Queen's Wish: The Conqueror

В общем и целом мне нравятся игры от SpiderWeb. Есть в них какая-то душа, даже не смотря на отсутствие графики и музыки. Но "Хотелки королевы" явно не тот случай. Начнем с сюжета - его почти нет. Мамка отправляет ГГ захватывать материк, ну просто потому что надо. Все. Мир игры просто никакой. Никакого Авернума, никакого биопанка из geneforge. Максимально дженерик фэнтези, даже более дженерик, чем в Авадоне. Интереса в мире ноль. Ролевая система это просто позорище, упрощать дальше некуда. Есть 9 скиллов на каждый "класс", и это все, Карл! Элементальный урон упразднили. Убийство врагов больше не дает экспу. Только за убийство босса в данже. Но нужно обязательно зачистить данж в один заход, иначе мобье восстановися. Эксплоринга как такового нет, все нужные предметы подсвечены. Прогрессия исследования мира тоже конченая. Есть три зоны, которые нужно захватить. Но нужно обязательно шататься от одной к другой, выбирая данж по силенкам. Еще есть "постройка" крепости. На выделенных участках нужно ставить магазинчики, мельницы, и т.д. Дает какие-то бонусы. Но все выполнено на уровне мобильных игр, скукота. Не ожидал такого разочарования от SpiderWeb. Непонятно, зачем было настолько упрощать игру, зачем такое унылое дженерик фэнтези.

Текстово-ролевая жвачка, аромат "политический", идентичный натуральному. Принимать на свой страх и риск, категорически запрещено для первого знакомства со Spiderweb. Единственный интересный факт, который вообще можно сказать про эту игру — это что имя строгой королевы-тиранши, давшей ей название, Джефф взял у своей матери. А насколько проект продуман и оригинален, заметно уже на остальных именах — за исключением прикольчиков типа доктора Мавлова, тренирующего волков выращивать капусту, всюду проявляются паттерны, характерные для онлайн-генераторов фентезийных имён собственных в товарных количествах. Завязка конфликта в каждой из трёх основных подзон игрового мира примитивна, а цель пребывания в них ясна, но в каждой из них все персонажи с фанатичным упорством разжёвывают одни и те же вещи одними и теми же словами, и даже прошедшим каждую локацию до конца героям каждый встречный всё так же норовит объяснить, дескать, what's a paladin; почему мы, гордые чингачгуки, не любим жадных бледнолицых; почему мы, гордые рабы, не любим рабовладельцев, и т.д. Фирменной иронии [b]Авернума[/b], или действительно интригующих персонажей и диалогов [b]Авадона[/b] нет и в помине. Только трафаретные разговоры и пустота образов за ними. Нет никакой причины вчитываться и в задания этих сгенерированных нпс с одними мыслями на всех, если все они как под копирку говорят: [quote][i]у нас в шахте по добыче железа/камня/чебуреков завелись пауки/волки/чyрки, а вы, глава империи, единственный, кто может это исправить (кстати, мы прекрасно справляемся без вас, а вы нам никогда не помогаете. и даже не думайте просить свои войска помочь вам, главе империи, они сами сказали мне, что боятся испачкаться кровью врагов и жиром от чебуреков)[/i]. [/quote] Эти подземелья тоже проходятся по быстро набивающей оскомину схеме: проходите по кишке по/против часовой стрелки, забиваете босса в подвале, в животе у него находится ключ от ещё нескольких подвалов с дополнительными битвами за мелкие награды. Они так коротки, что ничего сложного в том чтобы проходить их за один раз нет, так что теряется главная фишка боевой системы: экономия ресурсов, восстановить которые значит и восстановить всех побеждённых врагов. Большинство подземелий в поздней трети даже трогать смысла нет. Опыт не пригодится, ресурсы достаются без проблем и от ранних шахт, сокровищ в них также не сыскать: игра прямым текстом неоднократно говорит, что лучшее снаряжение покупается в магазинах, а чтобы получить на него деньги, достаточно просто пропускать дни в кровати. Умений в игре по сравнению с ближайшими родственницами очень мало, они очень скучные, действительно нужных — не более 3 на каждую из трех веток. Они открываются к пятому-шестому часу, и далее каждый бой применяются без какого-либо чередования или подгонки под обстоятельства. Ну зачем использовать "ослабляющий удар" или "замедляющий удар", когда можно использовать "ослабляющий и замедляющий удар" за ту же цену? После этого очки способностей становится просто некуда вкладывать. Теоретически, можно взять всем всего понемногу, но поскольку воин нужен, чтобы бить, а маг — чтобы колдовать, их никто применять не будет. В общем-то это целый парад неудачных для тяжеловесной ролевой игры идей: отсутствие хабара, отсутствие интересного исследования и секреток, сверхповторяющийся геймплей, как будто копирующий какой-то бесконечный rogue-like или телефонную тыкалку, необходимость пересоздать компаньонов во время игры, отсутствие вдумчивой прокачки за исключением выбора пары активных навыков, эрзац-экономика, которую можно выиграть в одни ворота, банально в ней не участвуя [spoiler](магазины требуют ресурсов для ежедневной поддержки + нет смысла что-либо покупать в магазинах до того, как построишь их все)[/spoiler], одинаковая стратегия в каждом бою и никакого интереса для повторного посещения Сакраментума, земли, где на все моральные диллемы заготовлены по два варианта ответа... В целом, слишком многое упрощено, слишком многое сочтено балластом и сброшено за борт, и благодаря этому стало ясно видно отсутствие глубокого содержимого за поверхностными идеями фентезийной дипломатии и чистки подземелий. Зачем это было делать — я без труда понял, ибо Джефф сам красочно описывает и кризис среднего возраста ввиду надвигающейся пенсии, и недовольство одними ремейками на закате карьеры, и желание Последнего Шедевра, и намерение взболтать приевшуюся за десятки творений рпг-формулу... Не пойму только, зачем в это играть.

