[Zechnophobe]

I've played all the KB games since Legend, and played through them each multiple times. I've looked forward to WotN for a while now, and having played through to Arlania, wanted to give some thoughts on how I feel things are.


Pacing
With about 12 hours into the game, I feel this is an actual problem for the game. Unlike previous titles, it has a lot more hard 'gating' encounters in the game. Uldar/Ahriman/Eric fights are all required to simply leave the first area. The Necro Spider is required to leave the first islands. I assume there will be even more later on. To be honest, I feel this is far too strict, especially considering how few options you get before each bottleneck. You have a grand total of 8 different possible units (plus spider/snake trash) before leaving the first island. 8! And yet that's about 4 hours of play right there. Opening up new areas allows you to go into 'explore' mode, where you have fun just finding new things to buy, new items on the ground, and new armies to recruit. By putting them behind 'grind' walls, I feel we spend too long being 'forced' to fight certain battles over and over again.

Repitition
This is another big issue. Not only are we not getting to progress through the game at our own rate, but the limit to the number and types of units you can use (and rage abilities too!) combined with the limited scope of opponents, means you fight almost the exact same battle over and over again. Necro/skel/skel archer/zombie fight? For the 50th time?

One of the strengths of previous titles is how they would mix up the armies each play through, and you'd occasionally get interesting combinations. But the ridiculous amount of Undead for the first 12 hours of gameplay leaves you pretty fatigued from it. In Armored Princess, you had different islands each with noticeably different troops to recruit, and enemies to kill. And you could skip back and forth between at least the first three, right from the very start.

Class Skills

This is clearly the biggest strength of WotN so far. The three class trees are the most interesting that I've seen yet in the three games. We have a clear rage/leadership/magic split in specialization, and there are a mix of strong skills in all three. That said, there are still a few weird hiccups. The Rune magic skill is fairly high in the magic tree, and yet most of the spells we find early game are Runic, so non-mages have difficulty doing much early. Further more, access to the full 'rage' mechanic doesn't happen until AFTER the first major gating encounter (ahriman/uldar/eric). This means that the poor Viking class has the weakest start for both of the first two gates, since one doesn't let him use anything but an un upgraded 'viking vortex' and the other doesn't let him use anything at all!

Also, you can't level up the rage abilities of Valkyries you don't have, meaning that there is a feeling that you want to power through to unlock the valkyries just so you can level them up as you see fit.

Locations

WotN has some really nice looking zones, so far. I'm really pleased with them. Each island is also quite sizeable, unlike the Armored Princess islands that were fairly small.

That said, the way you move through them is a little bit painful. Instead of the nice free-form 'find the map, go there' system, that also gave access to wanderer scrolls, you instead have a more linear 'do this, do that' style motion. Frankly, I'm rather sad that you encounter wanderer scrolls so much less in the early game, as they gave some interesting depth to complicated fights. The summon scrolls (do they even exist?) let you gain access to a wide variety of units you otherwise couldn't. They don't seem to be as big of a factor this time around.


Story

This has looked very good. The actual story is much bigger in this game than previous ones. It has a more traditional feel with the 'prince wanting to be king' vibe. I would say it isn't quite as integrated as Armored Princess was. In AP you had 8 stones you had to retreive, and could do so in (basically) the order you desired, and drove you to go to the challenging locations as you became strong enough to do so. The more linear story in WotN, while more interesting in the terms of plot, also ends up being a bit too controlling.


Summary

All in All, I still find the game fun, but I feel there are a lot of missed opportunities. EVERY game previous to this one has had the struggle of 'no good options early' for your army. Basic human troops and Royal snakes? Again? The fact that WotN makes this same mistake, and makes it SO MUCH worse is very aggravating. The game seems to have more bugs, and mistranslations than previous titles, and some tool tips seem to miss important information.

It's not quite the quality of experience I was hoping for, and am really hoping some of the issues get fixed.