Shadow of War review

Played and really enjoyed Shadow of Mordor. 

You can read about it.....Shadow of Mordor review click here!

Now the sequel  Shadow of War is out and I grabbed it since I really loved the first game.

Shadow of War

 

The game takes up again with Talon and his Celebrimbor wraith buddy that lives inside him.  They have forged a new ring of power and are on the way to stop Sauron and save Gondor, Talon’s home.

Well that is until everything goes sideways. Well more sideways than creating a new ring of power that is identical, but not corrupt like Sauron’s.

The second One ring to rule them all!

Shelob decides to get involved since she has an axe to grind with Sauron and is still a power player in Mordor. Plus she is a woman and has the ability of foresight. Yeah she can shift from big creepy stupid spider to a long dark haired version of Cersei Lannister with future seeing powers.

Wait! This sounds stupid?!

Well yes it is and it the plot only get sillier after this a ton of Middle Earth history is cast aside for a bunch of crazy shit.

Now she wants your ring in order to help you defeat Sauron so you toss it over because why not.

Now we jump to the last Gondor held city in Mordor, Minas Ithil. This is where Shelob sets your path for revenge to start. Why here? Well because the city is besieged by orks and you have to save it since you are Talion! The Gondor ranger who loves his country!

This leads to a plot that has you once again killing the forces of Sauron only to build an army out of said forces of Sauron so you can then go fight the forces of Sauron.

Wha?!

The three main characters in Shadow of War.

-You have to (sometimes) team up with Galadriel’s elf assassin, Eltariel,  to fight the Nazgul that are set loose in Mordor.

-You help a giant female talking tree-plant lady fight the dark menace that is invading Mordor. A tree-plant lady who is not an Ent, but some elder nature spirit thing or basically Middle Earth Gaia. Blerg!

-There is a quest chain to stop a ork who can raise the dead, like zombie dead. You know magic like that is nowhere in the Middle Earth history. Plus wouldn’t Sauron or anybody either nab this dude or stop him since he could raise a giant army of undead. This seems like an ability the Dark Lord would want to have or squash.

Orc necromancer? In Middle Earth? Wha?

-You have to save Minas Ithil but of course you can’t since it has to become Minas Morgul, but that takes place now instead of thousands of years earlier.

-You also are tasked to hunt down the 9 Ringwraiths and the Witch King. Of course you have to kill a few of them…I mean banish them. The worst bit being that you are tasked with fighting the Witch King of Angmar and defeating him.

-You know since you can defeat him being a dude and all that. Lore be damned!

-Also the 9 wraiths are not wholly comprised of the original 9 kings of men that were given rings of power. Nope. Isildur and Helm Hammer hand are tossed in as members of the 9. Lore be damned!

-Oh yeah! None of these characters are cannon. The events of the Hobbit haven’t happened yet. We all know the Hobbit and Lord o’ Rings story. This makes anything you do in this  game essentially pointless. You should know the ending before you even play this. There is this attempt to make you think you are changing the course of Middle Earth history. Spoiler! You are not doing that at all.!

This is Bruz. he is awesome!

GAMEPLAY

Shadow of War plays just like Shadow of Mordor.

It is Middle Earth Assassins Creed clone with a fantasy RPG element.

You start off as drek in combat again and have to kill your way through enough orks and missions to gain XP to bolster your abilities. Abilities that are on a makeshift skill tree, albeit sideways and not vertical like a tree.

Once you add enough points to combat skills, then you can become a quasi-undead wraith infused nigh unstoppable death machine!

You can once again ride giant cat wolf lizard monsters, giant not troll trolls and there are even drakes to mount. Mordor is littered with drakes during this era. Hell you can even climb on the new Ologs, which are intelligent smaller looking cave trolls. That are a new larger grunt enemy that just appeared after the first game.

There is a healthy stealth element still because this is fantasy Assassins Creed.

You have quest chains to help Gondor, stop Nazgul, help Mordor Gaia tree lady, search for various bobbles and Shelob secrets to hunt down for personal gain and XP.

There is an online element to attack other players castle/forts they have. There are also little persona vendetta missions to kill orks that have previously killed other players. I guess doing a lot of these gives you gear and such, but I was too busy grinding through to pay these much attention. I tried them both and get why people might find this fun, but it looked like it would get repetitive. There would be enough time for repetition later.

There is the same Nemesis system here again. You might kill ork or get killed by one and it leads to having a new enemy to pester you throughout your travels. It is fun once to have an enemy after you. However, after the third or fourth ork that survives death to hunt you, it becomes tiresome. Sometimes you just want a goon to stay dead and not return to give a speech about how they survived and how you are going to die by their hands.

Yup orcs die and and don't stay dead. This is fun like twice and then is nothing but irritation after that.

