Blackguards Critic Reviews

If you are a seasoned turn-based strategy gamer, you can really sink your teeth into this one and get a run for your money. If you are not, you will still get both that run for your money and a crash course in applied survivor tactics.

Blackguards is a good romp with a rich established RPG world to draw from.

The game mechanics remain faithful to its tabletop roots.

It's a gorgeous game with memorable battles. But because the game's focus is obviously on combat, no matter how pretty the towns are, they feel like backdrops for your character sheets and inventory.

Blackguards was a nice surprise: gaming system is solid and interesting, and the puzzle-like battles hold interest until the end. At times they are even challenging. Although patches might have changed that.

Blackguards is a great success for Daedalic Entertainment, a great achievement not only for the remarkable playability and exceptional turn-based setting, but also and above all as the first role-playing game of the hanseatic software house.

The five chapter campaign offers dozens of hours of gameplay, but I would be ecstatic with the prospect of creating my own adventures.

It sure took its sweet time, but in the end, Blackguards managed to really enthrall me. If the Hamburg-based developer continues in this manner, The Dark Eye fans have a lot to look forward to.

If you can get past traveling the world map on rails, every location and quest chosen in order for you, the combat is rich enough to make Blackguards worthwhile, and I think comfortably places it near the upper end of that range.

Blackguards is a wonderful tactics game with some rough edges. The core gameplay and character progression elements are easily some of the best in the genre, but as battles tend to drag on and more and more enemies scream “owAUGH,” the interest tends to fade.

I wish that Blackguards' character progression system wasn't such a mess, because if it worked, I'd be delighted to recommend the entire low-fantasy role-playing package without hesitation.

The interesting cast and subtle writing (with plenty of subtle plot points to uncover) paper over the cracks.

Blackguards isn't a bad game. Far from it: actually, it's pretty good. But there is plenty of unused potential here, both in story and in gameplay.

With lots of different opponents, unpredictable battles, varied battlefields and lots of specializations, Blackguards is one of the most diverse strategy games lately, but it high degree of randomness can be frustrating.

It was rather fun to play a turn-based tactical RPG in this style, but I wish it had just a bit more life to it and not feel so stiff.

Blackguards is a strong RPG with top-notch tactical combat that's let down by some needless complexity and less-than-convincing voice-acting.

Daedalic's first time in the world of RPG is one of those to remember. Blackguards is not a flawless game: it has a slow gameplay that after hours and hours can be boring, technically it is not that great and has an annoying problem of balancing the difficulty. Yet it remains a great role-playing game.

Blackguards feels like a role-playing session of The Dark Eye RPG led by a rookie dungeon master. If you’re willing to look past a few silly mistakes, you will enjoy the experience.

The quality of Blackguards' story is generally good enough to justify tinkering with different choices to see how they lead to different outcomes. But make no mistake: this is a game aimed at the hardcore crowd seeking a good struggle above all else, and on that front, it mostly delivers.

Blackguards is an entertaining game and traditional role players will love many of its mechanics. The game could have been used to restore part of the essence of the great RPGs that were released during the early years of the last decade, but would require a story influenced by the decisions of the player and a good artificial intelligence. It would have been an excellent tool for Game Masters who want to display combats for his roleplaying group. As a videogame some things are left on the shelf.