#Mount and blade villages full#
#Mount and blade villages series#

Without any substantive story here, there's really nothing present to tie your actions into a bigger picture. In this way, it feels like a very bare-bones medieval simulation instead of an adventure game.

#Mount and blade villages full#

Sure, the voluminous hills, mountains, and rolling plains of Calradia are full of warring factions and bustling country towns containing plentiful opportunities for battle, riches, and danger, but the game simply drops you in the middle of all of it with no direction whatsoever. There's much to do while zigzagging your way across the countryside, but the game doesn't instill a real sense of purpose to your plight. How you choose to go about accomplishing this is completely up to you. The unspoken goal is to improve your character's skill and renown in the land, recruit and maintain your own faithful army, stake claim to a castle and some villages, and carve out your own niche in the realm. The huge overworld map featuring clusters of different kingdom factions scattered about for you to explore, and there are plenty of brigands roaming the landscape to test your mettle in battle.

#Mount and blade villages series#

It's actually quite refreshing.ДЄfter creating a character - by answering a series of broadly ranged questions about their possible backgrounds, fine-tuning their appearance, and assigning points to various stats and attributes - players are unceremoniously dumped into an open world and given free reign to control their own destiny.

This means there are no goblins, no 'Axe of Violent Wounding' +12, no magic spells, no haunted ruins, and absolutely no flying serpents. Instead, it takes a more purist approach you won't find anything in the game that wouldn't have existed back in those times. While most games situated in a medieval setting typically incorporate all-too-familiar elements like orcs, mythical beasts, elves, magical weapons, fire-breathing dragons, undead wizards, and the like, Mount & Blade completely bags any semblance of pandering to the fantasy crowd.

There's definitely a good game in here somewhere, but it requires players to overlook some sizeable barriers in order to properly enjoy it. The few aspects of medieval life and warfare TaleWorlds does manage to nail down solidly are impressive, so it's not a total loss. Despite being highly playable, and even capable of occupying a significant portion of your time and energy, it has an unfinished feel to it that detracts from 'ye old' experience to be had. For every great thing the game has going for it, there's something else that weighs it down substantially. TaleWorlds Entertainment's Mount & Blade is as equally enthralling as it is disappointing. Without a solid reason to pillage villages, enter into diplomatic alliances, cave in the heads of brigands, and eventually create a massive army to conquer the land, what good are the actions themselves? However, realistic medieval combat is only part of the equation necessary for a compelling adventure. Total freedom in an expansive virtual world can be a wonderful thing, especially if you've got a sword, a shield, a mount, some henchmen, and a desire to inflict massive quantities of mayhem upon the general civilian populace.