The Lost Heir 3: Demon War

I understand the disappointment of other writers here about the suboptimal conclusion of an furthermore awesome saga. I played both part one and two of "The lost Heir" and enjoyed them very much, would also recommend them to everyone else who likes "computerbased storybooks". Why I can´t recommend Part 3? The story is still great...in spite of getting a little bit "hasty" in the first half...I like each of the presented locations... ...the big problem, as also stated in the two other negative reviews so far, is the lack of influence/ estimated influence of choices: In the endgame I played so far as "educated" "bad" High-End-Necromancer with nearly maximized bodily stats and without magic weapon and as "good" High-End Demon Summoner with highest possible skills in willpower, magic and swordplay...with also very high, but not maximized bodily skills and with magic weapon...and it changed: Nothing! ^^ I lost skill check after skill check...losing humanity...leading to one and the same end. And the shown skill checks don´t make sense to me...opposite to the checks shown in part 1 and 2, which seemed much more thought and worked over. Especially disappointing was the absolute lack of effect of high level willpower and demon control in the endgame (except for one little scene in the midgame where a summoned demon makes a difference). So I hope for the author using these critics to correct those points in his hopefully coming up next epic saga. :-)

I'm a little disappointed in this conclusion to the trilogy. If you are a straight up Wizard or pure fighter, you will only reach the bad ending every. Single. Time. This is not simply due to you picking the wrong choices, but mostly for not having skills that said OP Wizard or Knight shouldn't HAVE to have. If my Wizard picks the option to attack the demon who is trying to burn down the building i am in with ice magic, he should NOT be punished with failure for not being agile enough. The same goes for my badass Knight girl, who (SPOILER) lost ALL of her humanity and was forced to experience the bad ending, because she either wasn't agile enough, or didn't know enough about magic........... If you are reading this, Mike Walter (the Author): please consider the 'fun vs function' dichotomy when you are writing your next story game. Too much of the former, and it is hard to take the story seriously. Too much of the latter, and it becomes difficult to enjoy said story. I know how hard it is to write: you drive yourself crazy scrapping idea after idea until you 'finally' come up with something that you are satisfied with. The problem is that, far too often , what the author likes will not necessarily be to the audiences' liking, and, unfortunately, there is no formula to help you guess what that is until after you have released your story. All that aside: i did experience moments of enjoyment in TLH3, but they were overshadowed by the instances of function overpowering fun, and said function, i'm sorry to say, wasn't very well implemented. 7/10

Played through all three games, the first two multiple times. Always angered and frustrated with the repeated failures these stories have to give out. This last one is no exception. I had a vague hope that perhaps the first two stories were intentionaly punishing to make a final sucess in the last one all the more rewarding. Alas that hope too was dashed. Honestly these stories would be better served with a perma death option, where the wrong choice atleast ends the story and forces you to start over again and try to guess what the one Right choice for each situation is. As it stands you just get "defeated" over and over each time weakened in one way or another that only ensures further defeat in the choices ahead. I love this particular type of game. I love being able to choose how to develop a character and watch the story line change accordingly. So its really really hard for me to give this a thumbs down as there just really are not enough of these kind of games in my opinion. Just a thought for the author, these games are meant to be a fun distraction. Perhaps In your next project you could keep that more in mind, and focus less on punishing the player so much for not picking the choice YOU think they should have chosen, or as mentioned before, just go for the perma kill and not keep dragging them along.

NO SPOILERS. What the others are saying rings true. I can not recommend it. The end feels terribly rushed, and ends abruptly. More than that, its designed to make you fail. You will fail skill check after skill check, because the game DEMANDS it. It is impossible to have such high values for so many parameters. In the end, the game is rigged and your choices dont matter.... A shame, because i truly liked the first two parts.

A fitting ending for the trilogy.

Mated with a Turtle. A+

There's challenging, then there's annoyingly stupid hard. You can't do anything at all because you need 90-100 in most of everything so you're stuck failing skill check after skill check even when you have absurdly good skill in the department you're working in (ie. fighter, wizard, thief, esc). Good luck thinking you have any control over how you're going to play this part, because this game is just going to play you. This review only echoes other reviews in which I have to agree it completely throws fun out of the window. Eventually, people are going to get sick of restarting your game over and and over and over trying to get a half decent ending because it is that difficult. This doesn't function properly, your ability to control the story isn't obvious, and thus you're left with little to no fun factor like you should have when playing CoG stories. I wouldn't even call this a choose your own adventure game, you'll find yourself surrounded by moments in which you don't have choices because the game is stupidly difficult to go the path you want. I feel bad one of my best friends bought me this game. Wish I could give him a refund.

Had alot of fun with the first two games. The ability to reach the desired outcomes through wildly differing means was this series greatest strength. It meant you could build your character how you wanted and still have a shot at victory if you prepared well enough. This game broke all of that with the finale. Almost nothing I choose seems to have a meaningful impact on how the final encounters play out. I would otherwise recommend this series for the fun had in 2.5 chapters, but the ending sequence just ruins the whole experience. 8-10 would play, but not twice.

While there are enjoyable moments like the first two games, blatantly unfair skill checks overshadow what fun there is to be had. For example (no major spoilers), my priest (with maxed magic) was constantly failing magic skill checks because other skills were also being checked. Failing to properly cast a spell because my priest wasn't agile or durable enough was extremely annoying. Even worse is later on in the game where you are heavily punished for failures. If you really enjoyed the previous two games, then it's worth buying for a conclusion to the story. However, expect frustration with poorly thought out and game ending skill checks.

Pros: -You go to many new and interesting places. Meet new allies and enemies. -Longer than the first two games. -Learn the main villain's motivation. -There's a big battle that takes into account many of your previous decisions. -You can slowly sacrifice your humanity for demon powers. -Realm decisions! -Love the lore. -Much better than part 2, felt like an adventurer again. Cons: -Really hard to develop secondary skills. You either lose a bunch or get lucky and get a small bonus that won't matter. -The game constantly reminded me I had a warhorse, but I never got a chance to use it. -Would have liked more interaction with my companions. Some storylines don't get resolved, some characters just seem to disappear. Most of the end you're on a solo quest. Final Verdict: -First time players may find it's mechanics frustrating, but it's a game you have to play from the beginning more than once. Playing it again I really appreciated all the different classes you can develop.