Heroes of a Broken Land 2

Hold on, sit down for a moment. You know I can't comment the game too much (content / bugs wise) as it is just in mere 0.18 Beta. But I still can recommend it. Why, do you ask? 1) WInged Pixel is not new in this business and delivered previous game HOBL 1 at 1.0 in 99.99% perfection, and then kept adding content and polishing the 0.01% of bugs for few years, always listening to us, the customers and never tried to rip us off with some DLC or whatnot. 2) Winged Pixel is the book example of Indie Dev studio, where we put our last hopes, each time AAA titles rip us off and then laugh in our faces. Indie dev, honest, hard working people, competing on games market without any real marketing budget, any paid journos/youtubers. People who put their everything in the few games they sell. They can't bribe goo*cough cough*le or other search providers to boost thier titles in search results, can't afford legal ads that will bombard you on any and all pages and very few game critics or game journals do cover these games with at least some kind of equality (compared with some other titles of the same genre) This is a beautiful chance to support one of the good fellows - indie devs - who dedicate their professional life to make us happy - the few crazy gamers who do not give a nick nolte about AAA titles anymore.

EDIT: 4/6/2021 So i decided to check in on this game a few months after my initial review. The developer has been doing their best to update and tweak skills and the game, which is nice to see. The combat is still as it was before. I can see where the developer was going with it, but it still feels very imbalanced and frustrating. There still is no good explanation of stats, and the "female portraits" are not females at all (they have all the male sounds and grunts). I suggest checking out Heroes of a Broken Land (the original) if you wanna get a good feel and enjoy the game. Still a hard pass on this one from me. ~~~~~ Made from the same developer as Heroes of a Broken Land, it moved to a more 3D environment. This means a more 3d overworld, updated graphics, and more. Now I can deal with the graphic bugs, and the characters using female portraits have male voices is a bit immersion breaking, but there are two reasons I would not suggest this game. 1. The combat, specifically what your party can do Vs what enemies can do. Now, you can place your party members in one of 6 spots (3 on left, 3 on right). You would think by placing that squishy mage in a back row would help protect them. Nope. You see, any enemy, even melee ones, can hit ANY of your party members, no matter where they are. Of course, when YOU go to strike the enemy party you can ONLY hit the ones in the front and ONLY the ones on the side your character is on (exception is if there is one enemy as they stand in the middle). So all that planning on placing the Mages in the back means absolutely nothing as they can get wailed on by 4 melee skeletons and be dead before the round is over, while you are stuck pecking away at one damn enemy. EDIT: I just want to point out, this can happen in the FIRST DUNGEON you go to. And there can be a possibility of facing a larger skeleton that has 2 attacks, so death comes faster. Of course, you need to pay to resurrect dead members, so if you don't have the gold, well, time to restart that game. 2. There is no explanation on what things do in regards to stats, training, mechanics, etc. When building your character or even building places in general, it is a guessing game. For example, I chose a character whom I wanted to become a Mage. But when I build the Mage Tower and clicked on it, that specific character didn't have the right stats to train, but the one I set up as a Fighter type did! Many wasted hours and restarting of games, ugh. Overall, if you already bought Early Access, stick with it and help with testing and feedback. If you haven't, don't buy it now. Wait a while. This game has a long way to go.

Amazing Fun Game, developer really listens to the fans and it has been fun watching all the progress with this game. I been following since 2019 and look forward to more work on it.

[h1]前作のブラッシュアップを目指した正統続編[/h1] 本作『[b]Heroes of a Broken Land 2[/b]』は、ランダム要素を全面に押し出した3DダンジョンRPGです。プレイヤーが雇用するヒーローや得られる装備品の追加特性、探検する世界全体の形や起こる小イベントだけでなく、探索する幾多ものダンジョンの構成も毎回変わるランダム性が特徴となっています。 前作は、3DダンジョンRPGとして重要なキャラの成長・育成要素、装備品のトレジャーハント要素を中心にゲーム性が展開。それを支える快適なダンジョン探索や、複数パーティーを並行して用いるシステム、全体マップの探索要素、街の建築による冒険への支援の選択などが相まってランダム生成系の3DダンジョンRPGとして十分な完成度を誇っていた作品です。 今作ではその屋台骨となる構造はそのままに、超高レベル帯でのバランスの極端さや、設定に関わらず広すぎた世界の調整などを中心に多くの改善が図られています。キャラクターも好きな他職スキルを各種報酬の本などで得ることはできなくなりましたが、代わりに3種のジョブを組み合わせてビルドすることが可能に。街の建築も、施設ごとに内容を特化する追加設備が設定可能となりました。 プレイ感としては、レトロ風でなくなったグラフィック、特にUI部分において練り込みが足りない印象が強いものの、その他では（コンテンツの不足以外は）前作同様にはゲームを楽しめました。ストーリー要素はほぼ皆無ですが、元から薄かったので問題はないところでしょう。Mod機能も予定されているのでそちらにも期待です。 早期アクセス開始段階としては、敵の種類の極端な不足や、前作の魅力でもあった世界生成時の難易度のカスタムオプションの未実装などをはじめ、各部のコンテンツ量の大幅な不足が目立ちます。しかし、ゲーム自体は前作の存在も踏まえ、完成形がある程度見えている状況なので、本作が繰り返しプレイすることを前提としたゲームであることを考えれば、現時点で購入してもそれなりには楽しめることでしょう。 なお、今作でもカスタムポートレートが利用可能。好きなキャラで冒険したい人は、3:4比率のキャラ画像を用意して臨みましょう。今回はゲーム解像度に依存して見え方が変わるとかそういうこともないので一安心です。（ある意味では最大の改善点な気も）

A clear "no", and a huge disappointment, after the first game showed a lot of promise: The graphics, the resolution, the atmosphere and the interface are terrible, the game is incredibly barebones, no real depth has been added to the combat (which is the main part of the game, and was already the big weakness of HOABL1) , and releasing it in such a -very- buggy state is simply outrageous! Honestly: As far as i can tell, everything that made the original game special for me, means the charme and atmosphere, is gone, and everything else is unchanged, equal, or as bad or even worse than before...

