Expeditions: Samurai

In its current state and what I saw from the early access, I can't recommend this game. It feels like there is a clear-cut qualitative drop compared to Expedition Rome. The art style of the game is bad. It kinda reminds me of a bad Zelda Wind Waker copy and doesn't fit a game that for a historical setting. With the characters all looking horrible. Sometime I wasn't sure if it's a male or female character and I can only wish for the option to exchange them for portraits like in the other games of the series. The battle system remains the same, so if you're familiar with and liked it, still the same. Writing has dropped in quality. Fewer dialogue options and somehow there always creeps up one into every dialogue tree that reminds me of marvel stuff which is absolutely unfit for such a game. Clichee-ridden that it could have come right out of a hollywood movie, like a lone samurai charging a fortified position directly instead of contemplating any other way of attack. There is no cultur shock, fish out of water experience or anything that you would imagine that fits the scenario. You can see the twist of this prologue coming as well as the problems. Oh, you're not allowed to take your important documents with you, guess what in your absence they got stolen. Who would've guessed that? 0o Companions are horrible, because I'm not allowed to know them. The main character spent months on see with them, but the player hasn't. All I got is the constant banner with character xyz didn't like that decision and it's always three or more characters that don't like or like a decision, but I honestly don't know why. The game refuses to tell me and I can't ask the companions, because all the dialogue assumes I know them really well. Only one time did a companion add anything to a conversation with the expection of the start of a companion quest line. You play as a stranger to Japan and get a Japanese companion...do you think you get to milk that companion for information about this strange new land? No, instead you can talk about him playing the flute. This is early access so there is the chance the game course corrects and improves, but at the moment I wouldn't bet on that. Therefore, my recommendation is to wait till the release and then look at some gameplay. Then If you see nothing wrong with the game and know and like the earlier installment you can still buy it.

Honestly... What is it? O.o I loved the Exeditions: Rome. I love Japanese setting and this time period. I was SO HYPED at the announcement. And then I got this? What the hell is it? Where is that heavy story telling with hard choices? Where is the climate and weight of the previous game? What is it?! Fortnite?! Sea of Thieves?! What the hell is wrong with it? Is it even done by the same people, or just some random new people who got slapped THQ logo in front? I really have to use the minutes of the game cautiously, cause I'm HEAVILY considering refunding this. This is NOTHING like Expeditions: Rome...

[h1]VERSION 0.5.2[/h1] [h2]TL;DR: If you like tactical cRPGs and don't mind early access games, I absolutely recommend [i]Expeditions: Samurai[/i].[/h2] My first playthrough of [i]Expeditions: Samurai[/i]'s early access was a treat. When it was announced, I was originally a little hesitant, as the era in Japan doesn't especially appeal to me. However, when I learned that we play as an English privateer at the dawn of the seventeenth century, with lots of Reformation drama, I was hooked, and grabbed it as soon as I could. This may be an increasingly unpopular opinion, but I've come to really enjoy early access games. Helping the developers squash bugs and seeing your suggestions implemented over time creates (for me at least) a different sort of relationship with the game and its experience. Although [i]Samurai[/i] hasn't seen its first major post-launch update yet, I have very high hopes; what we have right now is very fun, and the developers are active on the Discord. At this point in time, I don't have too much to say about the story. I'm enjoying it, but it's far too early to really dissect it and pass judgment. I loved [i]Expeditions: Rome[/i], so I expect the same calibre of writing, if not better! One relatively common complaint I've seen pertains to the stylized character models. I was a little off put at first, as the art style is so different from [i]Rome[/i], but as I played, it grew on me, and I begun to see a charm in it. At any rate, stylized games tend to age [b]much[/b] better than others. The ability to customize your character more finely than you could in the three previous installments is also a great touch. The devs mentioned there will be more options and some model overhauls/tweaks coming in the big September update, so I'm looking forward to that. [h2][b]PROS[/b][/h2] + The characters are fantastic. Antje and Piet are easily my favourites thus far. I'm looking forward to see how everyone develops over time, and exploring more companion quests. Étienne's was a good teaser. + The stealth system already feels more robust than it did in Rome, and per the most recent dev diary, it will only keep improving. Very exciting! I say this as someone who generally does not care for stealth builds in games. + The animations are solid and powerful. + What skills we have so far -- mainly Hunker Down and both ranged Overwatch -- are very effective. (I'd even go so far as to say that Antje and Kage are both overpowered by virtue of them being archers, even without Overwatch... and Hunker Down allowed them to stay safe behind Piet, the tank.) + I can't speak to the other difficulties, but Hard offered a fun and engaging challenge. + The fusion between Eastern and Western weaponry and armour is just really, really cool. Being able to switch between a rapier/flintlock combo to a katana is satisfying. There's a lot of flexibility in how you can play and how you can build your character. + The atmosphere is well-done and immersive. [h2][b]COMPLAINTS, not cons[/b][/h2] The devs have made it clear that the UI is very much a WIP, but as this was my experience in my first playthrough, I will share it here. These aren't cons, but just "complaints," as I know that an EA game is necessarily a WIP. - Though I do like the art, characters swapping in so often during dialogue -- multiple times, even when they're the only ones speaking -- is distracting. - The menu is way too bright with its white background. When I opened my inventory while aboard the very dark ship, it felt like I was flash-banged. Toning it down a bit (to either a grey or slate blue, maybe?) would make for a more comfortable experience. - This said, while I understand the vision, the ship combat in the beginning of the game was far too dark, and needed more ambient light. - The camera is a little finicky. During the Ikigai quest, the camera kept pushing itself into the trees, and I couldn't zoom in on my party sufficiently. - An improved zoom system wouldn't be amiss. - There could be a clearer way to communicate buffs, debuffs and conditions. - Splitting the party is rather unintuitive. Maybe drawing the character's "card" from the lower left of the screen would be a better visual? [h1]In short, I had a fantastic experience with [i]Samurai[/i] and cannot wait for the next major update at the end of the month.[/h1]

