Various Thoughts

The game‘s fifth chapter is essentially just an extension of the third (with roughly the same amount of content as the previous chapter), while the sixth consists solely of the final dungeon.

Nothing much to say about that 5th chapter really besides that it’s notably easier than the 4th and doesn’t have the same lack of direction as the 3rd. Also, at this time, nearly all of the items that should be dropped by the various demon armies… aren’t dropping. The final dungeon meanwhile is significantly better than Kingmaker’s in the respect that it’s both short and straight-forward, but equivalent in that you’ll run into some incredibly annoying enemies.

This first complete playthrough went Lich and aimed for (and got) the Ascension ending. The Lich’s final chapter events are weird and somewhat disconnected/unfinished, but the path’s ability progression and army management aspects are solid. The special ending by contrast wraps up quite a number of dangling plot threads, but could do with being a little less impossible to achieve naturally (simply having the Stargazer decree completion text actually mention the date range would probably be enough). Also not thrilled how there’s an automatic 5-minute timeskip between the normal final boss and the Ascension bosses with no opportunity given to prepare for the second fight.

With that out of the way any future playthroughs will no longer have to worry about time constraints. I did however miss out on getting the ‘Sadistic Game Design‘ achievement due to an unfortunately necessary companion respec back in the 4th chapter. Meaning I’m not quite done with avoiding resting like the plague and clearing sidequest areas with an exhausted party.

Next up are simultaneous Angel/Demon playthroughs to flesh out the exploration/area listing I’m writing up that will be similar to the one I did for Kingmaker. Then hopefully on to finishing the Aeon playthrough that’s been languishing at the start of Chapter 3 before tackling the remaining mythic paths (probably doubling up on Trickster for Swarm, Azata for Gold Dragon, Aeon for Devil, and either Angel or Lich for Legend).

WotR‘s fourth chapter is the equivalent of Baldur’s Gate II‘s visit to the Underdark. You leave the kingdom management behind for a more standard RPG experience in a tiered cityscape.

Size-wise it’s about the same as the Prologue combined with Chapter I, and stands out mostly for some prominent difficulty spikes. You’ll have streetside encounters with spell-happy or insanely overleveled demons and quest-related encounters with overbuffed enemy after overbuffed enemy. It’s pretty unpleasant all things considered.

The other main feature of this chapter is the actual area itself. Instead of having a static map the buildings will change position based on which way your camera is rotated. Personally I thought this was pretty cool, but there are more than a few who seem to find it infuriating. More unambiguously annoying is that the game expects you at this point to have someone who can repeatedly cast Dimension Door to reach all the otherwise inaccessible rooftops. Usually you’ll find loot (often pretty damn good loot), though in one case there’s a battle with random enemies and in another there’s a superboss.

Honestly I found the entire experience draining and can’t wait to get back the world map so I can start moving my armies around again.

The third chapter is where the second half of crusade management is introduced and about 70% or so of the world map opens up.

Basically it’s a much simplified version of Kingmaker‘s kingdom management. You get advisory councils made up of various party members which let you make decisions to raise different sorts of stats and/or recruit different units. Aside from overall army morale, you don’t have to ever worry about a stat decreasing here or encountering a negative event that will destroy your city if ignored.

As for buildings, they all pretty much now either boost your army or resource gathering potential. So (after a Teleporter) you’ll want to build anything that increases resources or reduces costs first, followed by anything that increases recruitment for your preferred troops, and lastly anything that boosts those troops’ effectiveness.

Exploration-wise it’s pretty much identical though, meaning that visiting areas in the ‘wrong’ order is quite possible and can have you running into challenges you’re not yet prepared for. You’ll want to focus on your mythic quests first (which may or may not be immediately available depending on path), followed by the Greengates and Molten Scar-related questlines (along with any companion quests that trigger). After those you can take on the dragon, Wintersun, and the Ivory Sanctum. Blackwater should be saved for last because the enemies there are quite a bit more powerful than anything else in the chapter.

If you want to visit every area efficiently (which is far from necessary since most sidequests only show up after a certain amount of time has passed), then this order will clear the map in 2-3 weeks depending on resting habits:

Ruins of Ashbury Hamlet, Temple of the Good Hunt, Ashen Grotto
Shrine of Sacrilege, Greengates, Molten Scar, Pitfall (Reagents)
Scrubland by a Bend in the River, Broken Cart (Reagents), Grimwood
Sacred Lands, Bloody Trail, Artisan’s Tower, Wintersun
Ravaged Longhouse, Terendelev’s Lair, Heart of Mystery
Burned-Down Shack (Reagents), Befouled Barrows (Storybook)
Knapsack on a Tree (Reagents), Core of the Riddle
Remains of a Disgusting Feast (Reagents), Crimson Dust, Ivory Sanctum
Makeshift Lab (Reagents), Legacy of the Ancients
Petrified Traveler (Reagents), Blackwater, Bones in a Pool of Mud (Reagents)

The game‘s second chapter introduces the first half of the crusade management system.

