Recent reviews by Talilover

CA-" Don't you understand? I came here to use you...to USE YOU! From the day I first set foot on steam I fed you ♥♥♥♥. I. Fed. You. ♥♥♥♥"

But nah this is from back when CA was somewhat respectable and the game is good, played it a fair bit off of steam.

Oh boy, where to start? Well how about a tl;dr version, it's okay***** and you can keep reading for each and everyone of those artistes.

Some background information, I'm a "kinda" fan of both total war and Warhammer. I played a few total war games here and there (med 2, empire, Rome 2) and Warhammer was something I always looked at with passing interest.
Then I saw some image of a dino dude riding an ever bigger dinosaur and the next thing I knew I had over 1k hours in wh2 and unlocked all the achievements. Then WH3 comes along with it's launch and well...I decided to wait, and proceeded to do that for 2 whole years as CA shoved their head further and further into their ass with each questionable decision.
The last round of dlc and patches for the empire and dwarfs was enough to convince me to at least give the game a shot (at half price ofc), without any WH3 dlc (It's going to take a hefty sale before I consider any of it, and that ship as long since passed for Shadows of Change which I'm never getting out of pure spite). But hey in the words of Tony Soprano let's skip the ♥♥♥♥♥♥ preamble already.

In my 40 hours (at the time of actually writing this review) I've beaten an empire and dwarf campaign while dipping my toes in a Lizard campaign(still suck) and High elf campaign and gotta say I had a pretty decent time for most of it. The rework for both the Empire and Dwarfs is great stuff, and the table scraps of dlc content I managed to sneak from confederating lords seems neat as well, while the plethora of general updates are also welcome.
I like fusing equipment, I like the new UI, I like the separation of battle difficulty and AI combat modifiers, I tolerate the sieges, and I like the various buffs and tweaks to (some) factions. Here's the kicker tho, notice how so far I haven't mentioned any wh3 specific content?

So this is where I level, I don't care about Kislev, Ogres, the monogod specific factions, build a bear demon faction, hella expensive evil dwarfs, and I DEFINITELY do not care about Cathay. All of the stuff I care about in WH3 is stuff that could just have easily been added in WH1 or WH2, and that's the sad truth about these games. It almost feels like paying a subscription fee for content I do care about, and that's what ultimately broke me into getting this game (again, notice how I didn't say ♥♥♥♥ about the Nurgle part of the dlc?).
This is where I think a lot of the hesitation for newer players comes from, wondering just how much of this 300+ dollar package they "need" to enjoy the game. Say some poor sod says "ate elves, ate lizards, ate ogres, love me dawi simple as" and proceeds to only buy Wh1. Well now they're stuck playing some woefully outdated and boring version of the faction they care about and they need to buy this separate 60 dollar game in order to have access to the "good" version of the faction they care about. In short the way this trilogy is set up feels like holding a gun to my head to keep playing the factions I like. I guess it's a pipe dream to want any of these updates to sneak their way back into the first two games, and I'm sure CA has a whole paper ready for how "it's just like, not possible man, the engine is like way different dude with the code and stuff man" because tbh if they did I wouldn't have bought this game lol.
Oh and side complaint, this also extends to mods. A lot of authors simply don't care to keep updating mods for the older games, and some have even been removed and are only available for wh3 seemingly because of some update that broke the mod and they can't be assed to fix it (Tomb kings extended shout out right here)

But let's get back to a more technical level rather than personal preference, because there's plenty of edgey chaos fans out there who can finally "just let that beast in me out dawg, I just see red when my dad grounds me" or whatever Khorne fans say. This game really fights you every step of the way for trying to like it, and not just because of the somewhat frequent crashes I've been getting forcing me to do battles/ turns over again. Unit pathing can be total garbage (which is doubly apparent on the shiny new cool siege maps, which the AI just can not comprehend), the AI on the campaign map is a mix of a total wuss and bully (they'll run away from any army you have on the field, while also using their dying breath while getting beat up by some other AI faction to declare war on you so they can raze an unguarded settlement), units take forever to respond to your orders (or straight up don't, somehow the community has gaslight themselves into thinking it's acceptable to have to click 30 times to get a cavalry unit to disengage), there are constant issues with the geography of maps where units just get stuck on invisible walls for the rest of the battle, some maps are straight up broken, there's a nasty habit where abilities or techs just don't actually do what they say they'll do, and all of of these things are patched at a pretty glacial pace. In other words this game constantly falls on it's face as a competent strategy game and sometimes just fails to be a working game at all and is hard carried by the jingling keys of crack cocaine Warhammer nonsense, but man do those keys jingle jangle jingle teehee.

So yeah, if you can look past all of the ass showing CA has done since this game launched you can get this game and if you enjoyed wh2 you'll probably enjoy yourself (the same way if they had just, y'know, updated wh2). This just also comes with the caveat that people who assumed there'd be a lot of life in this game left should probably just make sure they like what content the game offers as of now instead of banking of any (potentially scrapped) future dlc. CA is a dogwater company but they can make a decent game, in a niche where they're almost utterly unchallenged. IMO you're a fool if you buy any of this stuff at full price tho

Somehow this is the highest rated (but not most selling) campaign pack for this game and I just gotta ask what the hell you people are smoking.

A zoomed in map of Italy, Spain, and western Africa (because ♥♥♥♥ the conflict in Illyria or Greece that was also going on at this time I guess) but not to the worthwhile and meaningfully changing degree of rise of the republic.

A scrambled and nonsensical tech tree where it feels like half of them are utterly pointless, some of then having the gall to ask you for money so you can gain relations with factions that started off as your client state anyway.

