Barbarous 2 - Tavern Wars

[i]Barbarous 2 - Tavern Wars[/i] is a time management game developed by SQRT3 and published by GameHouse. It is the sequel to [i]Barbarous - Tavern of Emyr[/i], which can also be found on Steam. Like in the first game, you take on the role of Emyr (for a lot of the levels), who is happily running his tavern back in his hometown. However, Emyr's rival, Paladin McArthus, a world-renowned hero, plans to open his own chain of taverns. When Emyr refuses McArthus' offer to buy up his tavern, McArthus proposes a challenge. Whoever wins the Culinary Critic's favor will win and the loser has to close his own tavern(s). Emyr readily accepts the challenge, unaware that McArthus will use any means to win. Along with that, the son of Emyr's main enemy (from the first game) wants revenge on Emyr [spoiler]for the murder of his father[/spoiler], and Gwen, Emyr's daughter, is caught in a squabble between becoming a hero, like her dad, or becoming a queen, like her mother. I'll end my story synopsis here to avoid spoilers and all that. In regards to the gameplay, you can choose among three difficulty levels. (For purposes of this review, I chose to play on normal difficulty.) There are a total of 60 story levels, and in each level, you have to serve customers either at the counter or at the tables. Depending on how quickly you serve them, they'll give a maximum of 5 hearts. In addition, you're given an optional task, and there are rats to find. (For anyone familiar with GameHouse games, rats are the equivalent of mice.) Assuming that you complete the optional task, find the rat, and serve the customers quickly, you can earn up to 5 diamonds per level. Diamonds can be used to customize Gwen's carriage (purely for cosmetic purposes). There are the usual Steam/in-game achievements although no Steam trading cards at the time of this review. Now that I've gone over the story and gameplay, I'll move onto my critique. I highly enjoyed [i]Barbarous - Tavern of Emyr[/i], so I totally looked forward to this sequel. First, the story is just as enjoyable as I remember. I like getting to follow Emyr and Gwen on their adventures as they get involved in McArthus' tavern wars. GameHouse games are very well known for conveying a great story, and this one is full of humor and adventure. It was great to see Gwen taking on a more active role in the family business (well, both, I suppose) along with her struggle with just wanting to be a normal teenage girl. Emyr is just as funny as I remember, and I like the surrounding cast of characters. A lot of characters from the first game return here, and of course, there are the addition of a few new characters, like McArthus. As for the gameplay, I found it enjoyable as always. I didn't have trouble with the levels themselves, as I was able to earn 5 diamonds on each level pretty easily, even towards the last few levels where a flood of customers would suddenly enter. There was only one level which was glitchy for me since Emyr would get stuck making an item and thus, couldn't complete it. I had to restart that level, and then that issue was gone. As for the achievements, they're all obtainable although I should give a heads up that for a few of them, you will need to replay levels, anywhere from a few to several times. In particular, the ones I had to replay were for the Spacetime Bender (which is an obvious one), Waldo 3, and Master Raider 3. For the latter two achievements, I found myself having to grind to get them because according to the game, you have to complete 80 levels to get these achievements. However, the game itself has 60 levels, so unless it was originally supposed to have some additional levels, I'm not sure why 80 levels was necessary. However, I had no issue getting the other achievements. In regards to the art, it has that same colorful, somewhat cartoony style like in the first game. There weren't really any changes, so I won't comment too much more on that. Finally, on the soundtrack, there are a couple of new tracks although most of the tracks are the same as in the game. This isn't too much of a surprise, though, since most of the locations are the same as in the first game. (I believe there is only one new location here, and an old location from the first game doesn't appear.) The tracks are fun to listen to and depict the theme of the game very well. Overall, would I recommend [i]Barbarous 2 - Tavern Wars[/i]? If you enjoy time management games and especially enjoyed [i]Barbarous - Tavern of Emyr[/i], then you should totally give this a try. It was a lot of fun to play, and the story ends off on a cliffhanger, possibly hinting at a future game in the series. I'm glad that GameHouse picked this up and published it on Steam, and it would be great to have more of these TMs here. For the asking price, I'd suggest holding off for a sale, as it is a bit on the pricey side for the total gameplay time. Even though I replayed several levels to get all of the achievements, it took me just a little over 7.5 hours to 100% complete the game. However, it is worth getting on a sale. ^^ [quote]Flying free and writing reviews solely for [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/44702020/]The Introverted Gamer[/url].[/quote]

[code][url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/33025671-Missi-the-Achievement-Huntress/] Please see my curator page for more games that are well worth your time[/url][/code] [b]Approximate amount of time to 100%:[/b] 9h [b]Estimated achievement difficulty:[/b] 2/10 [b]Minimum number of playthroughs needed:[/b] 1 [b]Is there a good guide available:[/b] No, but you don't need a guide [b]Multiplayer achievements:[/b] No [b]Missable achievements:[/b] No [b]Grinding Achievements:[/b] Not really [b]DLC-Only achievements:[/b] No [b]Speedrun achievements:[/b] No [b]Time-gated achievements:[/b] No [b]RNG-achievements:[/b] No [b]Does difficulty affect achievements:[/b] No, you can play on the easiest difficulty [b]Unobtainable/glitched achievements:[/b] No Yay, another entry in the Barbarous series by GameHouse games and SQRT3! I love their time management games a lot. This one is one of the better GameHouse games in my opinion because it doesn't have the mini-games some of the other games have that would work great with a touchscreen but less great and more rsi inducing with a computer mouse. You join Emyr in another great adventure while running all sorts of taverns. You switch locations every 5 levels but will come back to earlier ones later on. It keeps the levels fresh even when playing through the whole game in a short amount of time. For me, this also helped because you can think "ah let's do quickly 5 levels before having to work, or making dinner". That was a bit harder when you have 10 levels in the same area. You can still do 5 levels of course, but it feels more natural to take a quick break after 5 levels in this game. This game has a few stressful taverns, Especially the McArthus location felt stressful because there will be a lot of customers that want to be helped quickly, and there you have to do more to make the food. But it is all still very doable. Speaking about doable, I just love this type of game and I think I'm quite good at it, but I think it is easy to unlock all the achievements for this game. You can do the 3 stars on each level and the challenge on different tries, but most of the time doing the objective of that level helps you get the 3 stars aka getting a good score. You will have to fulfill more objectives than there are levels but that is because you can replay levels and still get progress on those achievements. So if you still need some challenges complete or rats found on levels, just go to one of the earlier levels and do that there. For making an X amount of dishes on a location you don't need orders, you can just keep making them and throw them away if you still need a few after finishing that location. You will know when you will not come back to a location because there are achievements tight to that as well.

