Recent reviews by Shard Obsidia

They've upgraded the music, which is epic. and gave some a double speed option for the fights as well as repeat the last round, so it goes a lot faster than I remember.

It was a great revisit to an old classic.

This game is a sandbox with base building options where you can recruit large numbers of characters to adventure with you. I highly recommend checking out some YouTube vids to see if this is the game for you. If you want to see some of the craziness that it is capable of, check out Robbaz on YouTube and his Kenshi videos. It's good for a laugh, and it'll give you a good idea of whether this game is right for you.

Since it's a sandbox type of game, you can invest hundreds of hours in a single start if you want, or do like I do and restart to try a new area or more advanced (and dangerous) settings.

Kenshi 2 is coming soon too, so this one will be on sale before the release and that's the time to jump on it.

Turn based, resource management, and base building game with story elements.

Pros
+++ Care about your characters
+++ Interest in how the story will turn out (some may not like it though)
+++ This game doesn't hold your hand
+ Darkest Dungeon style animations
+ Moral dilemmas are fun
+ "just one more turn" type of game

Cons
- Combat is a bit of a chore
- Game over if you lose a starting character
- Simple oversight can make a character die or your fire go out. (The game doesn't hold your hand.)
- "Maybe seen it once, seen it all" feeling if you complete the game
- Have to click through a few windows to see who has what debuff and needs what treatment.
- Have to just remember who likes or hates this or that activity. It's easy to assign somebody to a task that isn't ideal but looks okay on the surface.

Neutral
~ RNG elements may be a turn-off to some players
~ Many stats, effects, and buffs/penalties to track.
~ No control over weapons, armor, etc. for characters other than gifts that bump stats and disappear.
~ Exploration is a little hands off

In sum,
Decent if you like this type of game, but you might want to watch a bit of gameplay first to see if it's your thing. 7 out of 10

Tentative thumbs up, but...

This is an upgraded version of Total Warhammer 1, and the logical next step if you liked 1. The Mortal Empires campaign combines all of the DLC and game from part 1 into a huge map with part 2. Unfortunately, the A.I. is borderline brain dead. This game would be epic if you had a friend who would be willing to control the enemy battles for you and you for them.

If you want to break the enemy A.I. just make a main army and have a cavalry-only army within reinforcement range. Then, use Lightning strike or hit and run tactics to wipe out the enemy A.I. It will also always fail on sieges.

The fights and units are graphically amazing, but you'll spend the entire battle zoomed out and never see the detail put into the game. What a waste of great graphics. I try to zoom in as often as possible, but it's still never really worth it to do so and rarely do you have time to do so with all the micromanagement of skills/spells available to you.

CA also keeps gutting the features to try to solve the A.I. problems. Flatter maps than before, no naval battles, super hero units to support the dumb A.I., etc.

In sum, great game let down by stupid A.I. and zoomed out battles.

If you like XCOM and you like Battletech the board game, this is something in-between. I am really enjoying myself for what it is.

Pros
- Battletech
- Customized Mech Loadouts
- Sandbox campaign
- Specialized pilots
- Rogue-like
- Turn-based Combat
- Management of crew events and downtime is fun
- Devs seem dedicated to patches, FLC, and DLC
- 4 mechs deployed at once is balanced and good for a tactical consideration
- Decent story
- Satisfying destruction
- RNG gives a fun level of tension to called shots when you most need them

Cons
- Simplification of some aspects of the game (no melee weapons? Two damaged legs = mech dead? mechwarrior ejecting means always surviving and recovery of damaged mech)
- Not enough feedback on some numbers (e.g. abstract graphs show heat sinking ability vs actual numbers)
- Maps sometimes feel small (because turn-based makes movement across them slow)
- Play long enough and you'll see the same maps again (I wish for procedural generated randomness like in XCOM 2)
- Tutorial lacking (you'll need to fall back on forums for guides and tips)
- AI can run around stupidly once in a while

Neutral
- Can never field more than 4 mechs at once
- vehicles seem to have more armor than they should
- Will probably feel more fleshed out with future expansions
- Good YouTube tutorial vids and tip vids

Verdict : Worth full price if you love XCOM and Battletech. Worth a slight sale if you're into Battletech. Worth a 50% sale if you're a turn-based fan and like robots.

It's a nice little game for somebody really wanting to run a gladiator school, but I feel that the lack of features really shortens its lifespan.