Queen's Wish is a tactical turn-based RPG about conquering a country. It is fine, but I was disappointed with it. Like all Spiderweb games, this one is a solid if non-ambitious RPG. I think when people look at screenshots, they expect those games to be an overcomplicated verbose mess like so many indie RPGs. They are not - they're cohesive and laconic (but not small!) and well put together. There are no walls of text or endless lists of modifiers, they're straight to the point. Maybe they're too simple to justify a second playthrough, but not every RPG should be an infinitely replayable colossus. Queen's Wish is even simpler than some other games from the studio: the character progression system is very forgiving, almost all characters have access to all options, and you can freely respec them. The real progression and customization come from the equipment you find, and in this regard the game feels much more like a tactics game with RPG elements. Still, it has a somewhat non-linear story. Like many modern "big" RPGs, this one casts you as an authority figure who mostly doesn't use this authority. Unlike those other games, this one justifies this situation well. The game may feel a little bit formulaic, as every quest involves you completing a dungeon, and every dungeon has to be completed in one go - enemies respawn if you come back. It's a sensible gameplay concession even if it often makes little sense in terms of story, but it does make you feel like you're playing tactics game instead of roleplaying adventure. So in general, it's fine. Like most Spiderweb games, it feels like a comfortable 6/10 game, and I think people should play those - you won't get a lot of high notes here, but also nothing feels bad. Except here, some things did feel bad. This game is somewhat novel for the company, and so it has UI issues and bugs, making it significantly less polished than their other games. Runes are the main way to customize your character, and the way you buy, insert, and replace those runes is extremely annoying. I had some side quests that couldn't be completed for some reason, and I endured that - but then one of the main quests bugged out on me. So I haven't finished the game, even though I came quite close. This put the game into 4/10 territory for me. Sad! Overall, it still isn't that bad as a whole, but if you have to skip one Spiderweb game - skip this one.

If you're new to Spiderweb games, this is a great RPG with fantastic exposition and an enthralling plot line. Your character's build is largely customizable and the game will provide many, many hours of challenges and choices. Spiderweb's games always have great replay value too. If you've played other games from Spiderweb, this one is a bit different, but I particularly love the economic system in this one. Shops and stalls are often meaningless in games, but they're not here. tl;dr great tactics RPG

I'm normally a big fan of Spiderweb and will definitely play other series they put out in the future. But this one is a big no for me. The changes to the mechanics I could live with, but the story is just so stale and repetitive. You arrive in the kingdom and there are three vassals to visit and interact with. I went to two of them and had to do exactly the same things in each - clear forts out of pests, build some shops, talk to people who give me basically the same dialogue (like how many times did I see the dialogue option "and why can't you deal with X on your own?"). I even had to fight a drake in both of them at roughly the same point. Then there are the changes to the mechanics. I like that they tried something different, but it ended up making combat and dungeons very uninteresting for me. You end up just hoarding your energy because you don't know what you're going to face, and the number of enemies who do poison damage or something similar makes dungeons very frustrating. The enemies also felt much more generic and uninteresting compared to previous Spiderweb games. Same went for the story for me - I just didn't really get into it at all. Having to go through exactly the same thing in each vassal really didn't help. So I've tried this twice now, the second time being about five years after the first when I was thinking "if it's Spiderweb it really can't be as bad as I remember, can it?". Got further the second time, but no desire to actually finish. Will be skipping the sequel and looking forward to the next series.

