Expeditions: Viking

De los tres Expeditions, creo que este es el peor, y aún así es muy entretenido. La idea de poder dirigir tu propia conquista vikinga sobre gran bretaña, o aliarte a ellos para defender tu hogar o aliarte a uno para acabar con el otro. Simplemente encantador. Sin embargo, tiene claras deficiencias en la creación de personajes, siendo demasiado limitado. Me ha gustado bastante, así que le daré el pulgar hacia arriba.

Good story, wanted to like it but cannot recommend, surprise round is a pain in the ass, combat is made for someone who likes chess, no fun, the best i can say about it is boring, disappointing. dont buy, waste of money.

1

Despite of some bugs, the game is excellent!

Positives: -The game has gotten a good sense of the needed atmosphere for a viking adventure. -The game gives you a good main objective: your clan has to become stronger by a certain time, or your clan's enemies will devour your lands. Good, simple and believable. -Your choices feel impactful. And both appeasing and vanquishing factions are always options. -The player character takes a much greater part of the story and combat than in Conquistador, that's always a plus for me. -You can customize your characters much more than you could in Expeditions: Conquistador, and can opt for a myriad of weapon styles, regardless of the character's more "civic" functions. e.g. you can have a smith, a tinkerer, or a healer who also handles a 2-handed Dane-Axe, a spear or is a dual wielding berserker, if that is how you want to create your character. Though of course, specialized characters such as the archetypal pre-made characters (Nefya, Kettil, Gunnar,...) will be very much more effective in their respective fields than a lot of the sillier combinations you could try yourself. -There is quite some replayability here, not just in story choices, but also in character builds that will yield different dialog options and solutions to problems the game throws at you. Negatives: -The enemy always goes first, and your main characters leads the way. So sometimes your Thegn (=you) is 4 squares "out" of the rest of the party, and is immediately beset by enemies. -You can only take 6 people, including the Thegn. The enemies bring whatever number they can. And every battle feels like it's somewhat unfair and uphill. The fact that you're only allowed to bring 6 characters means that your own archers will quickly weigh you down once engaged, whereas the AI can bring 4 archers and 6 footmen to shield them from your fighters basically forcing you to make a full shield-oriented party. All of this quickly brings the scales against you. In some battles the game gives you a chances for better odds. In most, it doesn't. -The interface and map layout give you a pretty bad idea of where you are on any map. It may just be me, but I sometimes got pretty disoriented. -Trying to loot chests, barrels, and fallen enemies is harder than it should ever be. Sometimes you have to click ON them. Other times, you have to click 2.83cm (zoomed out of course) to their most northeastern limb's side; unless they're face-down, then it is (of course) reversed... In this sense, the game feels fairly sloppy and unfinished in its execution. For people who have played Conquistador, it'll basically be a more modern and differently themed version of the exact same game. You're still intervening in an existing conflict as an outsider, you can side with factions, and you can betray them if so desired, or really lean into that alliance. Even some of the quests you receive are eerily similar. Also, most of the combat abilities your party can get, come from the former, older game. So if you liked or disliked that game will influence your feelings on this game. All in all, I do recommend that you play it, but only just, because of what it gets right, it does really well, for me. But I do recommend that you pick this up at a large discount of at least 50%. 75% would be better. It's not worth the full price (=€30) today.

From a perspective of hindsight, this is a game that had a lot of potential that missed the mark in a lot of ways. It has choices that are important, but lack a feeling that they are part of the world rather than being a layer on top. The skills and combat are well done, but clunky and awkward. The story and travel style are fun, but the story is short and the travel repetitive. Thankfully, the sequel (Expeditions: Rome) fixes pretty much all the issues I have with this game, but even so it is worth a play.

Overall: Great game. 8/10 Has the general CRPG feel to it, still it also feels a bit flat sometimes. Need some more love and it could easily become one of the greater games in the genre. If there is ever planning to release an improved sequal I will be the first in line of purhcase. I enjoyed it. Pro: - The lore is solid - Realism and feels autenthic - Combat are really fun - Story is engaging - Lots of flexibility in the level system Cons: - I don't like timed quests - Need more areas to visit - Dialogues are usually sub optimal - The AI are a bit stupid (most of the time)