This was my most anticipated game in some time as a huge fan of both this series and this setting, but it does feel like a massive step backwards from its predecessor, Expeditions: Rome. The art style isn't awful as some people are saying and on its own is just fine, but it's certainly worse in my opinion than Rome. The 3D portraits are terrible for sure though. If they were at least animated I could understand the switch, but they're largely static. There's so few character customisation options too compared to the variety of player character portraits that were available in previous games, but these 3D models are also just plain ugly when blown up to the sizes used in the dialogue screen. Much has already been said about the writing and characters and dialogue and player choices, so I won't bother repeating it all here because I could go on and on, but again, it's a big step back from Rome in so, so many respects. The writing is the most important thing here in my opinion, yet it's what they've dropped the ball on hardest. I'm broadly okay with the idea of introducing real time stealth combat into a turn based tactical RPG -- Mutant Year Zero, for instance, did exactly that brilliantly -- but the implementation here is really janky at best. The UI/UX really is terrible. A lot of the stats/perks feel a little confusing to me. Some of them are flat out pointless, like anything dialogue/persuasion related for non-player party members, as skill checks in dialogue are always based on the player's stats. Overwatch going from a character-bound skill to being weapon-bound and not available on all ranged weapons is kind of baffling too. Every class being able to use any weapon or any armour is also a little weird in my opinion. This is of course an Early Access release but what has been released so far is both rather buggy and also very short. I beat it in under 4 hours, and I feel very confident I could have beaten it far quicker. The performance is also really quite terrible, particularly considering they've gone for a more stylised and less photorealistic art style.

Loved Expeditions: Rome. This is a clear step down. The writing is cartoonish, the narrative is unengaging, and the characters feel flat. The game also leans hard into modern diversity checkboxes right from the start, a 1600s European privateer ship crew where almost half the crew are women with a black female sawbones. It pulls you out of the setting immediately. If the story and writing were strong I could maybe ignore it, but they’re not. Refunding.

