The Dark Eye Blackguards - turn-based tactical RPG set in The Dark Eye world

[anvi]

I loved it but the spells were not balanced well. Some were crap and some had a huge impact.

 

[Nikanuur]

Minor spoiler about teaching the mage(s) archery.

I kind of inadvertently made Amelia the best archer in my group, gave her the best bow in the game (the healer's bow), and equipped her with different kinds of arrows and poisons. After Niam died, that is. It proved a most fortunate random choice. She loses her casting powers due to story events and is a useless melee, but in this way she can continue raining havoc on enemies from afar without much of a fuss :3

Edit: She's actually competing for the best ranged in my group with Takate who, due to his Warcraft 18, can swap from melee to crossbow and from crossbow to melee without losing an action point, and who has already much higher Strenght stat.

 

[Nikanuur]

Finished the game. It's what games used to look like when gaming was gaming and men were... erm... strange, scraggy, four-eyed creatures of the basement and shadows.
I had to rethink the last boss puzzle-fight several times, it wasn't easy. Loved it.
And the ending was dreadfully awesome.
Silent Hill, The Fog, and other movies' similar endings would salute.

 

[behold_a_man]

What are the consequences of my actions in this game? I know about

Spoiler

saving or whacking Aurelia depending on some unknown choices

and about the

Spoiler

boon you get from completing the twelve trials in a way, that does not enrage the gods - or at least, some of them. I am not certain whether I ever passed the Phex's one - I know I got that gift after finishing this trial with either:
1) Sneaking with "Move as the Lightning" and 3 subsequent movements of each character.
2) Murdering the guards from a distance (while they still did not notice me) with "Wrath of the Elements".
3) Moving to the last tiles without any sort of sneaking or killin'.

But not if I failed any other trial:

What is odd for me is that some people here say about 'good ending' without a sacrifice, while my choices barely seemed to matter at all - though I kind of liked the fact, that I didn't get any tangible rewards for being 'good' - like not protecting the well properly in the Heroes' Hedge or allowing the lady from the Ritual Site to escape.

Also, the game was surprisingly easy on hard - after the beginning of the third chapter, I had two troublesome fights, both at the beginning of the next two chapters - and Zurbaran still had ~6500 unspent adventure points by the end of the game (I expected to spend some of them on "Regeneration Mastery" and moving the charisma to 18 only to learn, that it merely adds a single point to the astral regeneration per turn rate). I never really had to learn anything about the system behind the stats - going by a 'gut feeling' proved to be successful.

 

[anvi]

What spells did you take? My first play through was easy but my second play through was brutal. I think spells made all the difference.

 

[behold_a_man]

What spells did you take? My first play through was easy but my second play through was brutal. I think spells made all the difference.

1) My main character was not a mage.

2) Zurbaran had:
-> Move as Lightning (level 3) - having an additional action in a system with a single action per turn drastically changes everything.
-> Balm of Healing (level 3) - it was very important for me to have this spell at that level in the second chapter, as it allowed me to go through subsequent fights in the arena without losing resources (related to wounds).
-> Magica Infracta (level 4) - in the end I barely used it at all.
-> Clarum Purum (level 4) - it simplified a lot of fights at the start of the third chapter - besides, there were multiple encounters with enemies using long-lasting poison, like ghouls - so, the spell was very useful to the end of the game. Besides, it is dirt cheap.
-> Wrath of the Elements (level 2) - knockdown always comes in handy.
-> Ignifaxius Burst of Flame (level 2) - very useful at the beginning, especially against moving trees.

3) Aurelia had
-> Move as Lightning (level 3) - as above, using this spell four times in a single turn makes most battles dead simple.
-> Karnifilo Frenzy (level 4) - it was crucial for a single fight with forest cutthroats at the beginning of the fifth chapter.
-> Wrath of the Elements (level 3) - level 2 was all I needed though.

Obviously I also had some levels by default and got some spells I never used.

 

[Abu Antar]

I don't remember much of what I rolled, but I think that I only had one character with spells.

 

[Raghar]

I finally beat this today (I bought the game on release but it, along with almost every other single-player game I owned, fell victim to my fixation on Final Fantasy XI). I had a ton of fun and, if this game is true to TDE, I have a lot of respect for German RPG designers :D. The system is just so beautifully crunchy.

I don't have much new to add to everyone else's observations. Combat and encounter design was fantastic. The only thing I would have liked is a little more expansive use of gimmicks, but I never got bored. One thing I struggled with was how the game communicated what was going on to me; I can't tell you how many fights I reloaded simply because I made a mistake that I wouldn't have, if I knew what the fuck was going on. Many's the time I walked over/into gimmicks or traps that were visible but I didn't understand, or got blindsided by AOOs that I didn't think would be triggered etc.

Character development was satisfying for almost 100% of the game, very rare in my experience. It only fell off near the very very very end, and only for non-caster characters. Even in the Temple of the Nameless I was sweating what spells would get APs.

Itemization was also really good for the most part. I particularly enjoyed the massive difference between most of the "end-game" weapons in each category as opposed to their early- and mid-game counterparts. Getting the Andergaster, Pailos, Honorhall's Scepter and Bloodletter felt amazing. I liked that all of the two handers are balanced by having penalties; it's nice to feel like using sword and board, dual wielding and two handed come with real trade-offs. I've also never played a game where I used consumables as much as this one; I loved sniping the shit out of enemies as they closed in with whatever poisons I had to hand. My only real complaint is with armor, I would have appreciated one or two more sets, especially non-metallic (but one more metallic set would've been nice too).

I didn't particularly care that there was no exploration to speak of. Note that I would have cared a lot if there was exploration that was done badly; kudos to Daedalic for focusing their scope and doing really well at what they gave us. However I would have appreciated a strategic layer to the world map, with a fleshed-out camping and travelling system. It would have made provisions feel like something other than cheap megalixirs, for one thing :D.

Lastly, a special shout out to the final Arena fight for being the single most annoying, shitty, retarded encounter in any RPG ever. What the fuck. I don't know who at Daedalic thought it was a good idea to make a fight that consisted solely of whacking away at endless overgrown louses, but whoever it was, they should be dragged into the street by their hair and shot in the public square as a warning to other such degenerates. Even after I figured out exactly the mechanics of the encounter, it was still a boring, maddening, slow-as-molasses grind. I came very close to just quitting the game over it, non-required fight and all; I hated it that much.

In the end I'm glad I stuck with it though. This game was definitely free time well spent.

So basically you want better Realms of Arcania II. Yea, I too.

 

[razvedchiki]

is a dual wield build worth it? i can see that fencing/dagger weapons have initiative bonus, theoritically i could go first and wound the mobs?

 

[anvi]

I really love this game. Almost at the end of my 3rd playthrough, there are a lot of great battles.

 

[huskarls]

realized the game has the same va as raphael from bg3

 

[agris]

nice to see this one getting more love