https://store.steampowered.com/app/1058130/Queens_Wish_The_Conqueror/https://www.gog.com/game/queens_wish_the_conquerorThis is a new game from Spiderweb Software, best known for the Exile games and their remake, the Avernum series, as well as the Geneforge series.
Unfortunately, from my experience, its a massive step back from those games. To me, it's a baby's first RPG type experience. If you want a comparison and you're old enough (or retro enough) to have played them, it's the Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest compared to Final Fantasy VI.
The gameplay is linear, the world is shallow. There are no hidden areas, and little reward from exploration. Your characters are cookie cutter templates, made worse by the fact that they can be respecced without cost any time you're at a base. The only thing that rewards XP is beating the dungeon boss, meaning fighting should be avoided at all costs... if there were any means of doing so.
The treasure you find is also sad - 90% of it is either tiny amounts of gold (or items that immediately turn into gold when picked up, so might as well have just been gold), building materials for the base building element, and the occasional 5% or 10% increase items or augments. Don't expect to find artifacts or unique items that might cause you to change your tactics around its special abilities.
Your equipment selection is laughable, and gated by how many forts you possess (and thus how many of shops you can build) - even if you somehow did manage to find gear out of sequence, you're penalized for doing so - until you're able to buy the gear, its effectiveness is reduced by 50%. Gear boils down to four types - one handed swords, two handed polearms, bows and wands/staves.
Your characters have no skills like they did in the previous Exile games, and the talent trees are tiny and sad. Your mages and healers will never be amazing because their selection of spells is gated off to a tiny number.
You also can't lose. If your party wipes, you're teleported to the nearest fort with everyone fully healed and nothing lost except for your time and any progress in that dungeon (unless you killed the boss, in which case the dungeon is cleared when you return). You're warned that there are certain places where that won't happen, but I'm guessing it will only be the final dungeon that it matters.
The writing is... okay. Most NPCs can't be talked with, and for the few that you can hold a conversation with, your dialogue and route is pretty clearly split between noble and good, and spoiled and petty/asshole routes.
Despite my complaints above, its not a
terrible game, but it is a big letdown from the Exile games of old.
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Topic: Queen's Wish - The Conqueror (Spiderweb Software) (Read 1440 times)