Mount & Blade Video Review

[Leutrim]

Heres my video review for M&B, a very great game. Please rate, comment and subscribe if you like it

''Mount & Blade Review by Leutrim23

M&B is a medieval game developed by TaleWorlds and is set in Calradia, a vast space with many terrains and more importantly, 5 warring medieval factions. There are the Nords to the north, whos combat style is infantry based, similar to that of the Vikings. The Rhodoks to the west, with a combat style similar to Swiss/Roman armies, spear/pike based warefare. The Vaegirs to the east have a very Eastern European style of combat, all round units. The Swadians hold the centre of the map, with western European style armies, knights and swordsmen. Lastly, the Kerghits to the south, a Mongol styled faction with horse archers and horsed light lancers.

Where do you come in? Well, to begin with youll have to make a character. Once youre done you get warped into the campaign map, where you can see all the towns, castles and villages. Youll have basic armour, a primary weapon and a ranged weapon, depending on your characteristics. Youll eventually meet looters or bandits; all who want to kill you. If you surrender then theyll take you hostage for days. If you fight, youll experience some of the best gameplay ever. While on your horse you can tear through infantry with deal some serious damage. Using a bow and arrow is also great if you love headshotting wimpy targets from afar.

After defeating enemies you can sell the battle loot in towns and make some money. Youre going to need it to hire recruits to join your army. As you fight more and more bandits youll constantly be upgrading your soldiers and buying new arms and amour, increasing the size of your army with time. Youll have to feed your soldiers and make sure you have enough money to pay their wages or else your party will lose moral. Sooner or later, youll meet faction Lords and eventually swear oath to a King or Khan. Being granted a fief is a nice aspect to the game. Itll mean you can upgrade it, store soldiers there as well as recruit and not forgetting rent they have to pay to you. However, you can take another route and completely break the laws of the game by being your own King. Though it's really tough, building up a considerable force and conquering cities for your own rebel faction is astonishingly rewarding.

In terms of graphics and audio, the game is not exactly new generation, but thats not necassarily a bad thing. Graphics are low in texture and in detail, but they run super smooth on almost any computer and to be honest they arent that bad. The audio is by far the weakest point in Mount&Blade because quite literally, it is almost non existant. There is no dialouge apart from an odd grunt here and there as well as a few shouts and moans in the battles. Some of the sound effects for weapons and the horses are very few and very basic, but again, it really isnt that big an issue. You hardly notice it because this game seems to nail one thing. It is a brilliant RPG, with a basic concrete platform, and allows the player to write his or her own storyline. If you really worried about the audio and the tedious musical score of the game, get yourself some LOTR soundtracks, mute the ingame music and hit play.

The gameplay is the backbone and is what sets Mount&Blade as a true contender for my personal top 10 games of all time. It is so fun to hack down enemies on horseback, so embarrasingly and childishly fun. Horseback drive by's are perfect, if you do it just right, killing enemies in one swoop with your saber, you will might just well scream an orgasm. Mount & Blade sets a new bar and a new genre in the market, a brillaint medieval blend of action and RPG. You have to give credit to Taleworlds for this masterpiece, even though it was evidently done with a low budget. It goes to show, it's not how much money a company has, it's how creative and how good they are at what they do. Yeah, you heard me EA, DeepSilver, Activision, Ubisoft, THQ, Atari, etc, etc.

This medieval classic gets 95%. ''

[Wulfburk]

everyone should get this game, awesome

[Freddie]

I've played an earlier version of this game and it is fun I can't deny that but IMO your wrong to have a go at other studios how have bigger budgets, playing Mount & Blade for a short time and it becomes obvious the game is low budget the lack of anything representing a production value is blindingly obvious. This in turn makes the game less sophisticated then bigger budget games as high productions values for music and sound effects are a must in this day and age for example would GTA: Vice City be as good without the script and 80's sound track?

[0N3]

I enjoyed the game tremendously the first days of playing, but all you do really is battle after battle after battle mixed with a little city-visit. It has no lasting appeal or replay-value after you get tired of the fights. If they add roleplaying and more to do this would get very succesful. Seems like they are trying to create some sort of multiplayer where you fight and barter with other players which really doesn't bring much to the game as a singleplayer roleplaying game would.

[Swagger]

if it weren't the mods (god bless M&B mods), this game wouldn't be as good as it is

but guess what, i've got M&B opened right now!

[ALZU]

Thank you very much for this, I now know that I should've downloaded M&B long ago.

[Ojf]

I remember when I first got M&B, I played it all night without realising lol

[LuckyLewis]

Pretty good summary of the game, I never looked back when I bought it, I love it. One of the most under-hyped games in my opinion.

[Psychonaut]

You have a badass voice.

This made me want to play Mount&Blade again. Thank you.