Ich bin mir bewusst, dass das alles andere als ein leichter Entwicklungsweg für das Studio war und ich will dieses Spiel mögen. Der Vorgänger ist definitiv unter meinen persönlichen top 3 RPGs. Aber alles, was Expeditions: Rome so gut gemacht hat wird hier irgendwie über Bord geworfen. Der Schreibstil der sehr konsistent war pendelt hier von einem extrem ins andere und man fühlt sich mehr wie in einer D&D Gruppe als in einer Mannschaft, die in das Zeitalter gehört: Statt Syneros und Bestia, die über Moralität philosophieren, gibts jetzt Cunnilingus Witze. Ich wünschte ich hätte mir das ausgedacht. Wieso wird der Adelige an Bord direkt von einer Matrosin angepöbelt, als sei sein Stand bedeutungslos und wieso haben wir überhaupt Matroninnen? Wieso ist unsere Schiffsärztin eine Schwarze mit einem Blutfluch? Als Einordnung: das spielt zur Hochzeit des Dreieckhandels und der Hexenverbrennungen und ca. 200 Jahre bevor erste Ideen der weiblichen Emanzipation aufkamen. Aber das stört die Crew nicht, für die das komplett normal ist. In Rome wurde der Sexismus der Zeit offen thematisiert und die weiblichen Charactere konnten trotzdem existieren. Hier wird die Epoche einfach egalitär umgeschrieben. Die Story erfüllt erstmal ihren Zweck, aber catcht mich auch nicht so, wie Romes und es gibt einige merkwürdige Plotholes. Zum Gameplay: Auch das ist mMn ein Downgrade und das liegt nicht mal unbedingt an dem Kernsystem - was jetzt nicht außergewöhnlich, aber grundsolide ist- sondern an den mangelnden Alleinstellungsmerkmalen, der Klassen. Alle verwenden die selben Waffen und die Fähigkeiten sind mehr Minibuffs, als wirklich ausschlaggebend. In Rome war es von großer Bedeutung, ob man einem Schildträger gegenübersteht, der im Zweifel alle Hits tankt, oder einem Support, der dir die Rüstung zerfetzt. Hier habe ich das überhaupt nicht gefühlt und abgesehen von dem Overhealth Balken, den eine Klasse hat, konnte man sie auf dem Schlachtfeld auch nicht direkt identifizieren. Das bringt mich zum nächsten Punkt: Das UI ist auch nicht meins. Rome hat alles wahnsinnig clean gehalten und davon ist hier nix zu merken (aber anders als das writing könnte man das zumindest noch fixen). Die neue Stealth-Mechanik spielt sich hakelig und fühlt sich unangereift an. Man kann sich nicht vom Trupp trennen und die stehen dann häufig, wie die größten Dussel in den Sightlines. Auch dass ich mit meiner Muskete "Stealth"-Kills aneinanderreihen kann ist sicher nicht so vorgesehen. Aber toitoitoi das ließe sich auch noch beheben. Zusammengefasst ist es kein kompletter Klogriff aber kann aktuell nicht wirklich an den Erfolg des Vorgängers anknüpfen. Vielleicht wird es bei Release zu einem soliden RPG, wenn man die Early Access Probleme ausbesert, aber es bleibt hinter meinen Erwartungen eines authentischen, historischen Rollenspiels zurück

Expeditions: Rome is one of my all-time favorite games and while I didn't come in expecting the same from Expeditions: Samurai, it still needs plenty of improvement before I can recommend this one. Frankly, all of the problems with Ex: Samurai are 100% fixable. - The UI is terrible and I think its been designed for controller, not M&K. Right click to move, attack, and do anything is insane? And you can't rebind it. - Stealth was a cool idea but because of the poor UI it just ends up feeling clunky and is broken half the time because its Shift+Right click to stealth move, but then you have to let go of shift to do any interactions, so if you're not close enough you sprint to the interact and the guards hear you. - No 'show range' or 'line of sight' feature when you move to a tile, so you end up moving back and forth trying to find an angle to shoot at. This was a feature in Ex: Rome and is nowhere to be found in this one. - 'Class' menu has no hotkey to switch between 'class tree' and 'perk tree' menus, you have to back out and then click on the other one. IMO these should be combined into one screen. - Perks are locked by skill point thresholds (6,12,18) for associated skills, except some of them don't really make sense... And, the thresholds are 4,7,10 for skill checks! - Speaking of skills, what's the point of having companions with insight and other non-combat skills if the main character is the one who has to have them in dialog. E.g., there's an event that requires the main character to have 7 points in tinkering, companions don't count. And its the only time I ever found tinkering to be useful.