So the demo was engaging and having enjoyed everything Spiderweb have released on Steam. This was a game I went into with high hopes. The problem is the rest of the game is just the demo unconvincingly wearing a hat and putting on a silly accent. The three vassal states feel like mmorpg starter zones, the terminology, scenery and layout changes but the underlying structure is the same. There just isn't enough depth to the combat or variety in game-play to support the games length and the trademark Spiderweb writing can only carry things so far.

I'm somewhat obsessed with all the Spiderweb Software game series, and of late, Queen's Wish has been on the top of my list of their games. There's everything here I've been looking for in a good RPG for years now. It has excellent writing and a compelling story with amazing world building, which is my personal biggest driver (and is true for all of their other franchises), and the game loop is just right. Tactical combat is turn based and fast paced with reasonable depth and no extraneous elements. Exploration is satisfying and the world is large and feels very lived in (and the fast travel option becomes more and more useful as the game progresses). There is a lot of content, yet none of it feels like it's there just as filler (there is some repetition in mine-cleansing quests, but it's not too problematic). What I also like is that character progression and equipment procurement is meaningful. Each level brings much needed ability increases, and 1 added level might make a difference between a quest being possible to complete or not just yet. Equipment is rare and relatively expensive, so there's no meaningless looting here - every find is useful. Base and kingdom building adds one more layer, and is well integrated with the questing and exploration aspects of the game. There's an interdependence between personal quests and the state of your colonies that feels natural and adds to the overall experience in a way which makes it larger than the sum of its parts. Evolving familial and personal connections are a cherry on top. There's also an elephant in the room with these games. For what it is, I find the graphics quite compelling though. Queen's Wish doesn't try to be flashy (on the contrary, it embraces its scrappiness), but I find the graphics appealing nevertheless, and they are very readable and quite varied. No sprite or character portrait here will win an art contest, but there's many little details scattered throughout the world, and each tells a story, which to me is, again, the most important thing in a game like this. Finally, I'll add that I'm playing this mostly on the Steam Deck, and it's great! Almost all game text is presented in dialog boxes that take a relatively small central portion of the screen, which works great with Steam Deck's ability to toggle zoom in and out on a mappable key press. I set the display zoom to 220% is settings which allows me to instantly zoom into the text portion for dialogs and for reading tool tips on the small screen. I mapped the left trackpad to an on-screen menu with numbers 1 through 6 which I also positioned centrally, so it appears overlayed on top of text popups for choosing dialog options. Loaded up with all Spiderweb games, my Steam Deck is almost like a specialized ebook reader for choose-your-own-adventure books filled with tight tactical combat. I love it! To me, these games are like cozy adventure books with surprisingly compelling, deep and multifaceted stories, and Queen's Wish is unique among them.

I must have tried to get into the (always expansive Spiderweb) demo for this game 4 or 5 times in the six years since this game first released only to quickly give up when hit with the base building. I hate base building. I see the anything about base building in a Steam game's tags I hit the "ignore" button immediately. I was also badly put off by the "succeed all in one go or gain absolutely nothing" and the lack of any benefit most of the time to defeating foes in world map encounters. So I had pretty much given up on the Queen's Wish series. But that gnawed at me. I've been playing Sipderweb games for almost 25 years, starting from a download bought off Spiderweb's web site of Avernum 1 before Steam even existed. I've played every game they put out since then, most multiple times. Was I really not going to play Jeff Vogel's last original series before retiring? So I decided to give QW one more go and this time to get deeper into it before deciding whether to give up or not. And I ended up loving it! I still hate base building, I didn't enjoy feeling like I needed to save scum travel on the world map to be ready to hit quick load if I accidentally ran into a wandering mob, and while I came around more to the "succeed or gain nothing" location approach I'm not completely sold on it. But it didn't take long for those reservations to fade far into the background compared to what's at base another terrific Spiderweb RPG with all the terrific elements that made the Avernum (originals and remakes), Geneforge (original and remakes), and Avadon games so great.

Good so far. Enjoyable combat with a bit of a sim aspect.

It's good! The fort building and resource management aspect is simple and easy to learn. The combat is simple, but fun enough. Upgrading your equipment is rewarding and being able to reset stats makes for a decent amount of build variety since you're not locked into any class at all. The simple graphics and sound effects are charming and the writing is good for a game with a small budget. Going to dive into Avadon and Avernum at some point. 8/10.