A-Z Backlog challenge: Northmark: Hour of the wolf
I am a big fan of Collectible card games and think more should be made which are single-player focused rather than the online multiplayer ones which always seem to get their pricing structures wrong and become pay-to-win. Unfortunately this one has a few too many ideas that have been abandoned or just don't work.
The story is a pretty overused one. After the Duke is poisoned you uncover a plot to weaken the alliance between man, Elves and Dwarves. You are tasked with travelling across the land to piece the alliance back together and discovering who is behind the treachery. Although the plot is pretty boring, I enjoyed the writing which was quite amusing.
There is a world map with various locations where you meet different characters, fight battles and find shops to buy new cards from.
Inside those locations there are also some hidden treasures and some lootboxes with riddles which need to be answered (much like in Betrayal at Krondor).
You can choose to be either a Fighter, Mage, Thief or Druid which affects your starting stats. It's clear that this was going to also determine which cards you could use but this idea was abandoned perhaps due to balancing issues. It would have made for more replayability. As you gain XP and level up you can also increase your stats. These stats give bonuses to the units you fight with. Attack makes your characters hit harder, defense makes them more durable.
In each fight you can take a maximum of 3 units into battle for you. You don't need to summon them during the battle- they are there from the start. You also don't attack our enemy directly- whoever has their units killed first loses. This limits your options as you can't use the traditional rush or control decks.
You then select 12 other cards such as healing spells or items, weapons or spells to buff characters, or damage dealing effects. There's a decent variety of cards which you pick up on our travels. They are quite nicely illustrated which is one other positive thing I can say for this game.
On each units turn, you have the option to either play one from your deck or a card which comes from your units mini-deck. The best tactic always seems to be to have one main damage dealer and then just buff that on the other 2 units turns.
The fights are all the same- there are no special condition either starting or winning. Thankfully the game was very short so I didn't get too bored of it.
Release Date: 2014
Rating: 63
Normal Price: $9.99
Sale price: $2.99
The story is a pretty overused one. After the Duke is poisoned you uncover a plot to weaken the alliance between man, Elves and Dwarves. You are tasked with travelling across the land to piece the alliance back together and discovering who is behind the treachery. Although the plot is pretty boring, I enjoyed the writing which was quite amusing.
There is a world map with various locations where you meet different characters, fight battles and find shops to buy new cards from.
Inside those locations there are also some hidden treasures and some lootboxes with riddles which need to be answered (much like in Betrayal at Krondor).
You can choose to be either a Fighter, Mage, Thief or Druid which affects your starting stats. It's clear that this was going to also determine which cards you could use but this idea was abandoned perhaps due to balancing issues. It would have made for more replayability. As you gain XP and level up you can also increase your stats. These stats give bonuses to the units you fight with. Attack makes your characters hit harder, defense makes them more durable.
In each fight you can take a maximum of 3 units into battle for you. You don't need to summon them during the battle- they are there from the start. You also don't attack our enemy directly- whoever has their units killed first loses. This limits your options as you can't use the traditional rush or control decks.
You then select 12 other cards such as healing spells or items, weapons or spells to buff characters, or damage dealing effects. There's a decent variety of cards which you pick up on our travels. They are quite nicely illustrated which is one other positive thing I can say for this game.
On each units turn, you have the option to either play one from your deck or a card which comes from your units mini-deck. The best tactic always seems to be to have one main damage dealer and then just buff that on the other 2 units turns.
The fights are all the same- there are no special condition either starting or winning. Thankfully the game was very short so I didn't get too bored of it.
Release Date: 2014
Rating: 63
Normal Price: $9.99
Sale price: $2.99
Comments
Post a Comment