Blackthorn Arena

Have audio problem? Look below how to fix it! Although I list much more cons than pros, this game is still worth to play, definitely. Why is 1-handed and shield style sabotaged?? It could have been a great game, a classic even. But there is this feeling everywhere that the development was abandoned too soon, polishing wasn't done. Hence I won't give it a thumb up. At times the game irritated me a lot, but it also had that "one more turn" charm. If you don't have audio when starting game again, delete config.ini in the Windows user folder AppData\LocalLow\PersonaeGames\BlackthornArena\Config. When missing, the game will recreate it when it starts, and you have audio again. This problem apparently troubles only us who don't have an English speaking country chosen in Windows settings. Cons: 1. The main hand weapon (sword/axe/hammer) in shield & weapon combination is useless. It's a tank whose all weapon skills are shield skills. Yes, shield is your damage weapon in that case: you can't use one-handed weapon skills if you have shield equipped! Your sword/axe/hammer is just decoration if you use shield. Just NO! That is a classic medieval style. You ruined it. 2. Pathfinding and A.I. of your gladiators are just very poorly done. You can micromanage it somewhat, but their bad A.I. does its best to sabotage the microing. I guess the developers were in too much hurry out, that they didn't even try to fix it, because just giving a "stop/guard" command (just heard there might be a button to make to stop the gladiator, just in a place not easy to notice) and allowing microing their path, target and skills ALWAYS when in paused mode, would have helped so much. But now 50% of the time you are in wrong mode, and cannot select path, target and skills. And your gladiators suicide themselves running again and again into the same traps, and get stuck behind everything, even their own team mates. 3. How the game unfolds and balance were both badly planned. Now early game is boring because many other arenas will not accept your gladiators, and you don't have the side quests which open later in game. Playing the game anew the early game is even more boring than first time. The competing arena masters get much better skilled gladiators than you do: they can alone wipe out your whole gladiator team: you start with level 1 gladiators, they have plenty of level 6 - 8 gladiators from the start. Later game same happens again: suddenly competing arena masters get champions, who although same level as your gladiators, can alone kill your whole team: your gladiators aren't nearly a match. This "cheating" leaves a bad taste to mouth and again makes many games a suicide for your gladiator team, reducing your options big time. Rather than a challenge, it's a kick between your legs. 4. The user interface is just very clumsy. Trying to find the right spot to click to open the loot window from a dead body, and trying to select whom your gladiator should attack and which skill to use, were among my biggest reason of irritation in the game. Also not being able to change the view angle, parts of the arena and quest maps your gladiators and their enemies disappeared from sight or selecting them was impossible. These are not impossible to solve issues, but somehow polishing was left undone. 5. There are different damage types, but all armors give pretty much same protection against all of them. There also are no alternative armors to choose: there is just different level armors, that you get to buy later. You could as well have only one damage type. Again this feels like something that was planned, but was completely left undeveloped feature. Pros: 1) it doesn't look bad. The gladiator school looks pretty nice when you go to walk in there in avatar mode. Also the gladiators can be made to look OK. Don't expect popular multiplayer character quality, you don't get that. You can also have your busty gladiator girls, thanks to the developers being from East Asia. 2) It has that "one more turn" charm. Building your gladiator team is fun and tournaments are nail biters. Despite all the irritations, I played it a lot, and I am so sad that the polish is missing. Note, I have not played all the hours the game has been on. Closing the game would mean I would need to delete the config-file again, so the game just was always on 24/7. Played 3 games, a bit past the Spring Games.