Willow Guard

So, I've been waiting for this game to finally come out for more than two years now. Had the pleasure of playing it in very different states, and I love to see how it all came together in the end. Can't pinpoint it but the both the art style (you gotta love a "badger witche"!!) and way of how the story is told, including the observe and clues feature is integrated, feel a bit like being transported to when I played "The Dark Eye", both pen and paper and the old games. So yeah, nostalgia's speaking, and that might not be everyone's cup of tea, but I'm genuinely enjoying it. Gameplay-wise, I like the integration of the card/perk system into the generally basic combat design (especially compared to early versions), but it does what it's supposed to do really well. Again, surely not up everyone's alley, but I'm glad I can finally check out the whole game and see where the story's taking me :) Great job!

Great game

This game is more of a visual novel than anything else, but still has a rougelike component, character progression and resource management. The story is interesting enough to keep me interested even though I'm not a fan of visual novels. Overall a decent game, it's a pity that the action component is a bit weak.

Willow Guard Review By Thom Stone on GameCritics.com HIGH Effective worldbuilding. Engaging dialogue. Endearing art style. LOW Overused levels. Erratic difficulty. WTF Did the badger lady kill the previous owner of the smithy or what? Willow Guard is an unconventional hack-and-slash/deck-building/visual novel hybrid from the minds of MiTale, a Finnish publisher and developer that prides itself on its “passion for interactive storytelling and serious games” — and its latest work definitely reflects that passion. Fans of stories centered around knights-errant and anthropomorphic woodland creatures (Redwall anyone?) will delight in the charming aesthetics and darker undertones of the narrative. The player controls a battle-hardened badger-man named Ghweros who, not unlike Geralt in The Witcher, belongs to an ancient order known as the Willowguards. They’re oathbound to protect the willow groves surrounding each settlement, yet they’re often derided by the townspeople. Ghweros has been sent forth into the world of Tersa to determine what’s been causing a sudden uptick in monster activity and put a stop to it. The first stop is Woikos, a remote lumber town that appears ordinary but, as the player will learn from their forays into its mysterious ruins, was of particular importance to the Willowguards of antiquity. No spoilers here but the story is strong enough to be a visual novel with well-written dialogue and each area being peppered with tantalizing bits of lore just waiting to be pieced together. Having spent years as a thankless mercenary, Ghweros has a gruff demeanor, but the player can make different choices to alter his personality. These then affect his relationships, or “Affinity” with others via different responses (empathetic, rigid, neurotic etc.) just as one would in games like the recent Dragon Age: The Veilguard. These types correspond to opportunities like observing details or interacting with objects in static environments that are essentially point-and-click areas. Choosing certain actions — such as investigating a sinister presence in tall grass — increased my neurotic Affinity enough to grant me access to an otherwise inaccessible area. An event that affected my empathetic Affinity was triggered by clicking on a point near the foundation of a roadhouse as Ghweros took a moment to appreciate the effort and care put into its construction and maintenance. While all of these elements get us off to a good start, it’s unfortunate that Willow Guard‘s combat isn’t up to the same standard. Starting with the good, I appreciate the developer’s choice to switch from charming hand-drawn animation during story sequences to nostalgic 16-bit in the combat, which offers relatively straightforward mechanics with a few interesting deviations in formula. As I got more familiar with the gameplay loop, it was satisfying to clear room after room, getting more powerful as I went along. Once past the visuals, I was soon dismayed by the awkward controls, unbalanced difficulty spikes and lack of variety in terms of level design. Playing Willow Guard never felt natural, even after changing the key bindings. Also, basic attacks and visual cues for enemy attacks did not reflect their actual areas-of-effect or hitboxes, so I had to memorize where their attacks actually landed after learning that information the hard way. Repetition is also a concern. The rooms and areas where combat takes place lack variety, and rather than being procedurally-generated as in some of my favorite roguelites, they’re just arranged in a different order. Also, some quests had me retreading the exact same ground as I’d already done, just with harder enemies. Exchanging loot for materials to upgrade gear and create new cards did help between quests, but the difficulty spikes were sometimes extreme, particularly by the time I reached the late-game areas. This endgame zone instantly reminded me of classic Zelda dungeons thanks to its puzzles, enemies and challenges. However, I was disappointed to find that some puzzles were embarrassingly easy or non-existent — a room with spikes that would only trigger if I stepped on them hardly constitutes a mental challenge, as I was able to simply follow the path and arrive in the next room totally unscathed. Other rooms were more tedious than challenging. One had a brief window during which enemies could be attacked, but after that they couldn’t be damaged unless they were hit by sentries that fired at me. I would have to dodge out of the way as the sentries launched their attacks. Then I had to wait for it to happen again, and again, until all of the enemies were finally destroyed and I could pull the lever to open the door to the next room. In terms of production there were a handful of issues, including the fact that Willow Guard would sometimes freeze mid-dialogue, such as when I asked Ajati, the badger-woman blacksmith about the shop’s previous owner. The dialogue boxes dropped out completely and I had to quit the game. When I returned and tried asking the question again, the same thing happened. I suppose I may never find out what happened to the former smithy owner, but putting that unintentional cliffhanger aside, my overall feeling is that the developers of Willow Guard largely accomplished what they set out to do — it just ended up a bit lacking in the execution. Rating: 7 out of 10

An interesting mix of genres: you move to places on the overworld map, where you can either talk to people (well, animals) and investigate the story by showing them clues and objects, or fight in dungeons. Fighting style is a pretty straightforward action RPG, but it has a deck building mechanic (you can put cards in your deck that will give you different boosts and abilities) and of course a touch of roguelike (if you die, you gotta restart the dungeon or go somewhere on the map). Graphics are good even tho the environments are a bit repetitive, at least up to the point where I got because maaaan that difficulty spike. I was basically cruising through the game with only a few deaths here and there when BAM, a monster siege with portals to close and runes to activates hits. Tried innumerable times, even activated honeybadger mode to make it easier, but I kept dying over and over. I do not have the patience to grind for upgrade material or to git gud, so I’ll just call it quits.

