if anyone is looking for a REALLY interesting game, I highly recommend Thea: The Awakening. It is absolutely stellar, and even has a linux build (even though they don't have a linux logo, they ship a perfectly working linux build (ymmv).).
Lost hundreds of hours in just a couple weeks to that game.
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actually don't just got an elf. Giving it a great axe and killing a dragon. brb.
Give me a synopsis of the game. Tell me your favorite aspects of the game. Not sure I would like strategy games for I have never played any one in my life.
Since Hearthstone every game have to have a card aspect or minigame or something by law now, god damn it...
It's like zombies and crafting all over again, but this time cards and multiplayer... Bloody hell, the game would have been just fine without them. I was actually intrigued... And then - cards...
Witcher 3 had Gwent and that doesn't seem an issue at all.
If you want to dismiss new things just because they implement elements that already exist, you will miss a lot... I mean, basically every thing we create takes inspiration from previous inventions.
I dunno. This game does the cards mechanic well. It isn't that you're playing with cards, it is just the combat/character turns are displayed with cards.
Basically, first player to go is determined randomly. From there cards are played by both sides against the other. The order of combat is delt left to right ordering.
Your card's strenghts and abilities are modified by the equipment you give them.
Pikes give you ability to insert yourself before enemy card and deal half your damage on play
blunt damage (warhammers, mallets) give you the ability to carry through remainder damage to a second card
axes have highest damage in the game
swords give you shield which is replenished each new combat encounter
on top of the regular melee combat you have sneak, magic, and tactic based encounters. Each use different stats and modifiers from your characters to determine their damages, and other abilities they have.
The 'card game mechanic' is pretty fucking briliant and challenging.
on top of that the economy and resource gathering mechanics get brutal at the higher difficulties.
Youll encounter situations in higher difficulties where due to the start, or other encounters you can find yourself having to starve your people in order to keep your food lasting long enough to actually survive.
The difficulty balancing is pretty stellar and is my favourite game from last year, honestly.
Plus, DLC is free, and the team that made it is a pretty down to earth group who are active with the community.
The game finally has an events editor which you can use to write your own story quests/encounters.
Voice acting is spot on, and it was just.. a blast to play for me these past 120ish recorded hours (played some offline but steam doesn't count that).
To help you with the strategy bit, you can adjust the different aspects of the game to your liking. Don't want to bother with gathering or low resource issues? turn everything up to max but the gather difficulty and don't turn on the realisitc gathering option.
Want to have a difficult map difficulty/survival, but easy combat? Turn everything up to max, but bloodbath, and the encounter dificulty
Want to have an easier map and difficult everything else? Turn up everything but the map size and enemy aggressiveness.
Pretty stellar options on your gameplay difficulty.
I can't really say any part of it is a favourite. Everything in the game just feels.. Finished and it just all works together so nicely. It maybe could have been done better somehow, but I can't really pinpoint anything in the game and say "that makes the game worse". hell, I don't play on 350% difficulty because of all the micromanagement. It isn't a fault of the game, just a result of turning EVERY difficulty option to highest and still having a chance to win... if you utilize every turn /move/combat to the max return on investment that you can.
To you. I dislike Witcher 3 for a long list of things, but here is the thing, Gwent fits as you are literally playing a card game in the game world.
In Hand Of Fate you are playing card game against the dealer.
This was appealing to me. I mean it looked similar to games like Disciples or Warlock: Master of the arcane, and then out of nowhere - cards, and crafting... Now it looks like a pile of mechanics... Because crafting is a strategy game can work well... CCG mechanic in a strategy game can work well...
Here I was shown a warlock style movement and stuff, a book with story choices, looking like choose your own adventure style game, a crafting system, a card mechanic, a party something... It looks like a pile of different stuff just put together...
I mean seriously, we had a card mechanics in Titanfall 1... Seriously, people are overusing the crafting and CCG mechanics...
PS: I am not saying the game is bad. I am saying, that there are things, that are putting me off of it...
The card mechanics are nothing like gwent or hearthstone.
The card mechanics are more like Old FF esque turn based combat, except you get to set the order of who goes when.
(who is in the immediate active/support party is determined randomly though)
Let's say, that if Hearthstone was not as popular as it was, half the games, that now have CCG mechanics would not have those. So it would not be overused... Probably I would not hated CCG mechanics at that point...
That was what I was trying to say, I guess unsuccessfully...
Well, give the game a shot though. Worse thing is you'll request a refund on steam. You can get into the combat mechanics within about 20 minutes of starting if you follow the tutorial.