Junior Adventurer's Guild - July: Of Orcs and Men

[1998]

Honestly, this was a good base to build a better RTwP game from. Make combat actually based on physics, extend stats/gear, increase party size & add DAO-like tactics.
Main complaint I have with the game itself is the levels are way too linear. This was peak hallway-era of level design.

This. I hated it when I first played it, but now looking back its THE RPG from that era to play.

[rusty_shackleford]

Honestly, this was a good base to build a better RTwP game from. Make combat actually based on physics, extend stats/gear, increase party size & add DAO-like tactics.

Just remembered the new Spiders game is finally going back to RTwP so many that's actually their goal.

[1998]

Honestly, this was a good base to build a better RTwP game from. Make combat actually based on physics, extend stats/gear, increase party size & add DAO-like tactics.

Just remembered the new Spiders game is finally going back to RTwP so many that's actually their goal.

They avoided showing any true gameplay in their recent EA-release-trailer. I would expect significant changes to their combat system compared to the original announcement.

[Finarfin]

Be it RTWP or more akin to Greedfall 1, I'm looking forward to it.

[rusty_shackleford]

11 hours to beat, howlongtobeat is way off(20 hours completionist), I did everything available.
Anyone know if the Styx games continue the story, by the way? The ending is pretty much just an opening of the story.

[Oyster Sauce]

11 hours to beat, howlongtobeat is way off(20 hours completionist), I did everything available.
Anyone know if the Styx games continue the story, by the way? The ending is pretty much just an opening of the story.

The Styx games are prequels I believe

[Finarfin]

11 hours to beat, howlongtobeat is way off(20 hours completionist), I did everything available.
Anyone know if the Styx games continue the story, by the way? The ending is pretty much just an opening of the story.

Yeah, the styx games do assume that you know stuff. Certain things that were somewhat of a big reveal in Of Orcs and Men are just casually said in the styx games, but they are prequels tho.

[Vergil]

Flop game

[Element]

Crashes on loading screens, so have to redo several fights twice or more in order to progress. Game is alright, although very repetitive especially when you're nearing the end. Making a Styx game as a sequel was a no brainer - going into stealth mode and seeing how many enemies you can pick off is half the fun of this.

[SpellSword]

Final found the time to install Of Orcs and Men. The combat takes a bit of getting used to but it isn't as clunky as I thought it would be. Of the two main characters Styx has been stealing the show so far. I can see why Cyanide went with him for their two follow up games.

[SpellSword]

Victory!

► Ending Screen Spoilers

► A Few Random Thoughts

Visually not a bad game. (Nice rain, water and other effects)

Enjoyed the soundtrack.


Fun to stealth around as Styx before each fight.

Arkail's character wasn't interesting.

Overall Game Rating For Of Orcs and Men:


It's a pity that Styx: Master of Shadows and Styx: Shards of Darkness are both prequels, I'd have been more interested in playing them if they took place after Of Orcs and Men's finale.

[rusty_shackleford]

It's a pity that Styx: Master of Shadows and Styx: Shards of Darkness are both prequels, I'd have been more interested in playing them if they took place after Of Orcs and Men's finale.

Same. I wanted to continue the story after it ended.

[Tweed]

I WIN

► Show Spoiler

GIBS BADGE.

[Tangerine]

Number 10, and final, for the month.

► Show Spoiler

Proof.

20241225192133_1.jpg

I have mixed feelings on this one. I liked how the combat system functioned, but combat itself was pretty easy to trivialize with a couple of skills. Triggers for alerting guards while assassinating was unclear to me; I thought it was line of sight or proximity, but sometimes I'd trigger guards in a separate room or I could kill someone really close to another one without setting them off. The equipment and skill upgrades was half-baked, as was equipment progression.

The story had some interesting ideas, like goblins being the result of a magical fuckup by an orc shaman, but it also had its woke elements, such as elite women warriors. It's also hard to take the "woe-is-us we're being genocided" story point seriously when you're talking about giant green murder monsters. I'll admit that I didn't see the twist that Barimen was manipulating you to become emperor himself, but I don't recall being given any information to piece that together myself. It's possible I missed that.

With the linear maps, muted colors, and excessive swearing, if you told me this was a console launch title I'd believe you. It was still a decent game, but I wouldn't do a second playthrough.

Inquisition bad.

20241224130018_1.jpg

Sorry, can't take this seriously.

20241224130708_1.jpg

20241224150817_1.jpg

On the one hand, no brown people in this game. On the other hand, the bad guys are explicitly called out for being White.

20241224131033_1.jpg

20241224221509_1.jpg

Yes, because I'm supposed to believe a 130lb woman is tougher than an orc.

20241224145219_1.jpg

20241224145226_1.jpg

We call ourselves Scum of the North. Why does everyone want to wipe us out?

20241224184303_1.jpg

This was an unexpected turn.

20241224221623_1.jpg

Can't give her traits that men find conventionally attractive. That'd be the male gaze.

20241225180126_1.jpg

[Tweed]

It does feel good to kill the **** out of them on the island though, annoying ******* *******.

[rusty_shackleford]

It's one of those games where I can't tell if it was intended to be woke or it accidentally included content that would later be interpreted as woke. I'd say it rides the line more finely because it does have a lot of things that wouldn't be present in a game purposely made to be woke e.g., being told to rape her would obviously be cut, even if he didn't mean physical rape.

[DagothGeas5]

As it was discounted on GoG, I bought this one among other games today and figured I will start this one too as I already played those I am playing now for the Adventurer's Guild and I wanted to play something new while I wait for my chance to get Crystals of Arborea through GoG proper as the other sources are not working for me.

