Conqueror’s Blade Review
Overall Game Quality
(Three and a Half Out of Five Ales)
Conqueror’s blade is a really interesting title in the MMO sphere. Its traditional MMO features such as open-world content, PVE, and crafting really leave something to be desired. But it’s MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena) like battle-system is seriously fun you jump into that content within hours of starting the game. Commanding units, as well as your own hero, really adds a lot to the title. It’s a great combination of an action-combat and a real-time strategy game that keeps gameplay very engaging.
Innovation
(Three and a Half out of Five Ales)
Conqueror’s Blade borrows a lot of elements from a lot of other titles, but as far as how it combines them together to create a game experience it definitely stands out as something unique. Commanding units on the field in real-time brought into the MMO genre from titles like Mount and Blade is an interesting development. The open-world portion may not be the most engaging aspect of the game but there is an extensive territorial control system. Guilds or “houses” fight over holdings on the map whip give various benefits such as silver payouts, resource gathering locations, and advanced crafting options to the groups that control them. Combining these two aspects together makes the game engaging for both casual players looking for some fun arena matches and more hardcore players looking to build world-dominating empires.
Character Control and Combat
(Four out of Five Ales)
The game has very fast-paced action-filled combat. Players manage 5 hero abilities as well as commanding around units of soldiers which may have 1-3 abilities of their own sometimes. Both the hero gameplay and unit commanding is fairly simple to pick up and get into but obviously something you can get better at over time. The game also has no targeting system meaning you have to aim attacks but for most weapons and situations aiming. This makes aiming immersive but natural and fun for most players.
Crowd control in this game can be a bit ridiculous with some of the special abilities boasting such long crowd control effects I refer to them as “cutscenes”. Thankfully there is no good way to crowd-control a full unit of soldiers which helps keep the game playable despite the sometimes seemingly overpowered crowd control.
Healing is barely a thing with the only class that has the ability to heal others being an off-healer at best. Thankfully the 11 weapons all play very differently and have very different tactical applications in battles. The common critique that “every class is the same” in games that don’t have the trinity really doesn’t apply to Conqueror’s Blade.
Customization
(Three out of Five Ales)
Characters get 5 abilities and have one slot that can be used to slot one of two special abilities available to their weapon. There are definitely some best setups for certain weapons due to the point strengths of each weapon and balance issues among some abilities. With 11 weapons to choose from though it still leaves room to find something that suits your personal playstyle.
Unit load-outs boast endless decent combinations. Though some units certainly seem to have more overall utility than others. Overall the game gives a lot of room to find a playstyle that suits you despite actually having fairly limited options.
Challenge / Pacing
(Four out of Five Ales)
After around half an hour of a tutorial that teaches the basics of playing the game, you can start joining matches against other players around your level. The matchmaking is imperfect and sometimes places you against players way out of your league. Overall it does a pretty good job though. You’ll likely earn a lot of victories on your first night if you select a weapon that suits your talents well. Matches against other players really are the endgame content which means there is no grinding to get to the fun part of the game. The game is all fun.
Most PVE content is very simple and a bit boring with a good group but it’s not a major game focus so it’s hard to grade them too harshly for that.
Monetization
(Three out of Five Ales)
The game is free to buy, free to play, and you can compete fairly darn viably that way. Much of what they sell is cosmetics which I’m always fine with. There are a few obviously pay-to-win things though. For instance, there are mercenaries with give various buffs to your forces and have no cost to replenish at the end of a battle. I’ve been working in-game to earn my first unit of mercenaries for a month or two now. I can just buy them with cash for thirty to fifty bucks though.
You don’t need cash to do well in this game, but it does help to a degree I find somewhat irritating. I did get the game for free though so I can’t complain too hard.
Immersion / Artistic Appeal
(Three out of Five Ales)
The game intentionally draws a lot of parallels to real-world cultures of the late medieval era. Models look nice and most of the armor options are period-appropriate. My fiance particularly appreciated the more full-coverage of most garments than seems typical of eastern RPGs. Still, some of the outfits are revealing enough to seem out of place and they even have things like horses with magically glowing eyes that somewhat ruin the aesthetic.
The graphics are neither very good nor very bad. The units seem to have much fewer details than players but this makes sense given how many are on-screen at once in some fights.
Story / Lore
(Two out of Five ales)
There is a story that follows is expanded upon with each expansion. Don’t ask me much about it because details are few and far between. Nobody seems to care much about it.
Crafting / Economy
(Two out of Five Ales)
This is one of the most disappointing areas of the game for me. They have a very standard take material and make items crafting system. There is a bit of chance to it, in that you can make better items with weaker recipes if your luck is in. And you can craft new artillery and kits to replenish units.
In the open world, you can take troops to gather materials from various resource points with taxes determined by the ruling faction of the area. One major advantage of territory control is always having the minimum tax rate in your house’s own territory.
Overall it’s not a bad system but it lacks depth. You aren’t going to be a crafter in this game. You likely won’t delve too far into trade or banditry. It’s kind of a side thing you occasionally use.
Stability / Performance
(Three out of Five Ales)
Generally, the game is stable. Generally, the servers are up. You will sometimes encounter multiple 6-hour downtimes a week or matches that everyone is saying the lag is making it unplayable for them. These occurrences are not frequent enough to ruin the game but frequent enough to sometimes cause frustration and the need to play another game for the night.
