Mount & Blade (Action RPG)

[Claies]

So a friend showed me Mount & Blade, and I was immediately floored. Three days later, I bought it on Steam.

It's a single player action RPG, purely medieval, no magic. You can amass an army (mine is currently 53-strong) and have them fight with you, and it's an open world where you can enlist with 5 different kingdoms (and have a fief) or just remain freelance.

What's really awesome is the combat system, which is entirely action. You control where to swing, thrust, or shoot, and the speed at which you are moving when you attack is a major factor in damage, so horseback fighting is very, very fun. You're also statistically not much better than most of your own soldiers (and theirs), so individual heroics can fail hard and commanding your men does matter a lot.

If you haven't played it yet, I highly recommend you download the demo here and try it out - the demo has all the features but caps your character to level 7.

If you have played, I'd like to see your party. XD

[dkellis]

The problem I have with the game is that while I like the combat system and the size of the world, that's pretty much all there is to the vanilla game, thus requiring third-party mods to make it more interesting for me.

It's probably just a matter of taste, but even though I bought the game on Steam based on good user recommendations, I haven't touched it after the initial play, since I remember that I have to handle all my men and all the combat and all the finances for no story reason whatsoever, and I lose all motivation to play.

I might pick it up again if they added in some plotline or something.

[FateAnomaly]

Hey, thanks for the recommend. Just bought the game and it has been fun so far.

[jedinat]

I'm with dkellis. It needs a cohesive narrative. Purely sandbox games don't really do it for me. If you're the kind of person that can pretend to be a pearl-diver in Morrowind, more power to you.

[Claies]

Originally Posted by dkellis

The problem I have with the game is that while I like the combat system and the size of the world, that's pretty much all there is to the vanilla game, thus requiring third-party mods to make it more interesting for me.

It's probably just a matter of taste, but even though I bought the game on Steam based on good user recommendations, I haven't touched it after the initial play, since I remember that I have to handle all my men and all the combat and all the finances for no story reason whatsoever, and I lose all motivation to play.

I might pick it up again if they added in some plotline or something.

Originally Posted by jedinat

I'm with dkellis. It needs a cohesive narrative. Purely sandbox games don't really do it for me. If you're the kind of person that can pretend to be a pearl-diver in Morrowind, more power to you.

I definitely agree that the narrative (and flavor text, even) is dreadfully repetitive and lacking. I don't even bother talking to villagers after a couple. Taleworlds didn't think the engine through very well when it comes to story-telling. Hopefully the upcoming expansion will remedy this, and maybe at least have people treat me differently based on how much they like me.

Now I just play for the battles. I joined a kingdom and immediately slaughtered 2 armies. I think I've been playing this too much.

If you're looking for a little more excitement, I'm playing with the Prophesy[sic] of Pendor mod, and occasionally some 300-strong neutral army will randomly spawn on the map and you get something like "You overhear two young farmers talking about a Heroic Adventurer leading a peasant uprising!". Usually these armies are near-impossible to take down without allies and it's pretty epic dealing with a solid horde that outnumbers you 4 to 1 marching towards you.