izigame.me

I bought this game at the last minute for a few reasons:
- some recent controversy of the PC Gamer review more focused on trash talking the AoS setting rather than reviewing the game. I figured to get it to see for myself since the twat writer can't get over an 8 year old decision (you're getting your old setting back, let it go)
- I heavily play Age of Sigmar on the tabletop since 2E in 2018 and have a fun time with it, especially since 2 factions I use to play are in the game.
- I figured the game would play similar to Dawn of War and I've always enjoyed RTS games, even though I'm not the best at them.
Downloaded it yesterday, played through the entire story 'til 1 today and slept to get my thoughts ready.
And...wow...this game is rough.
First, gameplay is more akin to Dawn of War 2, where that alone is more like Company of Heroes as I understand. There's no base building, instead you SLOWLY amass resources by gathering troops around the map at certain points. Said points can then have a structure built on them that can range from healing troops outside of base, more resource gathering or defensive structures. Thing is, resources take a while to gather. The buildings take quite a few to just get started as does EVERYTHING, even abilities. So if you're not careful and need to use a certain hero ability but used it to que a new unit, can't use that ability and vice versa.
And that's just part of the problem. Units will get "locked into" melee combat and you can't get them out unless they win, die or retreat them all the way back to main base with, yes, an ability that cost precious resources. Units, in general, are slow and clunky. Trying to select a unit to attack is horrible as the cursor doesn't change when I move over a unit to attack and doesn't seem to register a hit box that well. Ranged units I kept getting into melee accidentally since they require setup and issues with said attack selection. No unit stats to see, basic rock-paper-scissors counter system, lots of abilites for units I kept forgetting to use and honestly didn't care to use, HORRIBLE UI system of menus and mass unit selection (I could barely see their icons at the bottom of my screen or who's who). I could find other problems but that would require me to play the game more (not interested) or others have already mentioned them.
Now the story... is pretty decent! I won't go into spoilers for major events but for the most part it's well written enough for a Warhammer tale and gets pretty grim by the end (proper considering WHR in general). However, and this could just be me being bad at RTS' like I said, but by the third mission on normal I thought the AI was somehow ramped up. You have to hold 3 points for 2 minutes, but when you leave one area the AI will naturally take it back. So it's a lot of back and forth running about or leaving smaller squads to get wiped by a surprise force of the enemy and on top of that, if you lose your only base, game over (learned that the hard way first time). With how everyone moves slow, it's kinda hard to lock everything down in time, WHILE also making sure the AI just doesn't flank you (somehow) and make you lose. I dropped down to easy, only had to hold for 1 minute, passed and moved back to normal for the next mission. Then I got to the mission after that, which is literally just multiplayer map battle and somehow got stomped again and just switched over to easy for the rest of the time.
From here, it varied on what missions were good or not. There's 'almost' a solo hero mission where you can find allies to help...which I failed to save the last one somehow 'cause the side objectives are marked horribly on the map, a neat boss fight where you get to use your new power you unlocked...and only ever use on side objectives out of reach since it's pretty niche, a fun sabotage mission, which I think might be my personal favorite...but THEN EVERYTHING TURNS BELLY UP AFTER THAN IN THE FINAL FEW MISSIONS (save for one) BECAUSE THEY'RE MULTIPART MISSIONS AND IF YOU FAIL, YOU START ALL THE WAY BACK AT THE BEGINNING! NO CHECKPOINTS! And once again, with how slow units move, resource management, etc. it just becomes a chore, even on easy! The final mission I thought I wouldn't get through and probably would've just quit after a 3rd attempt. You need to grab two points, while still defending your base (almost what you've done throughout most of the game) and after that just kill the final boss, WHO'S SURROUNDED BY DAMAGING GROUND AOE, HAS HORRIBLY WORDED OBJECTIVES AND I JUST CHEESED IT WITH A WELL PLACED SAVE LAST MINUTE TO RELOAD FAILS AND SUPER LONG RANGE UNITS!!! ALL OF THIS ON EASY STILL!!!
Tried Conquest, wasn't interested in gameplay loop still. Tried map editor, felt glitchy as certain objects would want to be placed in super sunken/raised terrain (and I'm not super creative or skilled enough for that stuff). Army painter, pretty good as you can customized individual units but limited in colors (oh and the Knight of Shrouds/Lord Gloam are literally the same if you don't have variation for $15 DOLLARS EXTRA).
My overall conclusion of this game is simple: it's a slow, clunky mess that relatively looks nice. And I'm sad to say that since I really was getting excited about this one. But it just feels so bad. I wasn't that big of a fan with DoW 2's change in gameplay and having that mirror here but worse is agony. The story is interesting enough as you play through both Stormcast and Kruleboyz (with a little Chaos) but that's mostly it and it still felt like a chore after a while. I know I'm not getting my $75 back. If you're looking at this for AoS, better to try the tabletop or some novels. If you're looking at this for gameplay, try looking at DoW 2 or CoH first and seeing if those feel more polished to try out. The only positive thing I can say about this game is that I finished it and can uninstall for other games in my library of shame.