Reviews

• gamedeal user

  Aug 5, 2022

  This is real gem in the rough. Great game. Shame the devs abandoned, without giving us a workshop and the tools to create mods. This game is more challenging, has much better gameplay, and a deeper strategy, than some reviews on here say! BUT it is a buggy mess..real BUGGY. Says alot about the developers, and their future games, to leave Blackthorn Arena in THIS state. BOO!!!
• gamedeal user

  Jan 19, 2020

  EDIT: (As I play the game I will consistently edit the review) Just giving feedback as I play the game. So far definitely recommended. I love the story concept, love the attention to detail for most of the management portion of the game. *** Update 2: I saw on another review that this is essentially loot boxes without paying for loot boxes. This is entirely true. I, unlike the other reviewer, love this feature. I personally love a lot of randomness in games, as I feel like that makes the game more replayable. However, if you like everything to be under your control and go the same way every time, this game is not for you. The gladiators at markets are randomly generated, the equipment is random, the prizes are (somewhat) random to matches, the items you research are random, pretty much everything but your fighting strategy and the way you develop your fighters is random. Again, if you do not like randomness (or gladiator games for that matter) then this game is not for you. If you like a good gladiator game or you like random events without having to pay for loot boxes, then this is the game for you. First and foremost, I love the character creation piece. I can customize my gladiators to look how I want them to look. Was surprised when I could walk around the facility, would love to be able to do the same at other places as well, and I feel like there's a lot of potential with that feature. One thing that I have ran into issues with so far is the tutorial pop ups. The information is good, but I can barely read the text. I would recommend making the background a solid color so that the text is more readable. I have seen people have a few issues with the combat system. I haven't played around with combat too much yet, so I can't say anything good or bad about it (will update this review in the future when I mess around with that more). I did struggle in the tutorial battle, but I just assumed that was because I was unfamiliar with the controls and there were a lot of different controls to accomplish the same goal. *** Update 1: I played around with the combat a bit more, and it has been a struggle to master it. I assume once I have that down this game will be much more fun. *** Update 2: I decided to go with the auto-play AI system to help me get through the game faster. I haven't played around with the strategies for the various fighters too much, but with everything on default the auto-play seems good and fair. I assume with configuration of the strategies of each of my fighters that I can start optimizing them a little bit, but overall you still have to make sure that your fighters are ready to go. Some fighters are better for some scenarios than others, so make sure to fit your fighter to the niche that you want them to fill. And don't forget which niche they are in. For example, I had an archer that was good in crowd control, really useful in 3v3 and 4v4 battles. However, they would always lose in 1v1 combat to lower level opponents. I had a 2h wielder that was specifically trained for dueling, and they could almost without fail win most of the 1v1s. Again, you just have to know your fighters and put them in the best position to succeed. It would be nice to be able to just watch the computer play every once in a while though, like a spectator mode (for both your fights and potentially not your fights). Not sure if that last part is possible, but I think it would add value to the game. *** Update 1: You are allowed to spectate other fights in this game (during tournaments), so it definitely is possible to do what I am asking. It looks like it's just an extra step that could be taken. What I'm referring to is the ability to spectate tournaments and events that you are not allowed to participate in because you do not have enough influence to do so. All in all, so far this game is what it said it is. Recommended even in early access for that reason. Not polished, but has a lot of potential and (to me) is a good game as is. ***Update 1: Looks like the game is receiving updates, so I'll have to check those out. Bonus points for active Dev team. As a software engineer myself, I understand how hard it can be to quickly adapt to user feedback, so well done and keep up the effort! *** Update 2: New updates kind of nerfed some strategies that I was exploiting in the game, but they also solved a major bug that I found with the game, so kudos to that (For anyone wondering, the health regeneration that recently got removed sometimes led to stalemates between fighters with good health and regeneration abilities/armor). That got fixed with the update, but now I have to actually give my fighters good gear to succeed!
• gamedeal user