I am not sure what it is as they, just from the screens, seem to me to be quite different games, but it reminds me of a game I really like called Overlord.
https://www.gog.com/en/game/overlord_raising_hell

[1998]

As it was discounted on GoG, I bought this one among other games today and figured I will start this one too as I already played those I am playing now for the Adventurer's Guild and I wanted to play something new while I wait for my chance to get Crystals of Arborea through GoG proper as the other sources are not working for me.

You are giving your money exclusively to people who had nothing to do with the game in the first place. They are probably mostly dead by now. Unless you have some severe case of OCD just download it on gog-games. Il

This is the same file. If that doesn't work, paying won't work either.

[DagothGeas5]

As it was discounted on GoG, I bought this one among other games today and figured I will start this one too as I already played those I am playing now for the Adventurer's Guild and I wanted to play something new while I wait for my chance to get Crystals of Arborea through GoG proper as the other sources are not working for me.

You are giving your money exclusively to people who had nothing to do with the game in the first place. They are probably mostly dead by now. Unless you have some severe case of OCD just download it on gog-games. Il

This is the same file. If that doesn't work, paying won't work either.

It's not that, I truly cannot download the file. It says the connection isn't secure but using a VPN takes me to a page in french that says the file is missing, while the other links simply do not work for me (file missing)
I found this site, for example, but though it has the others, Crystals of Arborea is missing from the .zip

Hidden Content

This board requires you to be registered and logged-in to view hidden content.

[1998]

As it was discounted on GoG, I bought this one among other games today and figured I will start this one too as I already played those I am playing now for the Adventurer's Guild and I wanted to play something new while I wait for my chance to get Crystals of Arborea through GoG proper as the other sources are not working for me.

You are giving your money exclusively to people who had nothing to do with the game in the first place. They are probably mostly dead by now. Unless you have some severe case of OCD just download it on gog-games. Il

This is the same file. If that doesn't work, paying won't work either.

It's not that, I truly cannot download the file. It says the connection isn't secure but using a VPN takes me to a page in french that says the file is missing, while the other links simply do not work for me (file missing)
I found this site, for example, but though it has the others, Crystals of Arborea is missing from the .zip

Hidden Content

This board requires you to be registered and logged-in to view hidden content.

Hidden Content

This board requires you to be registered and logged-in to view hidden content.

[DagothGeas5]

You are giving your money exclusively to people who had nothing to do with the game in the first place. They are probably mostly dead by now. Unless you have some severe case of OCD just download it on gog-games. Il

This is the same file. If that doesn't work, paying won't work either.

It's not that, I truly cannot download the file. It says the connection isn't secure but using a VPN takes me to a page in french that says the file is missing, while the other links simply do not work for me (file missing)
I found this site, for example, but though it has the others, Crystals of Arborea is missing from the .zip

Hidden Content

This board requires you to be registered and logged-in to view hidden content.

Hidden Content

This board requires you to be registered and logged-in to view hidden content.

We posted at the same time it seems XD Sorry for the back and forth, and thank you once more

[Oyster Sauce]

What a great time to revisit this beloved classic

[rusty_shackleford]

Is it a continuation of the Styx storyline or the Of Orcs and Men one? Because this ends on a bit of an overall cliffhanger.
Don't want to discourage anyone, the story itself is resolved but it's part of a larger story.

[Oyster Sauce]

Is it a continuation of the Styx storyline or the Of Orcs and Men one? Because this ends on a bit of an overall cliffhanger.
Don't want to discourage anyone, the story itself is resolved but it's part of a larger story.

I've read something about it leading into the creation of the Bloodjaws

[Tweed]

Bout time the series continued.

[J1M]

Imagine my surprise to find that I was playing the exact same game as Mars: War Logs except one that had some more care put into the presentation and didn't significantly pad its runtime by forcing me to walk back and forth between maps. War Logs came out a year later but looks 3-5 years older than this title.

Really couldn't get into this. Styx was the only silver lining because he could occasionally stealth kill some guys before a battle. And having a shorter model it felt like he ran faster. Not sure what they were going with for the combat system, but they obviously missed. I can set stances, but if I don't babysit the characters every few seconds they switch stances to something dumb? Derp. Similar to the other Spiders game I just had the misfortune of playing, there are only 3 enemy types (melee, melee that detects stealth, and ranged).

I thought this was going to be an orcs vs. humans story, but there are is all sorts of casual mingling between races and factions that felt off.



@Oyster Sauce badge please.

[J1M]

Uh oh, just screwed myself. The Deus Ex badges are no longer on the same row. Another 50 DKP minus for this game.

[DagothGeas5]

Uh oh, just screwed myself. The Deus Ex badges are no longer on the same row. Another 50 DKP minus for this game.

You can fix this by getting another badge!

[CornCake]

Of Orcs and Men? More like Of Boredom and Tedium. At least in the gameplay department.

I'm very much glad that Cyanide Studios decided that RPG's are not their style after this, and instead went into the full stealth genre. If you've not touched the Styx stealth games, they are mounds better than this seventh gen slop, if not just great games in general. I can see pieces of what became Master of Shadow in this outing, but it dinnae work out unfortunately. The enemies don't respond to corpses, the same animation plays out each assassination (1 for each goblin, orc and human) and it gets tiresome quickly.

The combat isn't any better, with the stun bomb being brokenly overpowered to the point of hilarity leaving hard mode easy as pimps.

Story was decent, but not good enough to carry this boring adventure. Luckily it only cost me a pound.

The game does have some good lighting though, which made me stop in the forest to admire it.

► Show Spoiler

@Oyster Sauce if you would mate, thanks!

► Show Spoiler

[Acrux]

Of Orcs and Men? More like Of Boredom and Tedium.

@logincrash, can you please punch this up a little bit? Thanks!