This is a Game Blog

This level is almost identical to the last, except the bad guys were bigger, badder, and they managed to kill two of my heroes.

I plan now to investigate and see whether I’m missing something in terms of upgrades, or whether it’s simply a case of needing to grind through some old levels. I feel like this approach is a bit farcical though, considering that I’m only at Campaign Level 11, but I suppose there will be smarter game designers than I who have worked out when a customer is bored, when they’ll spend money on and when they might abandon the game.

Much of this level was more about focusing on one major target and eliminating him before then starting work on the two smaller targets. I suspect this level might be easier if I can work out a good balance between buffs/modifiers and attacks, but I am an impatient man, and I usually just click on whatever feels good at any given time.

This level was top-and-tailed with some narrative between characters, which seemed fine, but also makes me very curious about the dark campaign, and whether that is essentially the same story reversed, whether you play for the bad guys during the same story or whether it is an entirely new story altogether. Time will tell.

I failed.

This is my first defeat in the game, and I’m not sure whether it was designed to force me to spend a bit of in game currency to level up my heroes, or whether I was supposed to do ‘other’ things in the game to build their capability, but in any case – I did the former and went back to clean up the enemies of Level 9.

The new heroes I have received over the past few game’s seem to be more useful in terms of their buffs rather than out-and-out attacks, which is fine I suppose, but I’m a guy who just wants to go in hard, finish the job, and close out the level.

For every ‘big boss’ I’m encountering, they somehow all turn into allies that I can use to fill my ranks – so one can only assume that I have charisma that rivals the devil himself to be able to make all of these bad guys turn.

This time it’s the Swamp Witch, Bellara, which my spell-checker really wants to change to Belarus, so I don’t expect to be writing her name much more, but she’s now part of the team, so you know what that means? That’s right – straight to the level up area to spend a few points and get fitted out with any spare loot.

And then there were four.

Three champions this time, and I’ve learned to level up who I can before sending in a low level hero to their death.

I also discovered that you can apply some equipment to your heroes while I was investigating this screen. And thanks to the six previous levels, I had enough to give everyone a few things to make life easier.

This was a three-round contest, and while it was not necessarily hard, it was a nonetheless still a learning opportunity as I tested out my new hero, Taneda’s, moves. They had mixed results on the opponents, so I suspect it had more to do with some elemental hierarchy rather than buffs and things, but I’ll keep practising to see what he’s capable of.

Still in Middenburg, and this time with two rounds and a couple of new characters to face. The second round brings with it an ‘Eraser’, which looks suspiciously like a mini version of Blizzard’s Diablo, but I bet that I killed him quicker than I’ve ever managed to kill Diablo.

The second character is interesting because it seems like he joins your cause at the end of the level, but – as we’ve learned – the key for playing new characters on the field is good old fashioned levelling up.

Time for a change of scenery! This time we move to what are considered the outskirts of ‘Middenburg’, for a one-round encounter that is over fairly quickly. Some strong defence moves make this a fairly innocuous battle – neither character really lost much health despite the enemies best, and flamboyant, efforts.

Leveling up certainly helps. I managed to get my second player up the level six, which I have no idea about how that works in terms of the scope of levels and characters in the game, but he wasn’t entirely useless during this level, so that’s a bonus.

This was still a level that was a bit of a tutorial, but also gave inexperienced players a taste of wrangling two fighters in a more serious encounter. Still not a walk in the park, by any means, but more a case of time rather than effort.

I don’t think my phone saved my game progress properly on this level, but it had already unlocked a second character, so on my replay I went into it with a brief lesson about using two characters.

Two entered, one returned.

I’m not sure if I was actually supposed to have one or my team killed or not, but it seemed a little scripted versus the bad guys, particularly when I came out of the level with a few tips and tricks about how to earn all the loot from the level despite the death. As a level itself, it felt unnecessarily tough, with the second player character making little-to-no impact on the bad guys. It’s quite possible that this character – a fire elemental from what I can tell – is simply the weaker against the enemies of level three, or it could be that I hadn’t levelled him up properly – but in either case, the net result is the same.

I can’t remember if the first mission had ’rounds’ to beat or not, but in either event, this level certainly did – with two rounds of two opponents (kobolds) to defeat.

The attacks here already feel stronger than they did in the tutorial level, however the mission also concludes with some guidance about to equip special gear, so I suspect that between leveling up, gear and a healthy increase of opponent difficulty, the game will end up being fairly balanced – if not on first go, then eventually!