A sandbox experience that fails to recreate the desperate and bloody struggle of the second Punic war. I saw Hannibal once in Hispania, certainly nowhere near the alps or Italy, and booty cheek clapped his army and never saw him again (pretty sure he's immortal?)

2 historical battles, both of which you simply can't go about playing/ winning in historical ways, that you're going to play once to get a gold star and never touch again be honest.

Some minor factions unlocked on the grand campaign (Syracuse and the Spanish tribes)

All the other campaign packs I say are kinda worth it for their on sale price of 8 bucks, not even sure if I can say that here.

None of these campaign packs really justify the 17 dollar price tag but imo this is the one that comes closest. I've only completed one campaign as Rome but have dipped my toes into a few other factions and it seems this is where the most effort to making them play distinctly from one another went.

Speaking of Rome this is easily them at their weakest, and I say this as a good thing. The real classic army of Hastati, principes, and Triarii are at the very end of one of the tech trees and if you're anything like me that means it's quite possible you'll actually achieve campaign victory before even unlocking them. I had a decent enough time conquering central/ northern Italy with light hoplites/ native units before getting my teeth thoroughly kicked in by proper hoplites and peltasts in southern Italy and the centuari fared only slightly better. In other words as Rome your units are pretty trash and you either gotta stack bonuses from exp rank, techs, perks or really go big brain mode, and that was a welcome change up from "I brought Principes/ legionnaires, therefor I win"

This doesn't come with any factions unlocked on the standard campaign (guess the etruscan league would have been the only possible one) which is a bit of a bummer but as it's own campaign I feel it does enough to shake up the rome 2 expirience to justify it's price...when it's on sale for about 8 bucks lol

What happened to Aurelian was and always will be one of the greatest tragedies of history, here I can live the fantasy where the bros just let him cook

Okay so here's the thing mang, I'm a certified Romaboo. I dream about that ♥♥♥♥ every day bro, and that is 110% the reason I showed any interest in this game (I mean ♥♥♥♥, outside of Total war and Ryse what do we get?) and was ready to temper expectations for a lot of things because of it...but oh boy, oh man.

Starting as RPG I don't really think this game holds up, character creation is hella bland with minimum options for appearance so you can just pick a portrait that looks nothing like your character anyway and no lore past picking your name. For the level/ build aspect of rpg you essentially have something more akin to leveling up xcom soldiers with perk trees of different classes rather than what I assumed when I read rpg (skills, attributes, feats, yada yada).

Bringing me to the combat, don't like it. I guess it's serviceable, reminds me of banner saga if anything (another game I personally got bored with lol), but it gets weighed down by little things like having ass tons of enemies every encounter with you having to watch out every single one of their turns playing out (sometimes to just shout something or jostle about with no consequence). There's also something inherently unsatisfying about xp only being tied to mission completion, so if you go out of your way to slaughter said abundant enemies you don't really gain anything out of it past measly loot.

But meh, at least I can command legions and I'm ready to translate hours of total war playtime to here and...oh you just pick some cards and watch squares jiggle about...

So all the "game parts" of the game don't really do it for me, so I'm gonna need to be hard carried by an authentic Roman experience brah...so here's a couple of ways that part fumbles lmao

Firstly, and this one is on me, I had misunderstandings on how our character would fit into Roman history and got pretty giddy when you start the game meeting a young Julius Caesar, dreams about being an integral part of his story and maybe swaying it here and there for some alternate history if you want (Sorta like HBO's Rome y'know?). Well no exact spoilers but that's not the case, not really faulting the game for it but I was bummed out.

What I will hold against the game is the historical inaccuracies because "it's current year bro". I can surrender some ground because it's kinda sorta possible to make some of it work but the game takes it too far. Lets look at one of the first companions you meet in the form of a Numidian (black) Gladiator. Fine, I'll let you tell me these dudes just brought the guy along for muscle (we're already at the "big stretch") but the dude sure as hell has a lot of opinions and gives a lot of backtalk for a slave. It's annoying because there is a chance to make it work, letting your character decide how you treat him and how much you blur the line between friend and master (evidently a common thing with Roman slaves) but it forgoes that to just have him be some brash alpha warrior dude who gives you lip because he's such a manly man.

What I can't give grounds on at all is half of your recruitable centurions being black, like get the ♥♥♥♥ outta ere. Surprised they didn't go the extra mile and make some of your military companions women too...oh shucks.

I get it, gamers need a waifu to smash in their rpgs and I guess it takes a bit of time before you get to Cleopatra so you can do your dime a dozen "woman pretending to be a man" cliche and have her be some guerrilla fighter outside the Roman military so it "makes sense bro", I can swallow that. However please, PLEASE, don't feel the need to have all the characters gather around in a hug circle to tell you and her how stunning and brave she is when the "big reveal" happens, ♥♥♥♥ that part was just painful.

I didn't last much longer than that, conquered one region and did the little "pacify region" (which, I dunno, I kinda thought that's what the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ legion was for) mission before hanging it up. Because of my aforementioned affliction of thinking about Rome too much it's possible I'll try to force myself through more of this, and maybe I'll enjoy it (Jupiter willing) but for now it's def on the backburner

Borderlands 2? More like only 2 good games in the series...lands

I dunno bro, these dogs seem pretty awake to me

Half of my playtime was dedicated to the story, favors, Valkyries, Nifleheim and Musphlehiem grind, freeing dragons, opening all realm tears, and solving puzzles

The other half is looking for these stupid ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ birds, still working on that actually

Stopped playing at the end of episode 4 so everything is okay <3