  Feb 13, 2020

  TL;DR - The game is obviously early on but shows some great promise. I like it so far personally but I also have a little bias towards gladiator games :). I am posting this as my own personal evaluation with the following criteria in the rating: Gameplay, Combat, Graphics, Sound, Replayability, Story, and Outlook. The overall game sits at a decent price-point at $20 for what you get and how often the devs work to release updates. A title with a lot of promise. Gameplay (7/10): Positives - Slaves that you purchase running everything so there is a lot of weight on buying the right slaves at the right time to run your arena operations as well as develop into gladiators. This gives you the feeling of a lot more control over the success or failure of your arena. - Some decent customization for a first release. Weapons, armor, caring for your gladiators actually have a significant impact on how you perform in the arena which makes the management aspect and the actual combat play nicely together. Opportunities - The windows overlapping in management and some of the clunky interface can be annoying...I imagine this is because it is an early access game and will most likely be fixed as they develop. - Characters randomly disappear from pre-combat screens and the pre-combat screens don't provide context as to why a gladiator cannot join on that particular battle (ex: they are busy in a specific type of training but the pre-combat screen does not inform you of that) Combat (6/10) Positives - Being able to control one gladiator and potentially swing the tide of victory in your favor with proper management makes the combat feel inclusive. - It's fun to see the effort you put in the management phase manifest itself in a dominating victory and running through some crappy lower level when properly built up. - Being able to decide if the other team lives or dies but also knowing what the crowd's decision is beforehand is helpful in determining if you're going against the grain and may lose favor. - Narrowly beating an enemy of the same level due to a well timed hit can really feel rewarding once you get deeper into a tournament. Opportunities - The combat can be frustrating as all hell. You click on a certain command and try and click on a combatant and it does not actually work, whiffs from 5 miles away rather than running up to another combatant and at least attempting to hit them, or your gladiator gets wildly inconsistent with their hits. - I said earlier that it's nice to trounce through your enemies when you have higher level gear and training...it can also be insanely frustrating to have a crazy high geared gladiator and go in against a low level slave with obviously shitty gear and get your butt handed to you on random occasions. I get the game wants to create a sense of not putting all your eggs in one basket with a gladiator but that just seems a little outrageous. - The introductions are super clumsy. Your team does some not only corny introductions but also some just flat out weird poses (RE: shield carriers looking like they are trying to pick up a giant watermelon that keeps shifting from side to side). - AI AND PLAYERS GETTING STUCK IN WALLS. When you are deep into a tournament and an archer gets clipped into a wall or up on a scaffolding area. So you're forced to re-load and play the whole thing again. - Some overpowered bosses...especially the last one. I had 4 gladiators that ran through the final tournament only to get absolutely demolished by the end troll boss. While it said I succeeded this felt like an absolutely insurmountable goal even after replaying a few times with different combinations and levels. Graphics (6/10) Positives - They add some fun customization. You can see your gladiator evolve from lowly slave to champion of the arena. - Seeing the gladiators walk around they do appear to be very responsive when you tell them to go to areas and look pretty cool practicing against the dummies. Opportunities - Smoother animations would be ideal. The clunky movements sometimes are a little off-putting especially during combat, in pre-combat animations, etc. - More variety of customization. There is a very limited arsenal at your disposal to make your gladiator look like your own. Sound (6/10) Positives - Nature sounds, Combat actually sounds pretty decent when colliding swords, music (when available) fits well with the scene. Opportunities - Consistency...the music and sound drops out at the most random times. It would be nice to have consistent music and audio that makes transitions feel more smooth rather than drop outs. The weird pre-fight collapse of the cheers as your gladiators make their entrance makes the game feel less immersive. - It would be nice if, upon a massive hit that takes a lot of damage, the crowd actually reacted more. Instances where gladiators run away out of fear would be more fun if you heard the crowd boo them as they ran or cheered you as you struck a death blow in the cowards heart. Replayability (7/10) Positives - Being able to level up and utilize different gladiator types as your champions make the game's replayability pretty solid. Seeing a bruteman smash a dwarf or vice versa adds a bit of diversity. - Being able to get new gear combinations does help with the replayability a bunch too, as well as the research, new slaves, and trying to dominate the different arenas. Opportunities - The game is short. Once you take the final arena there isn't a feeling like you are building towards anything. It feels pretty anti-climactic. - Variety of arenas, characters, multiple arena management, politics and decision making would all be fun additions to this game. I would love to be able to opt to have a wolf on my team or troll and build those characters up as well. It would be great too if they introduced more politics and gameplay geared towards climbing the latter. I think often of the old TV show spartacus that was on Stars and how they constantly were making political moves and shifting themselves into areas to take more land. It would be fun to see more aspects around land control, competing against rivals, ascension in the ranks and owning more arenas/influence. - Incorporating a system in which I can make deals with other arena owners to purchase their gladiators would be a nice addition and help with an influence system of some kind. Story (5/10) Positives - Fun to play from the ground up and have to establish yourself through some hard-fought battles and constant management. This makes you feel more committed and gratified when you win a big tournament. Opportunities - It would be nice to have multiple backgrounds to choose from, each impacting your stats and such...heck having stats associated with your arena owner at all would be fun and also play into the political game I spoke to earlier. Outlook (8.5/10) - I'm really pulling for this one to be successful and spin into more titles (like being able to be a gladiator and win favor and such to build yourself up and get money, fame, etc on your way to freedom). - I would love to see them make the game more diverse in choice (be a gladiator, lowly slave, arena owner, mayor, etc), be able to combat differently based on those choices (as a gladiator have to build up trust with the arena owner so they give you more influence, as an arena owner have to play the political game a little more and be able to build up your arena more with the influence you gain [ex: adding more lights, bigger crowds, more diverse traps in specific locations, etc]), have more diversity among choices of weapons, arena types, etc. As I said, I'm really enjoying this game so I hope none of this comes off as a critique on an obviously early release game...I just have a ton of ideas of what I'd like to see in this already promising title. Keep up the good work devs! Thanks for reading!
• gamedeal user