Et voici une excellente suite pour un time management de qualité ! On y retrouve bien tout ce qui a fait le charme du précédent volet : les personnages attachants, les différentes ambiances de tavernes originales, les challenges équilibrés, la bande son, l'humour. Ca fonctionne une fois encore. Ici il est question de découvrir un petit peu plus les motivations d'Emyr et les origines ainsi que les responsabilités de son adolescente. Comme d'ordinaire et chez tous les GameHouse, la trame se déroule en 60 chapitres, composés de plusieurs lieux. Chaque niveaux est récompensé par 3 chopes et agrémentés d'un défi bonus. Il faudra également trouvé le petit compagnon rat dans chaques lieux. Les succès se débloquent sans souci, il faudra juste un peu de farming pour en venir à bout. Les joyaux, récompenses de vos victoires, vous permettront de débloquer des décorations pour la roulotte de la compagnie d'aventuriers. Comme toujours le charme opère et même si la difficulté est moindre, même en mode hardu, ça reste un agréable moment qui m'a tirée quelques sourires entre les clichés jdr et les références amusantes. Je valide sans souci.

I have to admit the music from the loading screen gives me that Witcher feel and I kinda love it for that, I enjoyed the story and the whole tavern rivalry. The achievements are pretty easy to obtain on hard mode, just a lot of repeating levels. Was kinda disappointed that you complete the game with tons of diamonds and upgrading the wagon was literally a few clicks and it was completed. I'm eager to see if there will be a follow up again, would be great to see if Katara will be saved after all and if Gwen became queen or the badass adventurer. Would love to see a whole adventure to reunite Amyr, Kitara and Gwen as one happy family again!!

Rywal Emyra z dawnych lat, paladyn McArthus, pewnego dnia zjawia się w jego karczmie i oświadcza, że również zamierza spróbować sił w tym biznesie. Tym samym rywalizacja byłych już bohaterów wkracza na zupełnie nowe poletko. Fabułę śledzi się dość ciekawie. Ma swoje małe zwroty akcji, sporo humoru i całkiem przyjemnych bohaterów. Choć uważam, że historia z poprzedniej części była trochę bardziej angażująca, to wciąż jest zadowalająco. Rozgrywka to absolutna powtórka z rozrywki, czyli ponownie mamy do czynienia z obsługiwaniem klientów prowadzonych karczm, a więc sprawnym podawaniu im oczekiwanych dań, napojów bądź przedmiotów. Na dłuższą metę szkoda, że nie urozmaicono rozgrywki minigrami obecnymi w niektórych tytułach wydawanych przez GameHouse. Podobnie jak w części pierwszej gra nie zapamiętuje ustawień języka, uruchamiając się zawsze po angielsku. Zmiana na polski to co prawda tylko dwa kliknięcia, ale mimo wszystko dziwne, że tego nie naprawiono. Gra kończy się cliffhangerem, pozostaje więc czekać na część trzecią (która wg strony SQRT3 powstaje). 6/10

Super fun sequel, good story and gameplay. Although the final levels on the hard mode are really insane.

This game mechanics are just like the original and the story line was interesting, but the dialog, at least in English, was very strange in some of the cut scenes. It gave me the impression that the text was translated poorly from another language because the grammar and vocabulary were off. This was very disappointing because the corny banter was one of my favorite things about the first game. The game is still fun, just not as engrossing as the first one.

Well. It is SQRT3 and their time managers, I love them. There are no new mechanics in the game and for some reason QTE's are not in this game even though they were in the first. Story is good even though my racist/xenophobic ass doesn't feel good about Gween's boyfriend and her father, seems to be way too aceptive about him despite killing hundreds of orcs. Sorry but I don't believe in Emyr's acceptance of Rogz (halforc boyfriend of Gwen who is also son of previous game main villian Rush a Doom) I mean he is barbarian and barbarians are ruthles killers, they killed and raided other tribes for praying to different gods or even less. And I would understand if Rogz at least showed him his strenght and power, because we all know that is what all barbarians respect, but he didn't Rogz is a bard which comes with being a wuss. So that kinda makes Emyr a double Cuculus canorus. Anyway it is only part of the plot. Second part is in the name of the game Tavern Wars. New character appears in this game, his name is Arthur and he's a palladin. He was old partner of Emyr when he was still an adventurer. But Arthur is not so luminus and noble as he appers. Blah blah blah challenge is proposed to see who is better at running a tavern. Also game end on a cliffhanger so I'll be waiting for the third game now. Thanks for reading, 4 out 5, goodbye.

Plays like the first game. Great story!

"Barbarous: Tavern Wars" not only brings back the addictive time management gameplay we loved in its predecessor "Barbarous: Tavern of Emyr" but also serves up an even juicier narrative, making it the ultimate sequel for fans of storytelling with a side of chaos management – it's a real treat!