![]() The town maps themselves may be little more than lovely hand-drawn landscapes with clickable non-player characters for merchandise, healing, and the like, but they do a fair job of capturing the group's trek from familiar European-style settings to the tropical landscapes in the south of Aventuria. Blackguards manages to maintain some of its dark pretensions through a visual style that shows its strengths in battle maps and the screens passing for towns (although they look as though some cameraman smeared a touch too much Vaseline on the lens), even if it falters on character models. I eventually grew to love the dwarf warrior Naurim more than most of his bearded cousins in other games, and I enjoyed the poignant moments bracketing the tedious chapter middles. The story itself pleases more than it disappoints. Like many turn-based tactical RPGs, Blackguards lets you sacrifice action for extra movement.īlackguards manages to maintain some of its dark pretensions through a visual style that shows its strengths in battle maps and the screens passing for towns. That's not always such a bad thing, however, because the limited cast of voice actors does well enough with the roles despite a few shudder-worthy performances. It's a rogue's tale, in short, and the wider narrative of clearing your name of a murder you (probably) didn't commit sometimes gets lost in the business of undertaking predictable side quests doled out by shopkeepers or gambling dwarves. Even its opening prison-break scene channels "lighter" games like Oblivion and Baldur's Gate II, and the two prisoners you bring along (Zurbaran is one of them) resemble flawed poker buddies more than villains. ![]() Never has such a wizard suffered so much at the hands of numbers that should work in his favor.īlackguards bills itself as a "dark" fantasy, but the shades of gray here match Dragon Age better than Dark Souls. And when his shot at glory comes again, he misses again, but so do all the ruffians on his tail. The lecherous mage might thrive on forbidden trysts and have an unhealthy attraction to prisons, but late in his travels he has an almost 89 percent chance to drown his enemies in pools of fire. The next time you're having a bad day, consider the plight of poor Zurbaran. ![]()
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