  Apr 2, 2020

  Literally everything is random, meaning nothing makes sense. Slaves are random. Research is random. Armour and weapons are, you guessed it, random. It makes for an extremely frustrating game. The game itself would be fine, if it made any sort of sense. Why is a level 1 slave wearing champion armour? Why does your slave with 5 in two-handed miss 90% of his swings, when the level 1 swordsman with 0 skill in the bow he's using absolutely destroy from a distance? It's not even a game of luck, not GOOD luck at least. Nothing means anything and everything is horrible.
• gamedeal user

  May 21, 2020

  I really want to recommend this game; however, at this time I cannot do it. That isn't to say that I won't come back and adjust my review in the future after the issues are fixed. The idea behind the game I love and accomplishes ideas that I have had in the past in reference to managing a gladiator stable. I know that it was in "early access" for a while and it was recently released as a completed product. But, it's anything but finished. I'm not talking about the occasional bug that turns up in all software. I'm saying, the game isn't polished enough to be released yet. Let me explain: There are abilities that have an explanation or description that applies to other abilities. The description listed for being a "Smith" is actually the description for being a "Cook", and the "Cook" doesn't have the "Smith" description, it has the "Coach" which goes on-and-on for each. There are still "Generic" listings throughout the characters. In some cases, it may still have something similar to "Elf-12" for the biography or other similar generic un-refined, incompleteness throughout. Being able to create triggered tactics for each gladiator dependent on specific criteria is a nice touch. However, I feel as though it can be expanded even further and in some cases certain triggers are missing. I would love to have been able to trigger multiple different strategies based on the success of hits on "current target" or "amount of damage" currently being delivered, etc. etc. it seems like it's a good start, but there is so much more that can be done with it. Granted, I have only played roughly 5 hours. I plan on playing more, I hope that the game will be refined and actually completed. It's a shame that after having early access, the level of polish wasn't resolved prior to a full release.
• gamedeal user

  May 23, 2020

  I'm fine to discussing this game with someone who wants to know the ins and outs. -thus allowing comments. -to the devs, I handle Unity quite a bit so if you'd like to discuss stuff i'm also down. Anyhow, at this phase of the game I'm value-ing this as a 4/10. with 5 in the middle and 6 to "yes i recommend". I've been wanting a gladiator sim where i become the master for so long I can't remember, and finally a game like this comes up. Bad RNG is one thing, I enjoy the game nonetheless. The reason I don't recommend the game at this point is the amount of bugs that are present, not just from the fights, but with the UI in general. I think this game needs a UI Designer, bad. The interface flows and the amount of explanation and buttons they explain can repel a few from enjoying this. for example, you're not allowed to host games until like 3 months in. but the UI is there and explained since the start. which got me confused because i spend a good 5-10 minutes trying to figure out why i can't host a match. Not to mention the shop menus, the equip menu transition bugs out. you can still click areas if you click the most bottom part of the button while editing characters, all just screams this needs a UI designer. I think for types like these, it's acceptable to not have animations between opening and closing menus. unnecessary polish that actually breaks the menu mechanic. you don't have to slide open and slide close the menus from the right, or fade in the shop menu and stuff, just immediately enable the object snap in and out. same thing when hovering above equipments. its polish like these that actually hurt the management process itself and thus lowers my rating despite enjoying the game by overlooking those problems.. and now I'm experiencing a game breaking bug because I chose to force auto-combat when I started a new game. Now my gladiators often get stuck because the AI pathfinding on side missions somehow glithces often. Also I can no longer host games on my own arena because of some event.... (non spoiler).
• gamedeal user