[Centurion Legio IX Hispana]

Thanks for the review. +Rep

[Holger Danske]

While M&B is revolutionary and has its fun moments, it is a game that is handicapped by numerous massive lacks. Some are rather simple, yet have such a damaging effect on the gameplay once you're no longer in awe.

Formations and tactical gameplay is a major lack of this game, especially if you have tried playing around with the BattleSizer tool. I still cannot understand why the developers didn't bother with simple formations in the original game, such as box formation, wedge, multiple ranks, shieldwalls, etc. They are all a necessity, especially now when you have a small group of warriors to manage.

The inability to use your companions as officers is also a major drawback for this game. Such a feature would actually give your companions a meaningful substance in respect to the overall gameplay. At the moment they are nothing more than a dress-doll feature with limited uses. In addition they also lack personality, so why should we even care about them? If we look at another action/RPG, Mass Effect 2, we see a game that had an excellent way of establishing some sort of relation to your companions in the way of solid backgrounds (for most) and meaningful quest/missions to obtain their loyalty.

All in all M&B certainly has potential, but it still needs much love in its tactical and strategically gameplay. Fortunately TaleWorlds now has a sponsor which has made the game "official", yet it's dubious if this is enough to correct all the shortcomings of a potentially fantastic game.
My personal hope is that somewhere some developers with much more resources takes note of M&B, and gets the crazy idea of merging it with Total War's excellent battlefield command and empire building features.

[Shaio]

While M&B is revolutionary and has its fun moments, it is a game that is handicapped by numerous massive lacks. Some are rather simple, yet have such a damaging effect on the gameplay once you're no longer in awe.

Formations and tactical gameplay is a major lack of this game, especially if you have tried playing around with the BattleSizer tool. I still cannot understand why the developers didn't bother with simple formations in the original game, such as box formation, wedge, multiple ranks, shieldwalls, etc. They are all a necessity, especially now when you have a small group of warriors to manage.

Multiple mods add formations, and we can atleast order multiple ranks with stand closer command, also warband added the 7 namable troop types at will instead of just archer cavalry and infantry.

Ps if anyone feels like saying mods don't count towards game having formations, battle sizer doesn't count then either and you wouldn't of needed those formations in first place.

Otherwise i do agree, but frankly mount n blade just isn't made for those big 600 men battles, in so many more ways then just lacking formations.

The inability to use your companions as officers is also a major drawback for this game. Such a feature would actually give your companions a meaningful substance in respect to the overall gameplay. At the moment they are nothing more than a dress-doll feature with limited uses. In addition they also lack personality, so why should we even care about them? If we look at another action/RPG, Mass Effect 2, we see a game that had an excellent way of establishing some sort of relation to your companions in the way of solid backgrounds (for most) and meaningful quest/missions to obtain their loyalty.

Your comparing a sandbox rpg to a bioware rpg, the missions to gain companion loyalty would just be annoying in sandbox setting, and gain nothing, besides the characters argue and will leave or tell you annoying stories about there past as you walk past certian cities, isn't that enuff?

they serve me quite well being unquie warriors in my army each specialized with various support skills.(healing path finding etc, and in occasional mod i can even choose to play as any of them in battle)

I may just like it as is because if there's not much story then its mostly the story my heads making up for the game... which is often alot better/more fun for me.

All in all M&B certainly has potential, but it still needs much love in its tactical and strategically gameplay. Fortunately TaleWorlds now has a sponsor which has made the game "official", yet it's dubious if this is enough to correct all the shortcomings of a potentially fantastic game.
My personal hope is that somewhere some developers with much more resources takes note of M&B, and gets the crazy idea of merging it with Total War's excellent battlefield command and empire building features.

Well you may get your wish, mount n blade was successful, so its only a matter of time till a large game company blatantly rips it off and then congratulates itself on ocne again avoiding the need to take that first risk of making something unique and new.

Don't expect them to do it better the tale-worlds thou, it'll likely be dumped down more then anything if it happens.

[craziii]

if only mount and blade get a budget the size of blizzard games :PPP the game would be epic. the map would look better, better collision on all weapons, horses, shields. more variety with quests :P EPIC!

[Holger Danske]

No. I'm using ME as an example of how you could make NPC/heroes a bit more interesting and perhaps useful.

[Bolkonsky]

That's an RPG. Something more sandbox doesn't need strong character developement. Which if you want it, you can play a mod.

[Flavius Silvanus]

It's made by a very small Turkish studio so it lacks the polish of a AAA Title, but the gameplay is like crack.

You'll wonder where all the hours went.

If you liked the structure of Sid Meier's Pirates, you'll like this game.

Try to play as a merchant, or Robin Hood-like bandit.

If you played with the Mego Knights as a kid, you'll love this game.