Back in Blackguards (well, for 3 hours anyway)

The Basics: X-Com meets Pathfinder/D&D

Previous Time Spent: 2 hours

Expectation of learning Curve: medium 

Why I bought this: I'm a big x-com fan, and have been a D&D nerd for years

First Impressions: I was initially put off by way the characters were developed, and the art direction. Also, the first 2 or 3 fights are sort of set up as tutorials, but are easy enough to become boring instead of real learning experiences.  

My 3 hours: I played through character creation, the story intro, a prison-break tutorial (in which the supporting characters are all introduced), and a couple hours of the main game. In general, I found that it was a tad linear, and didn't allow for much in the way of actual choices. Gameplay was segregated into top-down grid based combat that will be familiar to fans of X-Com, Final Fantasy Tactics, Pathfinder or 4th Edition D&D, and a strategic map in which you move between nodes, and improve your character . I loved the look of the strategic map, but I found that it didn't provide much in the way of meaningful choice. The strategic map is pictured below.

The meat of the game seemed to be in the battles, which made bizarre jumps between extremely simplistic, and challenging enough to require multiple tries. There wasn't much telegraphing of what would make for more challenging fights, so often the choices made felt meaningless. This translating to character development as well. There are a large number of seemingly interesting options for character development, but little guidance as to where to go with characters, so many of these choices felt random (because without knowing the math of the game, stats felt fairly flat and meaningless). 

My highlight: Running into a fairly challenging fight which came after being bloodied in another fight, and figuring out a way to control the battlefield and just barely come out on top in spite of being seriously outnumbered. (when this was followed up by another extremely challenging fight(with even more diminished resources and no meaningful way to retreat, I soured to the game a bit)) 

My verdict: Blackguards is a decent turn-based strategy game with RPG elements, but ulitmately I didn't find myself invested in the characters. When frustration set in (as it does with this sort of game) my lack of engagement to the characters or plot made me lose interest in pushing through. I don't strongly recommend this, but I can see the reasons why someone would like it (or why I would have loved it 5 years ago).