Update: 6/4/2021 Game is making good progress, there's much better balance now, all the classes are in though still some spots that might need work (scholar class last ability seems empty?) I enjoyed myself back again for another 2 runs. Supposedly economy/loot updates are coming soon. Really looking forward to it. EDIT: Gamebreaking "Cant leave dungeon" bug is fixed, will update review after testing more The game is playable, but still needs balancing and adjustments. If you want a fully developed and playable game then just wishlist this for now. I've explored as much as I can, but there's currently a gamebreaking bug where you cant leave a dungeon. Much of the game seems to have been improved outside of that. Town building has smaller upgrades you can pick for your buildings, the class list is VERY extensive, dungeon objectives arent all to clear out every single monster anymore. In fact I dont think I've seen one with every monster being dead as a requirement. Dungeon interiors look great, there's potions laying on tables, gold scattered in shelves, still hidden buttons in walls for secret areas, levels that open doors around the dungeon. The key system seems like it needs improving but its better than only needing levers. You dont know what key goes to what door so you have to try them until they work. But this is a very early build so we'll see, there's lots of ways to fix that issue, such as highlighting openable doors on the map, color coding the keys and locks. But the simple fact that there's decorations littering the dungeon makes it easier to know where you are without using the map. Before there were empty hallways. Now there's shelves, lights, tables, chairs, boxes ect. Character leveling and options looks great, there's a large pool of buildings available right now that offer new classes and I think that's not even all of the classes in the game, there's possibly other hidden ones you can unlock. Character portraits have expressions now, while testing I'd pick one guy over another because he was smug as heck or just LOOKED like the barbarian I was trying to find. Stats seem to have gotten some rework. Cant test that too much because of the leaving dungeon bug. But for example there's health gain progression on things that arent endurance. Weapons seem to scale differently depending on the users stats. Some weapons use multiple stats. For example my tank fighter got less damage from a 2handed sword than my agile guy. Not sure 100% how this works yet though. The game is looking like it'll be a global improvement over the original. Outside of some of the sound effects. I wish he'd just recycled the first game's sounds.

This game deserves a review for the fact that it’s one of a kind in the genre. It combines roguelike, 3D, turn-based and fantasy style dungeon crawling in a simple way without being too streamlined or too casual. Another reason is that many of the comparable indie games use the same assets we can all buy in discounted Humble bundles. You might like or dislike the graphics in this one, but at least they are natural and unique. In active EA development for over 3 years now you can say the developer is dedicated to the project. There are clear goals, there is content added, you can post ideas, suggestions and bugs in the Steam forum and you get a realistic answer. Sometimes it change the game for the good, sometimes it’s a no and sometimes it’s not now. Which is completely fair since only those games with realistic goals and without unrealistic promises will get a launch one day. I believe this one will be launched one day. The game itself is very open in structure in nature. You can set size of the map, amount of parties you will play the game, there is city building like in the original Homm strategy games, there is inventory management and lot’s of skills and stats you can alter your heroes with. The dungeons and generated encounters are huge and the gameplay is pretty straightforward like the Homm RPG games. You can use the standard grid based gameplay, but you can also use your mouse to normally look around and encounter secrets, traps and monsters. The UI, with the big crystal images is criticized by many, but it’s not the priority for the dev to change it anytime soon. I don’t think it looks that bad myself, but many of the UI elements around are not fitting the theme, is W(ork) I(n) P(rogress) or simply very low resolution. There are many art styles combined in this game and I see the logic from a developer perspective here. The 3D mazes are designed in a casual comic style like Blizzard games, the monster models very generic (could be standard assets), the character portraits randomly generated 3D images in a mediocre style but with some comical and unique or absurd results and the world map is more hand painted boardgame style. The amount of content, size of the maps and dungeons, the replay value, the endlessness, the open world, the freedom of character and party building and the addictiveness of this game is the strong part. The storytelling, the UI work in progress and the somewhat slow development the weak. The barrier that prevents attracting more players to get into the game is the price I think. At the moment of writing ‘events’ are added to the game. And many settings to customize your encounters for more randomness. I don’t have experience with them yet so maybe the game is even better then I describe here.

[i]The broken land of heroes Breaks down ever further, And not a single achievement Lies in the wake of its ruin either; 'Tis a shadow of its former glory, The one trapped in crystal might say, For the flesh adorning the bare bones Of this wanting old world, I pray, Will be embodied under the light of day Within the looming year coming hither...[/i] 🗺️⚖️🐎🪖🦆🎣🌾

Better Graphics, new mechanics, more options. The new dungeons are beautiful. I like the animations too. There are some bugs now, but time will solve that.

I cant wait to see how this game progresses for those wondering how far along the "early access" is here, the game has elementals and skeletons and thats it so its early, but its gonna get there I like where the game is going so if you dont mind early beta and want to join in and throw ideas at the dev and watch the game grow come on in, theres enough here to have fun with