Basically, you get to control additional party markers on the world map independently of your own, each representing an ‘army’. You use these armies to destroy demon units and forts via tactical combat pretty much identical to the King’s Bounty games’. Each army has its own independent movement range (which doesn’t cause time to pass), and it gets refreshed each new day.

So you pretty much want to go exploring/killing demons with your armies first, then follow-up behind them with your main party visiting all the locations they uncovered. The main exception is Leper’s Smile, which is located across the river to the north and can only be uncovered when right on top of it. It’s a nasty area full of swarm enemies that cause the confusion effect which you have to visit in order to progress the storyline. Then after that nasty area the Lost Chapel will eventually pop-up as a second nasty plot-required area where you may not have access to your whole party. For that location you’ll want scrolls of Death Ward and probably Haste if you can’t cast it normally.

After those two locations the actual assault on Drezen is comparatively simple. You’ll want more Death Ward scrolls here, along with some Communal Resist/Protection From Element scrolls (2-3 fire and at least 1 acid) and Bless scrolls (for the Vrock spores). Also be aware that you won’t get the opportunity to loot the outside areas after you defeat the boss in the Command Room, so make sure to bring everything you want to keep/sell into that area.

Overall this chapter is much more freeform than the previous one and the army combat offers an amusing diversion from the hectic mass bloodshed of normal encounters.

Originally I was going to wait until completing the game‘s first chapter before commenting, but after getting utterly destroyed by what should be trash mobs for like the 10th time I’m honestly not sure I want to play it much more.

The first thing that stands out is the absolutely massive amount of character creation options available to you; I spent literally hours just looking through the various class/subclass progressions to try and figure out what character I wanted to try (ending up with a Hexcrafter).

When you actually start playing though the first thing that stands out is how small everything is. The camera is very zoomed in, you can’t unzoom it very much, and the maps are pretty cramped… particularly considering that there’s a fairly ridiculous number of enemies lurking about on them. Numbers alone wouldn’t be much of problem if it weren’t for the fact that enemies are commonly 2 or more levels above you (and give practically no XP).

House at the End of Time aside, Kingmaker was pretty well balanced as long as you knew what you were fighting. Here? Knowing what you’re fighting (demons, lots of demons) doesn’t matter much because you’re heavily outleveled and often outnumbered on top of it. Even knowing that the difficulty reverses itself later when the Mythic Path unlocks and you get to take advantage of broken synergies doesn’t much help in this early game when you have to re-load each encounter 5+ times to avoid having a single enemy critical hit 1-shot your party members.

That this part of the game has a hard time limit, meaning your resting is restricted, just adds insult to injury. I’m not thrilled about the plot development either as it’s pretty rail-roady so far and it makes no sense at all for people to treat you like some great hero when you’re just a level 2 character who got 1-shot by a demon.

I think I’m going to take a break and then try out the turn-based mode. That might make it easier since the party AI being pretty bad certainly isn’t helping.

The game’s optional concluding chapter turned out to be both better and worse than I’d feared.

The first part is balanced pretty well and has you re-visiting/re-facing some of your earlier foes, with only the Pitax portion being ridiculous (save it for last). The second part unfortunately is infested with Wild Hunt enemies… even occasionally sending them at you in waves. It’s pretty straight-forward though and the scenery is interesting so it ends up a superior overall experience when compared to the earlier exploration of the House at the Edge of Time.

Then there’s the final battle, which really piles on some nastiness. Like a lot of RPGs the boss here has several forms (each with its own set of minions) that you have to work your way through with no chance to rest in-between. The second form being the most dangerous by far as a good chunk of your party will likely end up Dominated unless you happen to have some sort of defense against it. After the third form falls the true form appears and engages you in a battle of wits. That part’s pretty cool and offers a variety of checks to make the final-final battle easier. At least I think that’s what succeeding on those checks does. I passed them and my party got revived and fully-healed, which may happen even if you fail but I have no intention of fighting through the boss’s first 3 forms again anytime soon.

Expect your party to reach level 17/18 by the end of the game if you have both of the XP Sharing options enabled. In the last chapter the PC of this playthrough looked like this: Naked with +1 Weapon (the green attributes are due to Bokken’s masterwork potion, which gives a permanent +2 to all of them) and Fully Equipped.