Blackguards 2

Linear SRPG but with plenty of cool features that open up as you go, making the game feel more expansive. Really cool (but dark) writing and dialogue too, and some interesting characters overall. And combat is SWEET, very fun to utilize what's on offer there. Overall really good stuff, enjoying it!

NOTE: I just spent(wasted) 3+ hours on a set of two battles (three as the other was a two parter.) of which I quit both and the first one I had to restart seven times (3 on first part, 4 on the second)!. So this review might be bit salty.
I gave this game a positive review even though I would like to give it more of a neutral one.
So what are the positives. Well the game is nice to play for starters. The story is interesting, the dialogue is well written and characters are interesting, you have lots of freedom in creating your main character, fights can be tough but boy is the game unpolished....
There are skills which wording is just lying to you! An attack that says that it hits all the ENEMIES around you actually hits EVERYONE.
The fights don't tell you the objective, so hopefully you can figure the objective out and/or keep an eye on what is happening on the battlefield! Note: the game DOESN'T turn the screen or anything if something happens on the battlefield! Hopefully you have a photographic memory and can figure out what happened on the battlefield after you turn a lever or something.
Oh and I said that the fights can be tough. Yeah the fights can turn to frustrantigly annoying at times when you have no clue what you should be doing and then something comes from the left field that utterly messes up your gameplan. Alt+F4 is a common button combination that you will use a lot with this game. I don't mind challenge as long as it is fair and this game kicks fair to the teeth after about six moves on the world map (Three if you are fooled by a beginners trap).
And it is really annoying that the game doesn't allow you to save in the fights. Only between them (And no, fights with multiple parts don't allow you to save between them.), so hopefully you have an entire evening to spend on just one fight.
Oh and for an isometric tactical game it is really weird that you cannot move the camera around! It gets really hard to try and hit something with your cursor that is behind something at times!
Yeah waah the game is too hard and I want a Fable like trail of crumbs telling me what to do. Sorry but having to start each turn by going through the map with the highlighter on to see if something happened, or if you did do something is really annoying. One fight I didn't even hear a portal opening that I supposedly should have gone through apparently.
So yeah the game works but it needed more polish. Now get ready to enjoy a nice game that is hidden inside a really tough outerior. Also make sure that you have nothing important to do for couple of hours when you start to play this.

They took everything away from this game which made Blackguards 1 interesting and challenging. I won't say it's bad or terrible but I don't know why it felt dull and uninteresting. Story-wise the game is okay but it lacks the quirky and funny interactions that the first part had among your party members. And that was one of the selling points of Blackguards 1. If you have already played the first game and finished it, then I'm pretty sure you already know what I'm talking about. The first part's setting was dark and grim with pinch of humour here and there. However, this installment feels extremely depressive and sad. I would be okay with that if that was the story's requirement but game-play wise they reduced the difficulty level significantly too, making every encounter like a walk in the park.
So, does it mean it's a terrible game? No. Far from it but it's nothing in comparison to the first part. Get it if you see this game on sale otherwise just wait.

