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jp's Bladestorm: Nightmare (PS4)

[February 15, 2023 07:00:45 PM]

I've lost count of how many times I've tried to play, make sense of, and enjoy games in the "musou" genre. I understand the concept - but the playing of the games doesn't seem to gel with me. I would describe the overall experience for me as either "it's soo easy it's boring" and "I just died and I have no idea what I did wrong/should do differently".

This game was no exception - though the setting was interesting/different. It's historical and set in Europe! It's the hundred years war and you play a mercenary (presumbaly so you can switch sides at will), hire yourself out, gain renown so you get hired by "more famous/stronger" groups and so on... The game does start with some tutorials that explain the basics of troop types you can command and point to attack - but the whole thing is a bit of a confusing mess (it's unclear who the enemies are) and how to select/order different groups also seemed confusing to me, and I "cleared" many of the goals by mistake/without realizing what I was doing. So, I then jumped into the campaign with similar (positive) success in terms of game goals but limited success in understanding what was happening in the game. I suspect that had I continued to play I would eventually get to a point where I'd lose, not understand why, and give up in frustration.

I do still want to explore the genre more though - especially due to it's popularity (in Asia) and apparent less popularity everywhere else. What is it that draws players? What does high level play look like? What are the core skills needed for success?

I'm not even sure if the "command other squads" (archers, cavalry, pikes,etc. - in a standard rock paper scissors, etc. configuration) is a "novel" feature in the genre or just a distinction between some games (hero only vs hero + command)?