Recent reviews by Robert

This game is pretty darn good.
It reminds me of fire emblem, but it focuses more on positioning and creating bottlenecks as well as utilizing terrain and environment.
It's mixed in some areas - for example, the voice acting is great and draws you into caring for the characters, but each time they talk, they pause for like an hour before speaking.
The intro cutscenes at the start of the game could probably be cut up to the parade scene and imo it would improve the game greatly.

Unless you know everything from the get go, you will probably have to restart your playthrough if you intend to beat the game.
I had to - some things (like skills and classes) don't have any decisive impact for 80% of the game and then become necessary. In order to obtain the needed options, you have to train, and the final battle is not the kind of battle that can be won with any old team.
That said, I feel like it speaks to how much I enjoyed my time in the game that I was eager to restart - they earned my interest and I felt like I was learning quite a lot about the mechanics of the game just from doing so (and it was rewarding af - battles are entirely different when you focus on different tactics)

The battles are fantastic and the audio for the different races is spot on.
The style of battle is what I would consider to be akin to the tabletop, turn based and measured, but expressed gloriously.
There is a massive amount of tension in a fight, even when you have advantage and expect to win.

I do not like the sandbox campaign at all.
I wanted to like it but it immediately was uninteresting - a huge letdown after playing the phenomenal story campaign.
If they release more story campaigns, I would recommend this even more, but as it stands, my recommendation is get this if you like playing as space marines tactically.

The updated map is insanely huge and being able to play as the trojan and babylonian factions has made this into what I would call the definitive bronze age strategy game experience.

Builds very nicely on what made Troy interesting and fixes a lot of what wasn't great in Troy - if you know going into it that it's a "Saga" style (smaller budget and format) game, then you'll be quite satisfied with Pharaoh.
Most of the non-egyptian factions are so dramatically different from one another that you can't rely on similar tactics even with the same set of units, and planning out your long term goals feels like it is rewarded quite nicely.
I liked the challenge very much for the non-egyptian factions.
Not that the Egyptian ones were poor in any way, just that you could often use similar techniques in the economic sense regardless of faction to control the pace of the campaign.
In terms of enjoyment, I found that aiming for Major victory conditions was the sweet spot - ultimate almost always happened too far after everything had been done - somewhere around turn 241 or 242, and was just a game of patience, but the major conditions usually triggered right after a big battle win or huge political gamesmanship, and far earlier.

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I want to also update my review to say that the Dynasties update has turned this game into one of the better total war games that has ever been made. If you like similar games, Pharaoh is definitely a shining example of the genre.

Look, In my opinion, play Wrath of the Righteous first - it's far more refined and concise.
The gameplay between the two games is very similar - wrath is harder but more forgiving, most hard parts can be dealt with through creativity or lowering difficulty.
kingmaker is a different boat - it's "easier" (i wouldn't say either is very easy for a newcomer), but mistakes cannot usually be easily fixed - especially in the larger advisor decisions. If you fail there, game over! (you can continue by turning on auto manage, just without the fun dilemmas and flavor they provide)
As a note for starters - I'll say this for either game - try normal and then switch to easy if you hit a brick wall. I did this initially and I very much recommend it. Normal is waaay more doable after you understand the mechanics (doesn't mean easy ride, though - if you are a min/max person, it's probably smoother, but I have never been one and the challenge imo is pretty fun. I definitely swap between easy and normal most of the time though)

That said, this game is a sprawling, epic journey. The story spans an immense amount of quests and things to explore. My first two campaigns were each about 70 hrs and I failed and lost both. You build an empire from nothing, and it's very rewarding in that sense. There are good parts to the length, and bad - obviously that's a lot of time to be playing a game without having reached a conclusion to the story! But! The story, just like in Wrath, will pull you in if you let it, and then you'll be sitting on multiple breakthroughs wondering where the time went.

The rougelike DLC (beneath the stolen lands) is easily another ten to seventy hours or more, and I highly recommend it if you like the main game. It has almost no story and is more of a sandbox where you build your party even more from scratch than in the main game. I found that it highlights some of the better aspects of the gameplay.

look, it's a single player dnd with some heroes of might and magic thrown in.
If you like challenge, it has a ton of it, and if you're like me and don't want to min max, play on the easy settings (you can switch on the fly, which was a major relief since i thought normal would be fine lmao)
I hated the puzzles and was very grateful they're more or less optional.
the only other part that sucked was sitting around for a month in the mid game.
otherwise the story is strong and the whole "it's basically a dnd campaign where the computer is a dm running a scenario" makes it pretty replayable.
I definitely immediately wanted to try a different class after i had finished it once.

it's great - the fundamental campaign overhauls are a significant improvement from 2 (it seems like they added the diplomacy options from three kingdoms, which is a sorely needed change from the abysmal diplomacy in 2).
the new maps when you do fight battles are also welcomed variety.
I can see they did a lot of improvements of siege but I still want more options - actions for each turn of a siege on the campaign map, or more options for styles of siege, or deployables (like in 3 kingdoms)
Can't wait for the massive super map in august.
It needs some work to be as good as 2, for example - some rosters are quite empty, but, I know more will be added later and I already am playing it constantly just like I did the one before it.
one way or the other, 2 was my top strategy game, and 3 is on its way to steal that spot. time will tell.

if you liked xcom, this is very, very similar to xcom.
it's more linear storywise and also slightly more forgiving in that your marines won't die the first time they "die".
but it has all the hooks of a challenging and fun squad tactics thingy - complex strategic choices mixed with different ways to die that your dudes have to avoid.

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as an update, I've now beaten the game - it was very fun!
I'll be playing a second go through to see if I missed stuff.
Some of the late game story stuff is really obvious, but if you know the tropes of warhammer stories, it's par for the course.
That said, if you like the style and theme , this is a fantastic experience.
They clearly put thought into how to present the goofier elements, and they made sure to include them (huge plus for me! I'm very glad they didn't shy away from the lore/absurd chivalry of their knightly code)

short but oh so sweet. wonderfully crafted.

great story, worth at least two plays to see the differences. there are a couple main beats that are always present but the entirety of the rest can change very dramatically.
you can tell that the story was given a lot of thought.

I'm trying a third run to see if i can get it perfect, but by a third time you start to see a lot of repeats.