Pros
+ Managing gladiator school
+ Tense fights with your champion's life hanging in the balance
+ Endless play option to escape from the timed storyline
+ Gladiator classes and plenty of gear upgrade options
+ Trainer tech tree
+ Employee skill unlocks

Cons
- Limited management options
- Large fights are hard to swallow
- Only three classes of gladiators
- No customizable gear beyond upgrades
- No gladiator skill trees
- Chariot races feel tacked on

You get what you pay for, and I enjoyed it for what it is. While it could have been more, what game couldn't have been more with more money, time, etc. Don't think twice if the price is reasonable or on sale. Pick it up and start lopping off heads.

If you like turned-based strategy and a chess-like game, this might be up your ally.
Pros:
- Rogue-like with perma-injury and perma-death
- Not easy
- Enemy races have racially motivated tactics (e.g. zombies run in stupidly, goblins will harass you, etc.)
- Weapons have various effects (e.g. axe is great for breaking shields, military pick damages armor, etc.)
- Pawns show injuries and permanent injuries.
- Sandbox game
- The text based events help draw you feel attached to your characters.
- Feels gritty as though you really are the leader of a Merc band (if you read the text)
- Mercs that are recruited are assigned traits, either good, bad, or nothing. They can also acquire them later too.

Cons:
- no mounts or magic (for your company)
- higher difficulties are brutal
- only a few races and monster types.
- no steam workshop
- can't build your own stronghold

The game is great, and since I like controlling my own mercenary company, it's right down my ally. I really wish the devs would release an expansion or DLC to really fill out the game. It's really too bad they didn't allow a Steam Workshop. This game could have been one of the greatest games if the community helped out with mods.

9 out of 10 (if you love turn-based strategy in a very low magic setting)

Watch the movie... Buy the game...

8/10

Pros
+++ Multiplayer, especially head to head where your partner plays the tactical battles for the AI.
+++ Dynamic sieges and deployable emplacements
+ They've improved the AI since Rome 2's release.
+ Pretty graphics
+ cities burn and are affected more by what happens in the campaign

Cons
--- Battle AI does remarkably stupid things at times
--- Collision detection is still bad. They need to release a new engine. This equals thousands of troops can jam into a gate and just hang out waiting for their duel cut scenes to engage.
--- Huge battles of 1v1 soldiers squaring off and going through a mini cut scene over and over again
--- Massive amounts of piecemeal DLC to get as much money out of you as they can. It really feels like they gutted the game just to sell it back to you.
- Agent stats overlap
- Arrow trails
- Turn based campaign map is a relic of the Shogun 1 and Medieval 1; and it means armies will zip back and forth around your armies.

In sum, unless you can find a head to head multiplayer friend or like multiplayer custom battles, I can't recommend this game based on the single player alone.

I give this game a 6/10. For the price and all the DLC prices, I think it isn't worth picking up until it goes on sale as a package deal. If you have a friend though, I'd recommend it in order to bypass the A.I.

I bought Stardrive 2 with a 33% discount since I own Stardrive 1. I don't mind dropping 20 bucks on a game I'll play for 20+ hours. Stardrive 2 is a game I'm enjoying more than some of the other stuff out there. Even the "tacked on" ground combat isn't as bad as everybody is saying it is. Overall, I like the game.

If you can't afford or want to pay for this kind of game because you hate the dev or whatever, then don't, or wait for a Steam sale. Or, if you're like me and don't really care to light the torches and grab a pitchfork because a dev moved on from his former project, buy it for what it is: a decent single player 4X space game with tactical ground combat elements.

Pros
+ Ship customization is awesome
+ Ship combat is interactive RTS unlike other games where you just watch the results (Gal Civ II)
+ You can't research everything, so you need to make strategic choices in the best research options
+ You can acquire tech that you can't research through trade, racial traits, or assimilating planets.
+ Cool events and side quests
+ Races are varied and interesting
+ Other subtle nuances in game that show care and thought went into it
+ The price is definitely worth it. I could easily see myself putting well over 100 hours into this game over time.
+ Replayability
+ Steam workshop (future mods!)
+ Music (I just like it)
+ Tutorial is well done

Cons
- Some useful shortcuts are lacking, such as the ability to set fleet engagement ranges, instead, you have to set the optimal engagement range for each and every ship.
- Damage to specific systems and the effects of such are not shown, rather it shows colored damage to ship sections instead, leaving you guessing as to what is or is not working in that section of the ship.
- Ground combat feels incomplete, but I'm glad its there rather than not. Hopefully, future patches will improve it.
- Cannot customize fighters beyond simply researching tech and having them auto upgraded
- The community (Many people are griping about Stardrive 1 being abandoned too early.)

Overall, I give Stardrive 2 a 7.5 out of 10, and I expect it will likely improve over time with modding and content patches or DLC.