Forged of Blood

Opening Note: At first I was hesitant to purchase the game given some of the initial reviews concerning the timed campaign and difficulty in keeping companion loyalty, but it seems since launch they've incorporated a number of options to tailor the difficulties to your liking. So keep that in mind when reading some of the earlier negative reviews. I bought the game on sale, but after having played it for awhile, it would have been worth it full price. Like a number of other reviews state, this is basically medieval X-com. Figuring out some of the nuances of effective builds definitely takes some time, but the game is mostly straightforward to get into. The tutorial does a good job of familiarizing you with the different systems. The magic crafting system is definitely still clunky in my opinion, but there is still a lot of potential. What really stands out is that Forged of Blood definitely tries a number of new takes that work really well together overall (even with a few rough edges). The lore is intriguing and its just enough to get one invested in the plight of the main character without being overly burdensome; yet, there is definitely a lot of room to expand the world in future installments. The map is beautiful, and definitely gives you the feel that you are directing a war effort as the pawns representing your parties (or "Talons") move to various objectives. If you are looking for a strategy/tactical experience that is unique and fun, definitely go ahead and give this game a try. With all the innovation the developers tried to make, it fortunately results in a cohesive and entertaining experience. I am looking forward to seeing if any more installments are made for the series.

To be honest, I am not sure where all the negative reviews are coming from. I am a turn-based strategy gamer, and I have had more fun playing this game than any other in the past year or two. I put it up there right after Divinity 2 and Xcom 2. There are minor improvements that could be made, but nothing that detracts from the overall experience. Characters develop nicely from the start of the game until the end. There is partial respecing available to fix any mistakes you may have made. Every weapon plays differently as does the magic. Magic is powerful in the late game if you want it to be. AI doesn't use it much which is my one real complaint. The campaign is interesting and time limited, but the global war is more flexible and you can take your time. I enjoyed both. Game is not expensive and worth the price.

I wanted to like this game. It has some great elements. But it puts it all together in the worst way. The most important player skill in the game is Luck. All pretense of strategy is negated by the fact that any enemy unit can, and will one-shot your units. Even if you do everything right, you will lose between one and all of your units per major battle. Add in the excessive reliance on timers to provide unnecessary pressure, and complex magic system with little to no documentation, then a game that started with a lot of potential, turns into a steaming mess.

I'm giving this game a thumbs up not because it's a great game in its current state, but because of the potential and the amount of detail that went into the game including character progression, spells, and itemization. There is a game here and a story arc to play through, but what if feels like it a really good CRPG game development toolset that could create a really excellent tactical, turn-based CRPG with the right attention to game flow and more interesting enemies, quests, and maps (many are reused over and over). The game also has lots of annoying bugs. Not game breaking bugs, but annoying bugs like crashing to the desktop, achievements that never register even though you've met the requirements multiple times through multiple play throughs. Even with all the negatives, there's so much potential there if the developer would add some polish, not repeat the content, and fix the annoying bugs. I love the combat, character system, spell, system, and itemization system in this game though and would love to see more games developed using this system. I bought the game on sale, and enjoyed it enough to give it a thumbs up, but this could be one of the better CPRG systems I've played that just needs more polish, better marketing, and less content reuse.

This game is annoying because some of its really good, but the fights are horrible. Story line and campaign map are really well put together, lots of interesting little quests and some interesting mechanics for squad buidling, with nice character building too in terms of stats and abilities, not much customisation. The problem lies int he combat. Its like it could be good but there are so many little things that screw it up. The percentage chance just doesn't seem to work, i have never had such bad luck with a game, when all shots are at 80% + to hit. Enemies will almost always survive with 1 health for some reason instead of dying, which gives them another turn to attack and is incredibly frustrating. Its also really really hard, like the third fight i got into i had 4 warriors against about 12, who seemed to be better equipped than mine. At least there is a retreat option. If you want to be very frustrated and waste hours fighting impossible battles hoping to luck out then go for it, it is a shame because if the combat were sorted this would be a gem. Id recommend Expeditions Vikings if your looking for something like this but better.

I've been a big fan of turn-based tactical games since the first X-Com and Jagged Alliance games, so was excited to try this one. I found the combats entertaining and the difficulty seemed the right level of challenging once I realized that encounters were based on the highest level character in the party. The magic system was daunting at first with the numerous customization options, but I ventured in once I was more comfortable with the game and was soon designing a variety of spells that worked great. Some game concepts seemed arcane at first, but they did a great job with the Codex to explain almost everything. Overall, while some displays could use polishing like when tooltips that appear on hovering obscure what you're looking at, but that's pretty minor stuff and didn't affect my enjoyment of the game, a great effort from an indie.

Its like a fantasy XCOM, and I like both fantasy, and XCOM. My only gripe with this game is that the magic system is not explained particularly well. Perhaps I accidentally skipped over some load-bearing tutorial text, but I didn't know that I could cast spells more than once so long as I alternate between the expel mode and drain mode of the equipped magurite. Also, the spell designer isn't as helpful as I'd like. In a modern game, I expect some helpful tooltips, at the least. For example, the "staggered" spell modifier: it is intended to convert a spell with duration to a spell that pulses (takes effect every X turns, or w/e). However, you see it used on spells without duration all the time, by default, which made me suspect that I had some fundamental misunderstanding of what pulsing meant in that context. Turns out, this effect can be used to increase power of spells without duration for relatively cheap -- increases your spell power by 0.75 per point of stagger, and because the spell doesn't have a duration, the other effect doesn't apply. Anyhow, I think this game is underrated, and I wouldn't mind seeing a sequel or expansion.

whenever I try to play the game it disables sound, got 1 dreaded blue screen of death and I've aged 10 years while waiting to move the mouse from one side of the screen to the other. Pretty poor stuff, agree with other reviewers when they say that the UI is overly complex and not intuitive. It was having a negative impact on my machine, so had to uninstall. In a way I was glad, because I wasn't enjoying it at all.