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Has any one played it? What do you think of it? I enjoyed Age of Wonder a lot for example, and Jagged Alliance II. Is it somewhat comparable?

Thanks in advance!

I should preface this by saying that I've only played the game for about four hours.

The game has a lot to recommend about it, but I really couldn't get into it. I'll try to list the good things first:

-The campaign map is *very* pretty, and the season changes are very well done.
-The music, while there isn't a whole lot of it, is also gorgeous.
-The voice acting, when present, tends to be of a reliable (if unremarkable) quality.
-The inclusion of quests and scales between good/evil and christian/pagan are nicely implemented, and (I imagine) make for a very different gameplay experience for each run-through.

My main issue with the game, however, was that I just couldn't stand the basic gameplay. It's set up very much as a total war game, only with heroes, magic, and buildings on the battlefield that give you special abilities. Which, if it was well done, would be great. But I really found the battles to be headache-inducing, and very stressful, without a whole lot of good points. Here're some of my issues:
-It can become very, very difficult to identify which units you have selected on the battlefield (Total War's system of highlighting selected units seems to have been ignored...)
-There are no (as far as I could see) synched fighting animations, so your units just half-heartedly swing at the air in front of them, and their enemies will die looking like they're having heart attacks more than falling in battle.
-Total War has done a bang-up job of implementing the strategic benefits of flanking your enemy, making the general's presence comfort his troops, making his death demoralize them, et cetera. I'm not saying that KATRPWG doesn't have these effects, but the suspicion that it didn't made me wonder if I wasn't planning all my tactics for nothing.
-I actually felt that there was a substantial drop in the quality of graphics between the campaign map and battle map; it all just seemed almost cartoony, in a way I found very distracting. The archer animation (particularly their arrows) looked atrocious.

... You get the idea. And, like I said, I didn't play the game for all that long, so it's entirely possible that it got a lot better after the first stretch. Still, I really found that a lot of highly-polished details in the game couldn't hide what I felt was overall poor gameplay. Still, I think supporting smaller games companies is an important cause, and if you're able to find it on sale, go ahead and buy it. You might like it a lot more than I did.

Garriath wrote:...Still, I think supporting smaller games companies is an important cause, and if you're able to find it on sale, go ahead and buy it. You might like it a lot more than I did.

Really? If I don't like the game, should I still buy it even if it came from an underdog? If you ask me, I would give a flat no with a capital 'N'. You buy games that you like, not out of pity.

About this game, I haven't gave it a shot yet but from what I've seen of the videos uploaded at the GB's youtube page, it plays a lot like the Total War games, as pointed out by Garriath. I recall that the developer did release a demo a while back and it's hosted at several gaming sites (Big Download, Gamespot, etc.), so best to try them first before buying it. I also plan to look into it when I have the time.

Didn't know about the demo. Thanks for that.

Garriat's impressions didn't stem me hopeful, though.

DesR85 wrote:Really? If I don't like the game, should I still buy it even if it came from an underdog? If you ask me, I would give a flat no with a capital 'N'. You buy games that you like, not out of pity.

Oh, I didn't mean to say that I bought it out of pity. I really did feel that the company brought a lot to the table that a lot of other games haven't. Did I really enjoy it? No, not really. Do I think that the company could easily produce something that I would? Absolutely. A few years back, I bought Mount & Blade and Fable around the same time, and was amazed at how incredibly better M&B was, while clearly being made at a tiny fraction of Fable's budget. While I didn't enjoy the final product of KATRPWG, I saw a lot of innovation that, combined with a different project, could really make a masterpiece. In that respect, I don't mind having bought the game one bit.

I wasn't assuming that you did. I just pointed out the statement of supporting smaller developers as a worthy cause is silly (as if they deserve people's pity). Kind of like putting this along the same lines as 'Eradicating Poverty Worldwide' or 'Earth Day'.