Blackguards 2 is a more combat-focus version of Blackguards 1.
While BG 1 was an RNG fest, BG2 removed so many of the annoying RNG and made strategical plays and puzzle stages a lot more common. Boss fights have you running around trying to abuse the stage hazard to the fullest to win. Certain stages will force you to complete objectives and leave or face infinite spawns unlike the old one where you can kill EVERYTHING except for one stage where you run away from the poison.
Outside of combat, you can now interact with characters more unlike the old one. You can capture prisoners, and interrogate them. Based on a choice, you can either make them spill the beans or spit at you. The informations required to make them answer can be obtained by paying for information from your beggar spies or by speaking around in your camp. After the interrogation, you can decide whether to hang them or let them go. Letting them go can be good but sometime, a certain person might come back to fight you again.
The customization has been greatly simplified. You no longer have the Strength, Charisma, etc from BG1. Instead, you just go with "+10 health" "+10 mana" "unlock tier 1 passive" in a straight line. Weapon level goes froml 1 - 100 and you unlock tier bonus at 50 80 100. While this means no weight limit from the removal of STR (Yes! No more weight issue!), it means much less customization. Even your mages will have as much hp as a fighter at the end making them unkillable.
And with that, let's move on to the balancing.
Endurance has been introduced. In BG1, all you had to do was buff someone and spam that 3x damage move like Hammer blow or Triple shot. You can't anymore. Endurance works like Astral point. When you use a combat skill, you use 10-20 points from you 40-80 endurance pool based on your stat. You regenerate a certain amount each turn based on passive (Endurance Regeneration) and gear bonus.
You can now have 100% hit rate. So much yes! If your offence (Hit rate) is high enough now to deal with their defense, you will always hit. Dodge and parry is one once per turn so sniping someone with a weak arrow first will move your hit rate on any further hit from 75% to 100% on the next one. Bow is a special case and its offense is reduced by range. You can easily check if you can hit people with bow now by simply holding X and moving around. It will show everything in range, the base hit rate and if the enemies are within the Line of Sight or not. Extremely useful and needed feature.
Damage is now consistent. Assuming no armor, if it says 6 damage, it will always deal 6 damage. Skills like "Hammer blow" was nerfed from *3 damage to +10 damage.
Most poison now lasts the entire fight and there are "Buff potions" around as well now.
And if you have nothing to do with your belt slot, they introduced the "Trinket" items that will boost your status while you are holding. Higher crit rate, damage or regeneration. All up to you!
You can place your characters starting location at the start of the battle now!
You can place traps in defensive stages when the enemies decide to attack your base (For every 3-4 conquers, they will attack once)
This should cover most of the new features. Now we will move on to the last part. The pro and con of this games.
Pro
-You now control an army. While everything was nerfed. this is because most combat now have you control 6-10 characters fighting against 6-15 characters as well. Before, you would just control one person with buff + Fast as lightning and tripleshot everything to death.
-Less RNG. More strategical plays and planning required to beat the game.
-Great dialogue just like BG1.
-Set bonus! Yes! no more "Just armor rating +1 and encumbrance reduction" now. You actually get stats from wearing a certain set!
-Your action now decide how good your characters will be and if they will be alive at the end or not. If you want, for the laugh of it, you can even order to execute your friends at the end before reloading a save after seeing their reactions.
Con
-Horribly unbalance. In BG1, all you do is abuse the same damaging weapon move like Triple shot or Hammer blow with buffs and fast as lightning to kill EVERYTHING. In BG2, with the damaging spell buffs and set items, mages are the most op beings ever in an army vs army fight. All you have to do is spam the same AoE spell to destroy everything in 3 - 4 turns assuming it's a "Kill everything" stage.
-Defensive battle doesn't give AP. The fight is already having you fight with gimped characters.
-Certain stage is horribly tedious, even more tedious than the last one. Infinite spawn happens every 2-3 stages and you have to do the "Rush in, Rush out" kind of gameplay. It's not fun because after you move all your 8 characters to the end of the stage, you also have to wait for the other 10 characters on the enemies side to move. You end up spending 10-15 minutes on this stage just waiting for everything to move. If only they would tone these down and give us a way to stop the spawning.
-Very buggy. Still playable though.
-There's only stage with the Lizard-chan throughout the whole game. WTF?
Final Verdict : 7/10.
Blackguards 2 feel like a DLC content with improved mechanic because that's exactly what it is, but we also have to remember it's being sold at a DLC price as well. Also, NEED MORE ACHAZ FFS.

2/10, only recommend playing it, if u intrested what happened to ur party memmbers from original blackguards. Game its self is slow, boring, not chalanging. Story is okay, but combat and exploration options absulutely let down.

Great game. I have no problem recommending it.

Good storytelling and voicover.