Blood Bowl 3 Review (DysenteryKing)
Blood Bowl 3 is a game I've been anticipating for years, and despite the overwhelmingly negative reception from those who played in the beta tests of the game, I held out hope that upon release everything would be worked out. Unfortunately things somehow managed to get worse. I'll start with aspects I really enjoy about the game
-The cutscenes and writing for the game have undeniable charm
-(For the most part), The visual quality of the game is exactly the improvement expected, with great art and design especially for the special pitches.
-There are a handful of great quality of life improvements, for example the ability to prepare offensive and defensive formations outside of a game is something I had been wishing for the entire time I had been playing the previous games.
-Contrary to what many have said, I like the idea of the Warpstone currency, but absolutely not as a premium cash shop currency. Assuming (very generously) that you can obtain reasonable amounts of it through gameplay, Leagues become even more investing if they have Warpstone entry fees and prizes, and the limitation of an item to a single player further enhances the value of Warpstone as well as symbolizes your attachment to the player you gave it to, a massive improvement over the useless coins in BB2 that everyone forgot even existed.
-Most importantly I just like the 2020 edition rules far more than previous editions
Unfortunately all of this is absolutely soiled by one of the worst launches for a game I've ever seen, as well as predatory and incompetent handling of the customization shop. In it's current state, the only way to obtain any customization in the game at all is through the real cash shop, and as mentioned earlier cosmetics only apply to a single player. Even worse, the shop seems to be worse than non functional, as it will outright take what you payed for the cosmetic and lose the item. The DLC was a borderline scam, with the 3 day early period being broken for almost everyone who bought it, and the cosmetics associated with them being given to owners of the standard edition anyway. But by far the absolute worst thing to happen regarding DLC was the discovery that a year's worth of DLC content including seven factions that were sorely missed is complete and present in the game's files, but is stretched out on a roadmap for you to pay for over the lifecycle of the game. But what about the actual game that we do have? It's a nearly unplayable mess filled with game ruining bugs ranging from important aspects of the UI completely disappearing during gameplay, to incorrect calculations leading to plays that should not have happened or even scores being negated, to the game choking and dying when certain skills are activated. The unreliable servers are expected of a game launch, but paired with always online DRM means that not only are you constantly disconnecting from online matches, but from single player campaign games as well. Speaking of the single player, the AI is completely incompetent, often making the absolutely worst possible plays statistically in order to fulfill what seems to be a hard-coded need to form a cage around the ball at all times, leading to situations where ogres and minotaurs will try to dodge out of combat and roll GFIs just to stand next to the ball carrier. There is no way I could list the countless game breaking bugs or ridiculous business decisions of Cyanide as new confounding discoveries are made every single time I glance over to the official Discord server that is flooding with disappointed customers. There is absolutely no reason to play the game, not even for achievement hunting as even those seem to be bugged. Do not buy this game, do not even buy the previous games. If you want to play Blood Bowl, look into the tabletop game.