Sir Syddan
Olden Era is a very controversial game. In total, I played about 37 hours in the playtest and demo. I will start with the good. Mechanically, the game turned out to be extremely interesting – it is the perfect successor to parts 3 and 5. It has alternative upgrades from part 5, a simplified but still interesting skill tree, they added an analogue of the central perk, a huge number of old and new objects, more than in part 5 with all the DLCs, they returned the class system from part 3, many new heroes with their unique (and not so unique) specializations, they added abilities to units that affect movement on the global map, as in parts 3 and 4, they added many new adventure spells, which were also in part 4. And if we evaluate the mechanical component as a whole, it turned out to be awesome – it is interesting to explore the map, there is a lot of new and returning old content. I would rate it a solid 8/10. Why not 9 or 10? It seemed to me that in some moments, the developer responsible for balance was not stopped, so some units have 9 abilities! As a casual player, I don't want to learn so many abilities, and in some moments the mechanics seemed too overloaded, so I lowered my rating. "Brevity is the soul of wit," as A.P. Chekhov wrote.
But how to explain and present such complex mechanics to the player in a clear and understandable way? And here we smoothly descend into a barrel of tar, because the lion's share of the visuals in OE is a talentless, uninspired, hastily made mess. The interface is a pathetic creation made by a first-year student. It is unintuitive, with small buttons that are arranged in some illogical way – heroes are on the left, cities are on the right, the arrangement of the hero's stats has become chaotic, the order of stats for units differs from window to window, some buttons are not where they should be, in the unit hiring window, stats and abilities disappear for some reason, and there is a lot of just blatant trash that makes your eyes hurt. The localization is just as talentless as the interface, where there are names like "Trickle Creek", "Pr-r-r-yg!", "Bulugan! Gr-r!" or "Aroma of Hops". In addition to the fact that these are absolutely unfunny names, they are also not informative at all. What do you think the spells "Shorten Shadow" and "Lengthen Shadow", and "Anya's Touch" do? Why couldn't the spells be named normally, for example: "Stone Skin", "Dispel Magic" or "Prayer"? For the sake of humor or some lore? For some reason, there were no such problems before... So every time I see a new spell (the icon of which doesn't explain anything to me), I have to read and memorize again that "Lengthen Shadow" is +2 attack and defense.
And this is just about convenience, there is also an aesthetic component in the game. I don't want to elaborate on the obvious truths that it was not a good idea to make the graphics look like a mobile game. I also want to agree with Drakkosha that the unit designs mostly do not suit Enroth, although some of the creature concepts are quite interesting. The idea that the spells in the spellbook were drawn as if by hand (as if a monk learned the "prayer" spell and drew how it works so as not to forget) was ruined by talentless designers who simply slapped icons from a mobile MOBA game like "League of Legends Bang Bang" or whatever this crap is called. Looking at the units, you can't understand what their role is and what their abilities are. For example, in part 5, the dwarf spearmen had 1 spear in their hand and 2 more in a quiver, you could guess that he is a ranged unit with a small amount of ammunition, but he can stab the enemy with a spear without a penalty in melee. There is nothing like that in OE – the mechanics are separate, the unit design is also separate. Do the dancers have a chakram in their hand? She is a ranged unit that shoots a laser from her fist, and she has a penalty in melee! For the visuals, I will give a 3/10, for the fact that they did not simply copy all the images from previous parts, but tried to make something new (the succubus, for example), and for the fact that the portraits of the heroes have their own character (although their drawing style is pop).
I will write a little about the music. Paul Romero is back – that's good. The new compositions are pleasant, but there are a lot of repetitions from previous parts (they are already using the grass theme from part 5 for the third time...). I will add +1 point for the music.
My final score at the moment is 6/10. The mechanics are great, the visuals are crap.