What a cool game! REALLY Cute in my opinion. Love the story and design!

A fun RPG with visual novel elements. Willow guard is focused on a mystery affecting an isolated rural community beset by monsters who are rampaging through its countryside and you need to get to the bottom of it before the town gets overwhelmed. It leans a bit adventure game 'show everyone everything' at times with digging out every clue to poke every person with it, to where I wish some clues were marked on the screen if you've already shown someone the clue. Despite that genre wrinkle there's a flow to the investigation that makes sense when the story starts to come together. The game has a time management to it and it took me a few replays to get through the investigation in one smooth flow before the timer ran out and the end game started. It was a fun experience plotting what the best way through the adventure would be, The game's rather generous ten or so previous autosave slots in a file were a big help in walking back mistakes. Saved me from having to restart once, even if I lost an hour or two. The combat is simple but satisfying, with a deck you draw either passive upgrades or active abilities from. You can upgrade your gear and craft new cards with materials dropped from monsters and go from an unprepared badger that needs to dodge attacks to an unstoppable juggernaut mowing through enemies with the right combination and upgrades. That said, the cost curves for upgrading gear is extreme, costing a large number of rare materials to reach high levels that I have not gotten across any of my 3 play throughs, given material drops are random. Further, given additional equipment drops are random as well, it lead me to just upgrading my starting equipment each time and sticking to a similar playstyle through my 3 runs. Unlocking the secondary armor set just took too much time. Card crafting drops are also random, which makes getting some of the most advanced cards challenging. A system to break down unwanted cards into a material that can craft new cards you want would be a welcome addition to future installments or updates, if just to mitigate back luck on desired upgrades (looking at you Stoneskin rune, needing 3 more of those cards for the 3rd tier rune). I went until night 7 without an improved oil of sharpness on my last run, oof. I can understand wanting them to be rare or not always something I can count on, but I've done 3 play throughs of about 40 hours and I haven't gotten lucky enough to get 4 lessers yet to make the supreme stoneskin. I probably never will. Either way, I had fun with this game. The artwork and characters were an easy draw, but the setting, systems, and the order of how best to unravel the mystery had me enjoying it through several different save files. Also, I can't leave this unsaid but the monster designs are very good. They look horrific and dangerous. Very good work. I look forward to what the studio has in store for this universe next.

Willow Guard is a bit on the different side, but a very neat little gem By all means, the game is more of an instance-based, slightly randomized (just area zones) adventure that is mostly Hack & Slash combat. And that combat is relatively basic, but I honestly felt like it was enough. You've got your basic 3-hit combo, charged heavy attack, dodge, and everything else is dependent on your cards. You draw them after you fill your 'stamina' bar (defeating monsters, breaking stuff, thwacking small trees), giving yourself buffs for 'Dungeon'. As well as use some of your magic and equipment within your extra 2 slots. I liked it, all of it really. They could have ruined this by going all in on the card system like KH: Chain Of Memories, to the point of making your actual attacks/damage cost cards. There's already so many games that do that now, so it's nice to see something that only takes slight elements of deckbuilding- and you can swap out cards you just do not want. There is a bit of a fault to this though, and it's due to the 'adventure' side to this. Throughout some dungeons there will be hidden chests or slight puzzles you'll encounter. Walls with cracks in them that can be broken down via explosives, iron bars that need acid to melt them, and some barriers that require some arcane magic to disable. The concept of this is great and it tickles my brain- but there is a problem with it: you can only get stamina by defeating monsters/breaking objects, and there's only so many. There's been a few times where I spotted these only to not have the right cards in my hand- or even have access to them at the given time. Sometimes you can get around it; like using an enemies acid spit attack to melt the iron bars or that the dungeon itself gives you the magic required. But you only have two extra slots, so you're kinda stuck every dungeon with the main decision: "Do I use my equipment to make these fights easier/more fun? Or do I not engage with half of this combat system to save the slots in case I encounter one of these puzzles?" It is... A bit of a strange design choice, I must admit. One that can be irritating when you keep getting the cards you do not want at that time. Though let me be clear: these puzzles are almost always static. If you go to the Lumber Yard, you're going to find the same Lumber Yard hidden chests that require these- but so many areas look the same. So it's very easy to mix up which areas contained which puzzles. Honestly, it might be better to just make physical notes about them, come to think of it. But that is about the worst of the game (aside from "the Vault", ugh...) and the game was overall fun regardless of this flaw. The story was relatively good, interactions with characters and the investigations were alright. These parts do make you feel like a detective, while the combat does make you feel like a badass badger (especially towards the end). But what I really really need to give praise to is the bloody monster designs- holy balls. You've seen the trailer, you know what to expect. I honestly wish more studios would be this creative on their creature designs, wowzers Overall, great game. Maybe 8.1/10 or so- coming from someone who doesn't enjoy deckbuilders in the slightest (yes, Including INSCRYPTION). Give the demo a shot, my story progress carried over with no issues. See if you enjoy yourself/the world, but do keep in mind that there's a fair amount of investigation throughout the game. Good Luck, Willow Guard~