Expeditions: Viking Review (ScHoolboy QAnon)
I just finished this game and I thoroughly enjoyed it. That being said, there are gameplay mechanics and small issues that could lead to some frustration for the unprepared or unwilling.
Bad stuff first. The most annoying thing in this entire game is trying to get the little hand cursor to appear to pick up loot. You will find yourself messing with the camera to poke through barrels and chests constantly.
This game has a time limit. I strongly dislike time limits in my games, but the good news is that I had more than enough time and that was with me going back and forth to Denmark a bunch and generally goofing off. Don’t overdo it with the camping, and you can really stretch the time limit quite a bit.
As for the camera, it simply does not zoom out enough, but other than that, it’s easy enough to move it to your liking.
This is just a minor gripe but one more bit of jank. Sometimes you won’t be able to equip items and you have to leave the inventory menu and come back to resolve it. Not a gamebreaker by any means, but irritating, nonetheless.
The gameplay itself is very good, but I did have to restart as I didn’t quite understand the systems at work with SP and resource management. You want each of your hirdmen to only specialize in one or two weapons. This rule goes for most skills (1 or 2 support skills, etc.) If you attempt to make a jack of all trades, you are going to struggle on medium difficulty or above. When you start acquiring extra hirdmen, make sure you pick one to heal, one to tinker and craft, etc. You will have enough party members to pimp out camp. One more thing I wish I knew when I started, without the use of thralls, you will have a difficult time doing everything you want in your homestead, so it is good to focus on either power or prosperity as opposed to both (I used no thralls for the entire game).
Dialogue options in this game are many and meaningful. You have characters with personality, everything is well written, and the number of dialogue options can be dizzying for somebody who locks up at A or B style questions. The hirdmen’s dialogue is well written and the story is interesting. There are even a few mysteries left that I didn’t uncover…
Now for the meat and potatoes, the battle system. In short, it’s excellent. You will be killed and probably more than once, but once you learn how to use the battlefield and when to deploy traps or use skills, the game becomes a thrill ride. There is an excellent cover system at work here as well, and you can hide units behind hirdmen with shields, as well as obstacles. You are going to want to do this, as archers are DEADLY and can wipe out a party quickly.
In general, you want to utilize cover and deploy skills to limit the accuracy of ranged units. While doing this, you want your sword (or axe) and boards to block access to your archers, healers, etc. utilizing unit placement to also force archers to waste turns on tactical moves. It is all really well done, and once you get the hang of it, it is really fun.
So, yeah, Expeditions: Viking, it’s really good. I’m jumping back into Conquistadors next!