It has been 7 years since the release of ” Jihad Heroes 3: Rebirth”. When fans of the series thought that the sequel was hopeless due to the disbandment of the development team, publisher Kalypso Media teamed up with developer Frima Studio to bring players the latest game in the series, “Jihad Heroes: Liberation”. As a dark fantasy strategy RPG, after experiencing three generations of reputation plummeting due to bugs, what changes will the new game “Jihad Heroes: Liberation” make? What surprises will it bring to players?
Write your story.
The story of “Jihad Heroes: Liberation” begins with an assassination attempt. The female protagonist, Iviana, returns from a surveillance point to the waterway below the St. Dachard Church. After talking to her best friend, O’Ryan, and determining the target of the assassination, the two set off. Deep in the sewer, the two discovered Father Sebastian. After the two identified themselves, the priest called out his guard, and then the two realized that they had fallen into a trap. After a fight, a portal emerged from Iviana’s body, and the two escaped into the portal and arrived in the forgotten city of Ilian. After some discussion, the two decided to go to various places to seek allies…
During the process of the plot progression, players will encounter some dialogues that require them to choose for themselves. Each answer will bring different results to the player, and your decisions in the dialogues will also affect the favorability of each tribe. However, there are prompts given to players in each dialogue option, which prevents players from repeatedly saving and reading. Options with demon symbols mean that players will threaten other characters by shouting and threatening, while angel icons will treat other characters in a rational and flattering way.
In the initial trial process, I thought that choosing a region meant that the player had joined this camp, and the difficulty next to the region corresponded to the difficulty of the game. In fact, this is not the case. The four regions in the game are divided into four unrelated tasks. Players can go to the four regions according to their own wishes, and the difficulty is only marked by the difficulty of the four tasks. Whether to go to the most difficult place of Tuobai from the beginning or come from the simplest widow plain is up to you to decide.
In addition, I also want to complain about the mission design in the game. When playing “Ejamah’s Last Smile”, players need to enter the dungeon to find Ejamah’s wife in order to complete the mission. However, the dungeon in the game cannot be used after entering Portal The feature of quickly returning to Ilian, coupled with the ground setting that cannot be returned if this mission is not completed, directly made me embarrassed. I could only find Ejamah’s wife in the dungeon. When I found Ejamah’s wife, I was confused again. At that time, because I did not bring mercenaries, my team only had three people, while the opposite team had as many as seven people. I could not fight head-on, and I could not return to level up. I could only read the file two hours ago and start over..
Fight for survival.
As a strategy RPG game, “Jihad Heroes: Liberation” adopts the “grid-walking” combat method. The difference is that the game divides action points into three types, each with its own unique use. Blue action points can be used to move the number of squares equal to its movement attribute, red action points can be used to cast skills, and yellow action points are a combination of the first two types, which can be used to move and cast skills. After the end of the round, if the player has remaining action points, they can restore up to 10% of the maximum health points of the unit and obtain the special attributes of the corresponding type of action points. Moreover, players can wait or skip the next round to cast different tactics. Different types of action points combined with reasonable use of combat strategies directly bring players more strategic choices. I can use waiting to see the enemy’s movement and position before releasing skills, or use the benefits of skipping rounds to defend and counterattack. This setting also indirectly reflects the production team’s promotion of “your decisions will guide your destiny”.
In battles against hostile forces, it is inevitable to encounter situations where one is outnumbered. The faction buildings in Irian solve this problem well. When players arrive at the legendary city of Irian through the prologue, they can unlock four faction buildings. These four faction buildings can be used by players to recruit and train units. The difference is the mercenary use brought by these four buildings. The giant stone ring belonging to the Elf Alliance can recruit shadow mages to provide players with powerful long-range output, and the temples under the Empire can recruit meat shield soldiers. When the mercenaries recruited by players are strong enough, they can directly conquer without fighting when facing hostile forces that are no match for their own team. This not only solves the problem of long combat time in the early stage, but also doubles the efficiency of players to gain experience and resources.
In addition to increasing the number of team members, it is also a good way to enhance the strength of the team. When Aviana reaches a certain level, she can be transferred from a mercenary. If you are a player who likes to confront head-on, you can choose a warlord or a magic swordsman for the transfer. Players who like to solve enemies with long-range skills from thousands of miles away can choose witches and priestesses. The new profession determines the allocation of players in the skill tree and the weapons they can use in battle. It is also a part of the game’s development.
Finally, let’s talk about the other shortcomings of the game. The first bug I encountered during the game was the problem of game acceleration. After adjusting the combat acceleration, it can be seen that the character’s movement speed in the game has changed significantly, but the speed of the character does not change when releasing skills, which directly makes the acceleration meaningless. After opening the skill tree, I encountered the second problem that the game text was not fully translated. There was a small amount of text in the game’s skill tree that was not translated, but this situation was not encountered in the plot. Finally, there is the problem of perspective conversion in the game, which is also the most troublesome thing for me throughout the entire gameplay. During the map exploration process, players cannot adjust the perspective direction at will like in the battle, and can only view the resources and NPC positions on the entire map by adjusting the field of view position, which is easy to miss the Treasure box on the map. Fortunately, players can move the field of view position with the mouse. In contrast, during the battle, although players can adjust the perspective position at will, they cannot adjust the field of view position by moving the mouse. This setting If you can combine the above two issues in terms of perspective, the rest of the BUG production team also clearly stated that they have been working on improvements and will be updated in subsequent versions.
[Review Summary]
Overall, ” Jihad Heroes: Liberation ” is an excellent reboot of the series. The huge storyline, interesting battles, and rich character development all add color to this “slow-paced” game. Although the bugs have decreased compared to the previous work, they have not completely disappeared. Fortunately, the bugs in the game have not affected the gaming experience. If you are a player of the “Heroes of Might and Magic” or “The King’s Bounty” series, then I would not hesitate to recommend this game to you!
