two years of constant spider bites. Two years that have horribly mutilated her and left her of questionable sanity with only spiders, her guard, and herself to talk to, and only a single book to read. When she finally escapes from the dungeon, she sets out for revenge upon those whom imprisoned her, struggling against the might of an empire and trying to keep the poison that now flows through her blood from eating away at her mind.

So much of this game deserves praise, or at least notation. As a turn-based strategy RPG, some of the trappings are fairly obvious and straightforward. The combat takes place on a hex-grid; combat unfolds as a series of strategic motions and attacks relying on careful plotting, positioning, and the like, and the fighting tends to focus heavily on individual units and their strengths and weaknesses, as opposed to large-scale army tactics.

However, where the game really starts to stand out is its skill system and the world map/conquest. Unlike in many other RPGs, there are no experience points. It is entirely possible to end the game with as much health or mana as the character had way back at the start of the game. Instead, what Blackguards 2 does is, after each battle, the player is provided with 'adventure points' that can be then turned around and spent to gain various abilities, spells, and upgrades. Cassia may start and end the game with 40 HP, but thanks to those points, she may end it with a plethora of magical spells at her disposal, as well as being a master swordswoman. This unique levelling system, despite having a bit of repetition, obvious upgrades, and the like, is very unique, great for customisation, and generally great all-around.

Then there is the world/conquest map. Cassia, in order to overthrow the current ruler, obviously needs to both get to him and raise an army to do so. However, such a thing is easier said than done and Cassia must take over many cities and lands to get there first. This is handled via the world map. When it comes time to progress forwards, the player can select one of several locations from the world map to launch an assault upon. Capturing a place not only gives adventure points and moves Cassia closer to her goal, but each place provides upgrades, items, and the like for Cassia and her army. Taking over a certain place can grant, say, a 20% increase to fire damage for all of the troops, for example. It is not enough to just take a place, though, as Cassia must also hold on to it. Attacks can be launched on her lands, as well, and she must defend them with her mercenaries, relying on traps and careful placement to keep people from taking over her lands and weakening her armies on the whole.

Then the story comes into play. Is Cassia a nice woman struggling to keep her sanity, or a cruel or insane ruler? It is hard to tell when she is constantly talking to herself and her pet spider, reassuring herself that she is sane, while relying on potential torture, lies, or bargains with her prisoners to do things such as poisoning enemy commanders to achieve her goals. Cassia herself, along with her companions, is well presented as a potentially crazy ruler and her struggle is interesting to watch. The world around her is also tainted and falling to corruption as wizards have taken to creating horrible crimes against nature in the form of chimeras to serve their master and bugs that easily rank among the more annoying enemies in gaming history. It's not that there aren't good people in the world, though, as some can be met and are clearly either innocent or noble at the least, just placed in the wrong place at the wrong time.

However, here is where the games many problems start to well up. Although the story of Cassia is well-presented, her struggle with her companions is not. Each of them has some personal goal to accomplish but none of them seem to be fully realised by the game's end and, after a while, the companions seem distant and little more than just ordinary foot soldiers. Despite its attempts to flesh them out, at the end of the day, they end up being little more than powerful foot soldiers.

The real problem, however, stems from the difficulty. Having a tough or challenging game is fine and fair, but at times this can be downright unfair. For example, in one boss fight there is a need to cross a small bridge. At first this seems like such a simple task as to not even register as an actual task. Then a giant log swings down and knocks whichever fool didn't know that such a thing was even possible down into the lava without warning. The chimeras will, without fail, frustrate the player horribly and, even on easy, can result in many restarts and retries just because a sand ghost decided to constantly knock down units. Then come the bugs. Bugs. BUGS! They can fly to any square they so choose, tend to attack in swarms, and are far from frail. They can fly over traps, bypass defences, and deal large chunks of damage before going down at last. Difficulty like this ends up being frustrating because it is entirely possible for a battle plan to fail as a result, and elect a restart.

Worst of all are the actual bugs, though. Despite being playable and good, some things are clearly unfinished. For example, sometimes when one of the tree-chimera poisons a unit, the battle log will show ' poisons X'. Some enemies will lock-up and not end their turns, and other such things can happen. While these may be ironed out later, the game still needs some fixes that should have been sorted before launch.