Expeditions: Samurai

I really wanted to like Expeditions: Samurai, but it ended up being disappointing for me. Going into it, I was hoping for a deeper RPG experience with more freedom, meaningful choices, character-building options, and exploration similar to Baldur’s Gate 3. Unfortunately, the game felt much more limited than I expected. There weren’t enough options in how I could approach situations, explore the world, or really make the character and adventure feel like my own. The overall quality also felt noticeably lower than what I was hoping for, especially when it came to exploration, depth, and immersion. I understand that not every RPG needs to be Baldur’s Gate 3, but I expected Expeditions: Samurai to give me more freedom to wander off, discover interesting places, find hidden rewards, and make decisions that changed how my adventure played out. It might be enjoyable for players who prefer a more straightforward and guided RPG, but if you're looking for a deep, open-ended RPG with lots of exploration and player choice, this probably won’t scratch that itch.

Played about 3,5 hours, liked vikings, rome before this but i have to say the new stealth system is inferior to what expeditions rome had, i realise that its still early access with limited gameplay as a result but i do hope they make the old stealth system an option, the one from Rome. Not going to hate or love it based on current unfinished early access state.

it's fun but I'm having a save bug

Needs more Cleopatra

I don't know about all the anti-woke stuff and other nonsense people are yelling about. My negative review of this game is simply because I don't think it was ready for early access. The stealth was so buggy that the game felt like it was falling apart on me, and the game froze when I tried to reload after it killed me in dialogue. Could be a great game, but it just needs more time.

I wish there was a neutral option to pick. In summary, if you are looking for an expedition game, this is not it. Rather, this game takes the setting of the 1600's, and infuses it with modern ideas. I am very disappointed.

At the current price (with discount) and given that it is early access I am going to recommend this game. However compared to Rome or Vikings it seems a downgrade at the moment, a few issues as I see them. The game seems to have been made with a controller in mind rather then with keyboard and mouse in mind, for instance 'hold button to select' this is annoying as rarely does accidently hitting space occur to people familiar with a keyboard or who have positioned the mouse over an option making this a time delay that is not needed - if it was a controller I could see a use for the delay perhaps. Forced mouse right click over left click for moving is also somewhat annoying particularly when you cannot change this in the controls. Minor Characters in previous games often had there faces grayed out, here the faces are visible which makes everyone look the same. The stealth mechanic effectively moves the game away from turn based towards real time - if you are good at real time you can just kill the enemies before they find you, I prefer to rely on character skill over player skill (also this seems likely to result in simply killing everyone in a building being the easier option then walking down a largely empty corridor quietly). The real time extends to following non-controlled characters - if you are exploring or taking it slow they can run off and get themselves killed before you even know what it occurring - i.e when you are trying to find which route to take on the map, likely better if the combat/characters waited for you. The dialog skills seem only applicable for the main character which means that they will be worse at everything else compared to the other character who don't need to invest in them (or you the player will waste points putting points into those skills for those characters). Unlocking items is annoying - if your main character can't do it (i.e you don't have the skills) then you have to select the character than can, have them unlock whatever it is, then reselect your main character and continue - likely better to simply have the highest skill in the party count for the main character/party to avoid a lot of pointless character selections. The inventory system also seems more cumbersome then the previous titles, select the equipment slot to see the equipment for that slot rather then merely selecting the equipment type in the inventory - also the green icon to see an equipment upgrade doesn't seem to be a obvious as it was in Rome. The main character feels generic to me (compared to Rome). In Rome the female and male playthrough were somewhat different narratively (i.e scenes/dialogue played out differently) here it seems that the choice is less relevant which seems to make the world feel less 'real' (i.e in Rome nobody was expecting the female character to fight until a powerful family friend vetoed the idea of your character sitting on the sidelines, here your character is set as a bodyguard/captain and seemingly nobody blinks despite it being the 1600s). To end on a positive there does seem to be a lot of reactivity to choices (or mistakes you make) in the game which is nice to see, In its current state this is likely shaping up to be a good game but whether it will feel like an an 'Expeditions' game or merely using the branding is perhaps a different question.

The cartoonish style is horrible. I am not a child playing some anime game. I'd rather have Expeditions Rome 2, than this.