![]() ![]() Your quick blade might matter a lot in the arena, but when you're crushed into a melee among dozens of others there's no easy escape from enemy attacks, and wide sweeps of your sword are as likely to catch on an ally's spear haft as strike your opponent directly. Oh, and then throw your character's personal skill out the window when you get into large-scale fights against the AI or another player. For some that's really the whole game, as the fighting-game-like interaction of weapon options builds depth. That's most on display in multiplayer, where you can test your skill against others in one-on-one duels. Desperately aiming your attacks, picking targets, and outfighting opponents is pulse-pounding absorption entirely different from the more furious combat of over-the-top action games. Learning all of these little details, then tweaking the difficulty to suit yourself, is what makes Bannerlord’s combat superb. Weapon weight plays a factor, as does elevation, swing length, and even what part of your weapon hits the enemy: Hitting someone with the haft of your axe, for example, does far less damage than the head. ![]() It tracks relative weapon and shield position, allowing attacks to catch on an opponent's counterattack or nearby object. Every attack has its velocity measured against the target's, subtracting or adding damage relatively, and tracking the location hit to determine how armored it is. Chaotic and confusing at first, I soon started to understand the interplay of the four attack angles, parrying, blocking, and types of weapons. On that person-to-person level, Bannerlord's combat is delightful. You're just another person, albeit a smarter one than the AI grunts. No matter how potent you are as a single combatant, a handful of opponents of decent skill can quickly overwhelm you: you are not a god of the battlefield who cuts down a dozen enemies at a stroke. ![]() Whereas the overworld map is very transparently not a simulation of a real world, the combat tries to stick to at least historically plausible outcomes, so swinging a sword often feels desperate and real. The massive clash of as many as a thousand soldiers on the field is unrivaled, at least at the scale and level of simulation Bannerlord attempts. What the hell is that? Bored, Then Swordįighting is the meat here. Seriously: the would-be empress Rhagaea, one of the eight most important NPCs in the world, consistently has her chin clipping out of her chainmail coif. Perhaps most pervasive are the graphical glitches, which are legion but mostly involve gaps in weapon models and an array of clipping that speaks to a broader lack of attention to detail. Multiplayer is rife with network and server errors. Perks from leveling up, constructing buildings, or enacting kingdom laws sometimes just… have no effect at all. Quests will trigger relating to a faction you're not part of. Much of that anemia would be a forgivable indulgence if Bannerlord wasn't so rife with simple bugs. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |