[LegendMaker]

Now, don't get me wrong: Crossworlds was a fantastic bit of fresh air in an already awesome game. It's still my favorite part of the series.

Of course, I didn't expect the gameplay or the game mechanics to change drastically, I love them as they are and want nothing more than dozens of new KB adventures expanding on that while retaining the core awesomeness.

My disappontment with WotN stems from two main promises it didn't keep:

1/ It was supposed to be a new episode in the series, like Armored Princess was. It's not. Instead, it's an addon of The Legend, faintly disguised as a new adventure.

AP is in the same universe as TL, but it's not just a TL 2.0: you get to travel to new places, 90% of the maps and challenges are new ones. Sure, they're vastly inspired by the ones you had in The Legend, but they're not the actual same maps and challenges slightly revamped. Playing AP after TL doesn't feel like playing TL again, it actually feels like what it is: a sequel. WotN isn't a proper sequel: it's a remake.

2/ Even as an addon, it doesn't add anywhere near as much new exciting stuff to The Legend as Crossworlds did to Armored Princess.

WotN, far from being a brand-new adventure, is more akin to Crossworlds in the sense that at least 3/4 of the maps you go through, and a whole lot of fights, quests and characters are straight copies from an already existing adventure: The Legend's, in this case, just reworked a bit. This is boring when you remember TL so well. Going in an area "for the first time" in the game and already knowing your way by heart isn't quite as exciting as just discovering actual new terrain.

More importantly, while CW gave us the largest selection of everything ever in the series, adding a lot of new units, objects, quests and even game concepts (the awesome Battle Academy, notably), WotN took away a lot of things (Lizardmen, Wives/Companions and the Battle Academy, notably) and didn't introduce that many new things (that are actual improvements). And CW still had a story, not a generic situation you're thrown in, and then you just grind away with no real purpose. The Undead are invading? The Orcs are invading? Been there, done that!

The (battlefield) Rage skills are hands-down the least interesting of any version. As for the (adventure map) Valkyrie abilities, they are all of them useless and ill-suited, and I find it hilarious that there's a Medal for using them more often. The Spirits of Rage from TL were really awesome, sometimes I found myself missing them in AP/CW; but the Pet Dragon was fantastic in its own right, and had plenty of new cool tricks to enjoy. Here we get useless rage skills from the hero, which you can ironically use more often thanks to some Might tree skills, and a couple of cool rage skills from the Valkyrie, which we hardly get to use, because it takes twice longer than the average battle length to reload them (and that you can't reduce).

Also, I hate to admit it, but the horribly obnoxious troll who whined so much about the game being too easy to beat compared to the others was right about that. It's my first walkthrough of the game, I play on Impossible, and I don't even really try to play no loss, at least it's no big deal to me in itself... Yet, most of my battles end in 2-3 rounds tops, even against enemy heroes. I don't even check what it says before attacking a wandering stack of troops: if it's there, I attack it, and I know I'll rip it to pieces without much effort. It's like "Uh-oh, big fight, there: thousands of all kinds of troops ahead!" and then I remember "Yeah right, my RM's astral ray does up to 21K damage on critical (which is like half the time), I can spam unlimited Red Dragon stacks at them, Gudrida's Rage cuts them in half at round 1... and anyways, I'll just berserk the sturdiest stack with my soothsayer and get the popcorn as they kill each other!" When I played The Legend on Impossible, compartively, I distinctly remember having to suicide my hero dozens of times in a row just to raise a bit of funding for new troops after getting all but obliterated by the insane enemy armies... I don't think I improved that much since then, the game also got way easier to beat.