Expeditions: Conquistador Reviews

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Written by WorstUsernameEver on June 7th, 2013

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To give a final overview of E:C is difficult, but I would sum the game up as a crowning first achievement for the Logic Artists. With a meagre budget, they have brought to our hard-drives a roleplaying-strategy-adventure hybrid which cribs from all the best of those genres. I found the turn-based combat compelling, and rarely boring. Each battle was a chance to test new tactical permutations, and because of the injuries your followers might incur in combat, I was often forced to use different combinations of followers in different fights. The resource management and exploration systems reward the player for engaging with the game world, and provide a steady challenge to navigating and discovering these foreign lands. The over-arching narrative which communicates all the themes of the early colonial project discovery, civilisation, proselytization, conflict, transformation, and adventure is thoroughly engaging, and offers at minimum, two complete playthroughs of the Hispaniola Mexico campaign. A complete run of an entire campaign takes about 30-35 hours in total, and I would argue that the structure of the campaigns is similar to a Pen & Paper progression, in which Hispaniola is the low-level (1-3) campaign in which you kit out your party and begin to improve their skills, while Mexico is a targeted at the medium levels (3-5), in which the party is already capable and must now put its capabilities to the test. Overall, E:C is an excellent addition to the pantheon of turn-based cRPG hybrids, which stays true to the traditions of its forebears, while offering something fresh and exciting. I, for one, would dearly love to see E:C get the proposed Peru-Inca campaign expansion that was originally proposed as a stretch goal during the crowdfunding campaign.

Expeditions: Conquistador and what hopefully will be known as the Expeditions franchise still has a lot of room to grow: some systems could use fleshing out, balancing could be improved and more exciting exploration would be a boon. But in spite of some weaknesses Expeditions: Conquistador delivers a solid and engaging experience thanks to a solid turn-based combat system and the mechanically simple yet effective text adventure narrative. And it's lifted above the norm thanks to taking some risks with its historic setting and some unusual game mechanics. In my opinion, this is an exemplary indie game. If what I wrote in this review sounds at all interesting to you, I encourage you to give Expeditions: Conquistador a try.

Expeditions: Conquistador is a deep delve into the 1500's with its dark story and multiple ways to proceed with it. The gameplay elements mix nicely and are well put together although a bit more polish would have been nice.

Frustrations plague this game however with regards to babysitting your followers and contesting the sometimes unfair AI in combat but learn how to contend with these and you will be immersed.

Conquistador is an enjoyable, thoughtful game that puts you under the helmet of a Spanish colonialist. The game play is solid, the mechanics are good, and the graphics are more than satisfactory. The real highlight of the game is the setting and the moral quandaries it presents. Your actions have consequences that affect your party and your environment, and they can often lead to an eventual decay of morale (and morality) that's an interesting component to an otherwise solid, if mildly standard, strategy RPG.

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