Alright. I've completed the scenario and most of the side objectives in Wartales, Pirates of Belerion at this point. Unrelated to all that questing, but why is this the one DLC for Wartales that uses a comma instead of a hyphen in its name? Anyway, I think this scenario took roughly 30 hours to complete (?). I'm not entirely certain as at one point, I was on the verge of running out of food and went back to the mainland to stock back up and grab some extra cash via knocking out some contracts. But roughly somewhere in the 25-30 hour range, I'd say.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3456550657
This was an excellent bit of DLC IMO. Although the Archipielago of Belerion technically just adds one new area to the game (and one scenario to go along with it), it's quite a bit larger than the other areas in the game, largely due to the fact that it's broken up into quite a few islands, some with their own cities and all with some sort of POI. And this section of the map, due to it being an ocean, also takes quite a bit longer to navigate. Fortunately, you have a nice ship to run around in, which of course can be upgraded to be faster, handle storms and rough seas better, and take more damage in battle. All of which is useful. Your travel is impacted by the weather, the ocean currents, and so on.
Beyond all of that and the way in which everything is presented, it is still very familiar. There are a couple gameplay adjustments though. Boat travel of course and using your ballista in boat combat before getting into the boarding part of combat. Which does actually add one cool new mechanic as well. The ability to use ropes to swing into groups of enemies, knocking the tar out of them. That was satisfying each and every time I did it, lol. Which was often. So cool.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3457578122
As far as the rest goes, you get some new recipes. Some are boat exclusive as far as their usefulness, but most add another buff option to combat or overland travel. Which was nice. There are some new variations of weapons and armor as well.
And, the Belerion Tomb has some new puzzles and includes a canal you will need to use a flatbottom boat found in the tomb to explore. There is also a second tomb that doesn't have enemies but is instead a maze where you need to find the correct sequence of rooms in order to solve it and snag that sweet sweet treasure at the end.
Jumping back to the area scenario for a second, the final boss fight was cool. It incorporated a few things that made it pretty interesting, and also the simple act of finding everything necessary to even get to that point was also pretty cool. Added a bit more story into the mix than was present in a few of the overland scenarios.
And as far as appearances go, this is definitely the best-looking area in Wartales. Everything looks really cool here. The ocean/island setting does it a lot of favors in this regard.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3458114884
I quite enjoyed Pirates of Belerion. Everything it added was both fun and cool IMO, and it's a pretty decent chunk of content added to an already awesome game. I spent $14.99 on this DLC and I feel like it earned every bit of that. Definitely worth a look if you are enjoying the base game.
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