This is the majority of the game’s first couple of Acts.  Then they toss in a feature to capture and control castles in four different regions of Mordor. This is fun at first and then it becomes something different. It becomes the game’s attempt to keep you from completing it through tedious tiresome repetitive castle sieges.  Also known as……

Shadow Wars

By now in the game you have captured four regions of Mordor, given Sauron a good and bloody nose and poised yourself to conquer the dark lands in your own name. Well that is until you are forced to defend your four castles 20 times. YES 20 TIMES! Over the course of ten stages. Having to defend each castle once would be an mission. Then move onto some end game nonsense.

Nope!

Instead you fight to defend each region over and over with each battle getting a little harder than the last. It is nothing but a pretty annoying and needlessly pointless grind. You have to amass ork captains of a level close to yours to helps defend your castle. You also have to have money to buy castle defenses.

Get used to this screen. You will be on it constantly during the last Act.

Once the defense begins it is running battle to destroy the enemy ork captains and their leader to win. It is also where your defenses you purchased do very little after the first few seconds of the defense. It is also where your ork captains die faster to enemy grunts than they ever did when you were fighting to subdue and recruit them. These fights are just awful after doing just one of them. Having me do 19 more is just beyond stupid!

If you successfully defend your castle you move on to repeat this all again at the next castle. Well that is after you spend $$$ to replenish your ork captains from the online market. Yeah her you can spend game or actual human money to buy troops. You rinse and repeat this process 19 more times too. It is just awful!

The loot crate system. A exercise in bad game development or a  pay to play better system.

Heavens forbid if you lose a siege. Then you have to stop and recapture the entire castle again. This I more ork recruitment because all the “good” ones died. This means more missions to weaken the castle prior to retaking it. It also means having to defend it again after it is retaken. Yeah this happened once and I never let it happen again. I quit the game twice to keep from losing fights where I couldn’t kill the invading captains fast enough. I would rather fight the battle over than retake the fort from scratch.

The Shadow Wars are THE worst part of this game. I can forgive the utter tossing out of the Middle Earth lore. I cannot forgive the developers who thought this grind was necessary or would be enjoyable. The only thing worse is if they would have tossed in an escort mission during these sieges too!

Final Thoughts?

• You fight orks to recruit orks to fight more orks to ensure that you have the best orks. If not recruit those orks instead.
• The stealth, fighting and missions were fun and very similar to the first game.
• The graphics are great. Ugly stuff is ugly ( dreary drab Mordor is ugly dreary and drab ).
• Terrorizing orks with poison, fire, spiders, beasts, falling rocks, brutal stealth kills and ice is some of the best stuff in this game.
• I maxed level so I had every skill available and that made a lot of fights sometimes easier. It definitely gave you options.
• The Nemesis system is fun once or twice. After that it is annoying killing the same ork more than once.
• Whomever decided on the controls for flying drakes needs to be kicked in the genitals! Calling them cumbersome and stupid is an insult to those words.
• You really need an option to skip what the orks say. They talk just too much before you fight them. Eventually you cheer when you get an ork that is mute, just moans, mumbles or screams. At least they don’t have a speech to give that is too long and unskippable. Think of them as pro-wrestling style intros but with less catchphrases and too long.
• Loot boxes via real money micro transactions or in game monies? It feels like it is filling a game development whole. One where you have to use game money to buy more and better orc captains because they die all to easily during the terrible castle sieges. Plus you could spend real money to get the supposed really good ork captains and gear. The really cheapens the game for me.
• I really liked Act I and the majority of the first part of Act II of this game. Act III was beyond bad and will keep me from ever playing another one of these games.
• I could not overlook the horribly inaccurate and just wrong in so many places plot. Why change so much of the Middle Earth story. It didn’t do anything but make a fun Mordor revenge story really really stupid.
• The Olog. A new tacked on enemy for no reason. However, Bruz your: castle building, siege and defending tutorial Olog buddy, is amazing! He has some great lines and is bright spot in the game for  a short amount of time.
• The world is much bigger and easier to transverse. It isn’t a grind to reach max level of 60.
• It is disappointing the enemy scales over your max level at times. This keeps you from recruiting them to bolster your ork ranks.
• You can upgrade gear stats and socket gems to make Talion better…just like so many other RPG’s.
• There are enough skills to sustain a few different play styles for a while.

 

Enough already. I could ramble on and on about this game.

I cannot in good conscious recommend this game. Almost 2/3 of it is horrible grind. Everything fun about the first game and first act of this game was lost once you had to start the castle grind and silly quest chains (ork necromancer and not Gaia but totally Gaia stuff).

The plot is beyond silly a lot of the time.

There are some bad game elements here that they some purchasable loot crates in to fix.

They shit all over a bunch of the Middle Earth cannon for no real reason. I had a real issue with this.

Shadow of War was a tight game until they added the Nazgul, necromancer and castle siege stuff. Then it becomes a whole lot of stupid and grind for the sake of grind. The game does not want you to finish quickly or even at all. It hopes to wear you down with grind, orks that talk to long and silly plot points.

Still love Shadow of Mordor and would recommend grabbing that on the cheap! 

I would pass on Shadow of War. The end game is beyond stupid. The loot crate stuff is terrible. The game doesn't want you to finish and it doesn't pay off when do.