Recent reviews by TSideAWPer

WARNING: GRAPHIC DESCRIPTION BELOW
A lot of improvements from Warband. This feels a lot closer to what Taleworlds wanted out of a M&B singleplayer experience.

The clan system is a welcomed addition, the replacement of marshals for armies was a great choice and far more enjoyable for the player, the inventory system is more modern with nice QoL features.
The battles are just fantastic. Having the campaign difficulty on 1:1 (highest) with unlimited persistent bodies, going into battle with thousands of units each side, and watching the sheer gruelling warfare unfold in front of you -- the feeling is something else. Warband's battles and sieges never felt so dire or desperate. The stakes didn't feel as high. Not once in Warband did I think "wow so many (npc) lives were lost today", after seeing a couple hundred corpses max lie on the ground. In Bannerlord, however, when the battle is over and you ride around the field seeing piles upon piles of bodies, numbering in the thousands, litter the ground, it really feels like you've just survived medieval hell.
The visuals and graphics are a massive step-up too. The snowy maps are beautiful, especially at night during a snowstorm. The castle and town designs are diverse enough across the different regions of Calradia, but you will start to see repetition within the same region especially within the central region (empire).

Here are the negatives:
I played through the campaign on 1:1 difficulty and the game really drew me in. The only part I didn't enjoy, I almost hated, and that when you reach the part of the main quest when you assemble the dragon banner and declare yourself as the rightful ruler of Calradia. I wish I knew that when you do that you are bombarded with a bunch of repetitive radiant quests that only prevent the inevitable - that is the empire factions all declaring war on you and you cannot get out of it until all 3 are defeated. As an example, the radiant quests would either be [raid a bandit hideout], [kill 3-4 roaming bandit parties], or [attack this specific marked caravan]. The radiant quests sucked and didn't fit the current gameplay at that point. How were you supposed to deal with a caravan roaming on the other side of the continent when you've got fiefs to defend on the other? It honestly felt like an afterthought. It would have fit better during much earlier gameplay before you got your first fief. What followed was even more of a chore. If I were to play the campaign again (not sandbox) then after assembling the dragon banner I would intentionally not continue the main quest (you continue it through a series of dialogue options once the aforementioned conditions are met). I wish during said dialogue there was more warning before you proceed, or better yet, tune those boring-ass radiant quests to fit in with the current state of the game. Once that uphill grind was finally over, you can return to the great free-flowing gameplay that Bannerlord has to offer. For anyone reading this and they plan to do the campaign: do not proceed with the main quest if you don't have to (read: do not have a time limit) - wait until you are really established and in a position to bring your faction (your own or one of the existing ones) to victory.

Overall, I highly recommend this game to both new and existing players of Mount & Blade. They are adding more with each patch and really bringing this game to its full potential.

To preface:
The game is the Definitive CoD Zombies experience. Best collection of maps and mods you can find. I could spend hundreds if not thousands of hours playing through all the maps, easter eggs, community challenges, mods, etc.

Update:
While there is no longer a RCE vulnerability, is still not safe to launch the game without being offline or by using Serious/Shiversoftdev's T7 Patch. Therefore the review stays negative until it is longer mandatory to use a 3rd party tool. The T7 Patch fixes the stuttering issue and slightly improves performance. It also prevents hackers from using other exploits on you which still haven't been fixed. You can grab the T7 Patch on Github: shiversoftdev/t7patch.

Original review:
Why the negative review? It's simply not safe anymore to even launch the game without having Steam in Offline mode or being disconnected from the internet. You are open to be hacked by pathetic man-children by remote code execution. The only 'fixes' are launching the game while offline or using this tool to mask your identity online that's not always guaranteed to work, which is more of a band-aid than a fix.
Lastly, thousands of users (myself included) experience constant micro-stuttering because Steam will check for any missing/invalid DLC you (don't) have installed. There is no safe fix for this and you need to get lucky that one of your clean re-installs fixes this issue in-game (still no fix in menus). There is another 'fix' for this by the community but it's shady at best and imo extremely risky to do.
At the moment I simply cannot recommend it. I have managed to get my game to a playable condition but don't expect it to be the same for everyone else, and that's just for offline mode. Can't play online, and to play with friends only is still a risk even with the community 'fixes'.

Fantastic game that builds on the near-perfect DOOM that came before it. The movement is unparalleled, even by DOOM standards. Honestly the only negative I have about this game is the direction the story went in from the DLC, but base game story and lore is great.

Phenomenal game. Ruka is love.

Yeaaaaah... No.

Fairly challenging near the start when you're still figuring out how the new portal works. Puzzles aren't too difficult once you got the gist of things. Would definitely recommend to all Portal fans.

Best 'mod' out there for Skyrim. The story and characters are way more fleshed out than base game Skyrim, world is more diverse, and the capital city isn't just a collection of a few houses.

A beautifully ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up game.

Fantastic game. Gameplay and combat are superb. Needs more butter. Huscarls > Sharpshooters.

One of a kind game. Incredible soundtrack, art syle, gameplay, narrative, the lot.