Game Review: War of the Roses: Kingmaker

Hello readers!
Today I'll be reviewing a combat game called War of the Roses: Kingmaker

A bit about the game and developers.
War of the Roses: Kingmaker has been developed by 13-man team from Fatshark and produced by Paradox Interactive who are the publishers of Magicka, Mount & Blade and very many other great games. All hail those 13 people for making so great game. I can't even imagine how hard work it was!

About Gameplay. 
War of the Roses: Kingmaker is a team based third person action game set in Medieval England during the happening of real life Wars of the Roses. All the maps are based on real locations where the battles were so it makes the game feel even more special than what it is.

Right from the start you'll see how different this game is from the rest of the new games I've played.

To start off I'll say that you need a strong machine to play this game. I will be saying why is it needed below in the graphic area. War of the Roses is different when it comes to combat system. You have four different attacks, two slashes, stab and a chop. Slashes are great for multi targets and on wide areas, chop is great in small, closed up area or where you can't swing too much due to your friends being too close, while stab is great for piercing armors. The longer you hold your attack, the more power you put into it and therefore do more damage.

Defense is done on the same way. You hold your right mouse button and move it left, up, down or right. Half of a second before your opponent strikes you you will see a small orange bar appear on either right, left, top or bottom part of your screen. That will appear at the area where your enemy wants to hit you. You have to press right click and drag your mouse to the given side in order to defend. If you don't do that, you will get hit and probably killed. Shield users don't have to worry about that because shields protect you from all sides.

Armors have major roles in WotR. Light armor makes you fastest but very unprotected, while medium armor gives you some protection and some agility. Heavy armor, on the other hand, gives you massive protection but ends up making you slow. Slashing your opponents who have heavy armor is useless because your sword / dagger / pole arm / axe will just bounce back. The only way to kill people with heavy armor is to stab them.

There are four basic profiles which have their own set of perks and weapons. You can not modify those. Until level 15-ish i recommend you to use only those classes because they are more powerful than anything you can create.You can make your own "warrior" from the level five already. You can name it, give him any weapon you want, give him the perks you want, and even give him a horse! Bear in mind though, you need to have a decent amount of money to be able to do all that.

Coins are very big part of this game because there are many different things to buy in it. Money is

very hard to gain, so keep saving it! With coins you can buy additional character slots, perks (which allow him to use certain weapons, shields, or give him an ability to ride a horse), you need to buy weapons, weapon modifications, armors, armor colors (if you want) and horses. Different horses have different prices. Also, your level is only important until 20. At 20 you unlock pretty much everything that the game can offer to you. But even then the money is hard to gain.

You gain money by winning missions, assisting your allies in kills, killing enemies yourself, executing enemies and healing your allies. Healing your allies gives you the most XP and coins so always do that over executing enemies or doing something else! Instant kills also earn you some money, and squad wipe, but those two are hard to get. If you're on a horse its easier, but it's hard to aim.

If you are thinking about getting a horse, think twice about it. It's very expensive, and extremely hard to use, so I don't want you to waste your money on early levels. You will get more kills by using your sword or mace than riding on a horse, looking awesome. Using crossbow and longbow also has its bonuses. It's very hard to aim, reload and stay alive, but once you master it, it's overpowered. Especially the crossbow. On later levels crossbow can one shot kill you if the user is good. You do have limited number of arrows, and the reload time is massive, but it's worth it.

Customization in War of the Roses is not big, but it is still amazing. You can make your own crest which will then be displayed on your armors, shields and on top of your helmet! It will only be showed on the heads of custom made armors though.

Graphic and Audio
The graphic of this game is just amazing. Beautiful grass is on every corner of the map, Sun shines

beautifully, and the blood looks amazing. But the best thing is the reflection on your armor. Even if your graphic is on low quality, you can still see a reflection of everything in your armor. It's very important to say that Fatshark has built this game from ground up all with their own engine! Fantastic work guys!

There is not much to say about audio because most of the time you don't even hear it. It made me a bit disappointed but it's just one of few bad things of this game. There is some background music every now and then, but not often.

Pros, cons and final grade.
Pros:
 - Amazing graphic.
- Very different gameplay.
- Long learning curve which makes you focus on the game and learn every aspect of it fast.
- Combination of stealth approach is always welcome.
- Massive weapon customizations.
- Ability to make your own crest.
- Extremely fun.

Cons:
- Some bugs like non-working abilities.
- Requires a strong PC.
- Money comes very slow, but goes away extremely fast.

Extra info: This game is extremely fun and I just can't get enough of it. I'm very happy that I was playing with a good friend of mine, Zukureneno, who taught me the ropes very quickly! Paradox Interactive were so awesome that they gave me three copies of the game for giveaway so here you go guys from the group!

The giveaway is HERE

Also, I'm sorry that it took me so long to make this review, but I wanted to finish this video completely and uploading it took me a very long time. So here you go, my first game review in a video format as well! Zukureneno also joined me on it!