The scenery and loot are pretty cool. There more people then Raven sword so that's a plus. The combat however is lacking very very much. You can't attack on the horse. Dodging is pretty much pointless since enemy's have no attack patterns and run mindlessly at you. Which also brings to mind that you can't aim your bow since there is no hold and release and within seconds youl just be firing point blank and tapping on your skills. Unless I missed it you also can't link weapons in your inventory so you have to pause the game and switch to the sword. But then again it doesn't matter since it's just a sludge stats fest. Rogues have stealth but you can just use it like 2 feet away from the enemy and then attempt to backstap them but good luck it hasn't worked for me yet cuz I get bum rushed every time. Anyway if you're in it for the ride then I guess this is ok. I love your guyses games and I didn't expect the word with this game however I think unless the combat gets an over haul then I'll say that I'm pretty disappointed. I'll finish it and enjoy exploring for now I guess.
Graphics aside, I feel like one was better than this. Am I missing something or was there more classes and character options the first game. Ranged combat doesn't seem to work well. Stealth hasn't worked once. Energy doesn't always regen properly. I mean it still Aralon and a lot of fun, but it feels... Well off from the first in quality.
No stealth? That's a deal-breaker. It's go rogue or go home for me. If anyone here has played THE SHADOW SUN by OSSIAN, how does this compare? I feel that game set the benchmark on these types of RPGs.
I'm one hour into it (I play with the Mage) and so far it plays wonderful on my iPad Air. I think they are very few open world games on mobile with this console quality graphics and this alone already justify the (low, in my opinion) price. Controls works great for me, the fights are (too) easy to win so far and all the side quests takes little to do and to explore. I don't have too many expectations about the main story (in the sense that I think it won't be too spectacular, as in "A Tale of Two Sons" which is the last open world game I played) and I know from the TA review that isn't too much to play in terms of side quests so the game is rather short (compared to the first Aralon), but with all of these in mind, this sequel is still a great experience for me.
Currently day 3, and loving the game~ arzan ruins is a little hard though... gnolls are easy, but the skeletons...
Hows battery life with this? I dont buy those heavy 3d games anymore which drains your battery in 2 hours
It's not a bad game but yeah pretty much all games drain the battery these days and that's a prob Apple needs to be fixing every new phone and update it says improved battery life but to me only seems to get worse each time. With this one it's hard to say because I'm playing some long sessions which in that case any game will drain it.
Once again, excellent review from Shaun. It expresses the game's objective flaws (dated graphics, empty world, clunky animations and dull combat). Yet, he rates it highly because he personally, could look past the flaws and thus enjoy it. Personally i will not buy it, since that was also the impressions that i got from gameplay videos. But mostly i write this message for people to learn to look past the star ratings in reviews. It is worth 4 stars to Shaun personally. To me, it's worth 1. But i was able to rate it thanks to his objective points in the review and the gameplay videos.
I hope that's not you who rated the game 2 stars in this thread. Having not even owned the game, that would be immoral and gross.
no man, i never rate games i don't own in the forum stars, exactly for the reasons you listed. I just stated my personal opinion here, with an explanation.
I have to say that after only a couple hours in I'm pretty disappointed. (As I was with Ravensword) The graphics do seem dated, even on "very high", although maybe the iPad Pro is showing flaws that a smaller screen wouldn't. There is a lot of clipping, and the invisible reins on the horse along with the sword floating on my character's back looks pretty bad. I chose a half elf ranger. The skill tree was not great... Couldn't call an animal companion, and the thought of calling lightning spells with a ranger is... Strange. Not being able to aim the bow, or draw back the arrow is crazy... You just tap to draw and shoot. The skills for a "power shot" rarely works properly at any meaningful distance, and on many occasions I watch the arrow shoot right towards the enemy only for it not to register a hit. This leads to a lot of cases where the enemy has received minimal damage before rushing me. Since I cannot quickly switch to a sword because you can't add weapons to quick slots, I'm stuck with the slow rate of fire at point blank range... Not really how a ranger is supposed to be effective in combat. The dialogue can't be sped up by tapping the screen and it's painfully slow. You can't actually cast your fishing rod very well so you really need to stand in the water to fish properly. The game tells you that you can make fish stew but yet I don't have any recipe for that, right after the game tells you that you can fish, and upon catching fish it says that you can make something with it. No iCloud support? Come on... The first Aralon had that... As with many of the impressions I feel that this game is half baked... So many things are holding this game back from being great, and I've been looking forward to it for more than a year. The game doesn't even feel like it's an open world game... The map seems linear and I'm feeling steered the whole way. I also echo the clunky combat, which I feel is worse than the first game, especially considering the issues with the ranger. The lack of character options for the facial features is lazy, and the character models in general seem limited from what I've seen. One of the first NPC's you meet (the old man) looks great, and then there is a woman in the first town that looks almost cartoonish... And that model is reused on at least 2 other female characters in the same town... This game could have been great, but I'm sorry to say that I can't even recommend it as it is.