  May 26, 2020

  So I really want this to be a good game... But it isn't. Pros: Concept Decent graphics Lots of stats Devs have already pushed 2 patches. Good start. Cons: UI is GARBAGE (seriously, this is one of the worst UI's I have ever seen there are literally parts of this that just don't function) Odd decision to have real time combat coupled with a very unresponsive manual control system. Brain dead AI for you and the computer. Gladiators just are unaware of the guy hitting them repeatedly from behind, traps, etc. Non-functional mechanics. Tried several iterations of ranged gladiators but they simply stop firing at random. Hilariously badly done English translation and just typos everywhere. It is just a confused mess right now. Feels like week 2 of Early Access. Needs major work.
• gamedeal user

  May 26, 2020

  (5/25/2020) Let me start by saying I enjoyed the game a lot, but it had some issues. I think it's fairly priced at $20. [i] (Scroll to bottom for TL;DR) [/i] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [u] PROS: [/u] - There are tons of cool options, from different stats, fighting styles/combos, weapons, armour, personality traits, and more that make each gladiator unique(much like Rimworld). I think if they could make some of the classes more useful and balance things a bit more to the point of being able to make different combos actually work this game could be awesome! - I love the character appearance customization and how you can make each gladiator look unique. - The game is being very actively developed, so there are frequently bug fixes, improvements to gameplay, and balance adjustments. - Your decisions actually matter in this game, this may sound contradicting to some of my cons, but i do enjoy the fact that the death of a gladiator is impactful, or if you don't pay attention to how you level them up it will actually affect you, but when the death of a single gladiator puts you on track for bankruptcy or not being able to win the story games it's kind of a buzzkill, and I just wish there was more varieties and possibilities when it came to good ways to level, some perks or stats just seem kind of pointless, and some Genres just seem outright bad compared to others. Game has all the right ideas, just needs to find that balance. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [u] CONS: [/u] (These are my nit picks, over all I really like the game) - I think the core of the game is really solid, but it needs quite a few balance tweaks and stuff to make it feel like you have lots of actual options. Right now it feels like unless you get the few good genre combos that are powerful you are really going to struggle. - Also it felt like if I lost one of my stronger gladiators it would start a snowball effect and it was very difficult to catch up as the game's difficulty progresses the longer you play it. -Another couple issues that I think a lot of other people mention are the lack of tutorials and numerous bugs, as well as some very vague tool tips and item descriptions but the game is currently receiving frequent patches that are fixing these problems all the time. - One other small complaint I have is that traps are just a non-fun nuisance in their current state, my gladiator always seems to gravitate towards them and just stand in them, so I have to micro him/her out of them over and over. - My overall complaint right now is that it feels like there is a correct way to win the game and it punishes you for deviating from following the winning format. That doesn't seem very fun in a game that is supposedly giving you lots of options and variety. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [b] TL;DR [/b] (5/25/2020) The core of the game is really solid and has great potential, it is just being dragged down by Quality of Life issues and poor balancing right now. It's about correctly priced at $20. [u] PROS: [/u] - Game has lots of choices(replayability). - Character customization. - Impactful decision making. - Very active devs. [u] CONS: [/u] - Many of the choices are just bad and therefore you don't use them. - If you get behind it tends to snowball you. - Lots of QoL issues like bugs, misleading/vague tool tips, and basically no tutorial. - Traps are an un-fun nuisance - Seems there is a winning format/strategy and if you deviate very far the game punishes you.
• gamedeal user

  Jun 14, 2020

  I'm going to say the bad before the good, but notice I am recommending the game. I played this game in early access. It was awful, to me to the point where I thought I had wasted my money, I should have refunded it. It just had so many issues that nothing about it seemed fun, even though I really wanted a good gladiator game. I don't even know where to start on it. I realize this is how early access works, but I have played plenty of early access games where I could see the potential. I honestly couldn't in this game. I was in my library today, and noticed some patch notes recently, and thought screw it might as well give it one more shot. I have only played for a couple hours, but it's just 100 times better even at first glance. So many fixes that might seem minor to some but to me just make this game playable, and it's fun, it doesn't feel like work. Huge props to the Devs keep up the good work. I'm sure there is still more to do, but this game has good structure to work from at this point.
• gamedeal user

  Jun 22, 2020

  I truly want to enjoy this game. I got 40 hours in and keep looking. Almost everything about this game is outstanding except for the biggest part; the battles. For me this just ruins the game. The AI controls are awful. Apparently some people love them though, which baffles me, because you can't truly control your gladiators well in 3 or 4 gladiator combats. It just dissolves into a fast pace luck fest. This is why some people are indicating that a turn based OPTION should be available. I say option because apparently some love this fast paced luck fest where you have minimal control of your gladiators. I am sure people will torch me for my input, but thats life these days. Until a turn based option is provided, I am done playing this game.