Personally speaking, I had a lot of fun with the current build of Expeditions Japan. [b]HOWEVER[/b] I will preface this by saying that I am not too accustomed with the series (despite buying Expeditions Rome shortly before). Will you 100% like this if you liked Rome? A hesitant no from me. With the current version it is too hard to tell, considering that it gives you about 5-6 hours of playtime with Act 1's quests. But let's get into what I liked and didn't The Good: - The Voice acting: This is the first thing I picked up on, all the characters are beautifully voice acted. I was quite taken aback by how much I enjoyed listening to some of these people just talk my ear off. From the main characters to the one-off npcs or merchants all had charming voices to them. There was only a single instance where I met a vendor who had no voice-over. - The Characters: All your companions are quite entertaining characters, be that the French priest Etienne or the haughty Johan (or any of the other companions you get to meet later). While it is quite hard to tell if they all shape up to be as good as their initial impression will have you believe, I will say that the 1 character who's personal quest I followed had me quite delighted and surprised when it had consequences. - The game has consequences: While 5 hours of gameplay is not yet enough to completely explore whether or not this counts for big decisions, I was certainly surprised to learn that my 2 of actions in the earliest hours had their comeuppance when a merchant decided to overcharge me for his goods due to my poor choices. - RPG character freedom: I really liked that despite how the game presents you the 4 starting classes and sorts every companion into one of these, you can still build your characters however you like. You could make a frontliner (the melee tank) but instead spec them entirely into stealth and ranged power or vice versa, beyond the personal skills of your MC and starting equipment/proficiency you can build them however you like. The Unsure: - The art direction: Probably the most devise part of the entire game. I personally was fine with the 3d portraits since I usually like my character portraits to directly match my character. However I will not deny that the art style will not be everyone's cup of tea. Apart from the MC's own portrait which looks a bit wonky from certain shots, none of the others' portraits ever felt bad looking. - Historical liberties: Do not go into this game expecting a 100% historically accurate RPG set in feudal Japan. The most apt example would be how none of the characters comment on any patriarchal systems in this time (i.e. misogny never came up, especially as I played with a female MC), and the Japanese enemies also feature some female variants amongst them. The Jesuits seemed to be male only except for a small little side character. It would best be to call the game historically authentic. The game definitely knows its materials and in most cast remains faithful to the period, even referencing some lesser known events during this period. Just don't be surprised if nobody remarks on the presence of the female sailors. The Bad: - Length: Will I am aware that this is merely the first release of an EA-game, I still was somewhat disappointed by how quickly the session was over. Within 5.5 hours I had already completed everything that was currently in the game, while I will do another run to see how different approaches and decisions affect the game state, I will warn u that that the game right now is still pretty barebones in terms of content. This first look does not show you much of the Japanese fantasy as you're mostly stuck dealing with the fallout of your arrival in Japan and the rivalry with your fellow Christians. - Stealth: While the developers mentioned stealth as a selling point, I think it's easily the weakest system. I spent 45 minutes on a single encounter that I wanted to resolve with sneaking as I would otherwise have to fight a dozen enemies to complete my objective. I appreciate the stealth always being optional, but the system currently plain sucks. Your companions will get you detected in 99% of the cases. At times I gave a simple move order and my companion's path finding would have them open a door with an enemy behind it and get the entire party insta-detected. Besides, sneaking a group of 4 people through tight areas is not very fun. Also stealth attacks are kinda buns, unless you dedicate your skillpoints to it, more often that not you will simply get an attack with advantage instead of actually sneakily taking them out. It's often not even clear if your attack will kill the enemy or maim them and alert everyone. This isn't even mentioning that you cannot stealth kill anyone within 5 feet of another enemy or it will trigger the alarm. So yes, the system requires work. Especially when the firearms ended up being the best way to take people out without triggering combat (the noise will alert enemies and draw them to it but you can simply just go hide and let it blow off). The AI for stealth isn't smart either. Do I recommend the game right now? Hesitantly yes if you like the setting and want to support the devs. I didn't regret my playtime with the game and will continue to theorycraft over more runs. I will praise the game for running smoothly and without major bugs as I encountered just 1 bug that needed me to restart a combat encounter. This review will be updated once the appropriate content updates drop.