Wizzleteats

Excellent sequel to a great tactical, turn-based fantasy RPG. The story is much tighter in the sequel but the game does suffer a bit due to the lack of a character creator and reduced depth of play due to the decision of the developers to strip out certain features in the name of simplification.

I wish I could play this game as I spent a fair amount of money on it but I simply can't as the developers refuse to fix the key re-binding bugs that's been present in the game since it was released. Its a slap in the face to all of us lefties.

The controls cannot be re-mapped. The game is not playable for left-handers. Customizable keyboard controls used to be the norm. This is just lazy and inept game design.

I bought in very early into the early access release of the game based on the strengths of the studio's previous release, Rise of Flight, and the promise from the developers that the game would strongly focus on the single player aspect. I was very, very disappointed when, very late in the development cycle the single player "campaign" was finally released. I put the term campaign in quotes because there really is no campaign to speak of. The "campaign" is basically a random mission generator that is very repetitive in nature, bug-ridden, and ultimately unfulfilling as there is absolutely no sense of continuity between missions. You choose your starting base, the type of plane you wish to fly, and then a basic mission type (intercept, escort, ground attack, etc) from one of 5 options and the game then generates a semi-random mission. The victory conditions for each mission type are always exactly the same and there's very little variety between them. Flight plans are nearly always the same 4 point diamond pattern (start, 1st waypoint, action point, 3rd waypoint, home). The briefings are generic, repetitive, and lacking important details. They're also full of errors. It often informs you that your target will be at 500 meters when they turn out to be at 5,000m or vice versa. The AI in the missions is broken. Friendly ground attack AI wingmen will not attack targets, no matter how many times you order them to. They'll just circle over the target until they're shot down by AAA, furn out of fuel, or you RTB. Enemy AI fighters almost never engage bombers or ground attack aircraft if escorts are around. Air-to-air AI is a bit better in that the AI will engage the player but the challenge level is low. They're all too easy to shoot down and never seem to present much of a challenge at all. There don't seem to be different skill levels between pilots. They all fly in a uniform and predictable fashion. Even if they do manage to shoot you down, it doesn't really matter as there's no penalty for failing the mission. The reason for this is that you don't actually create a single, online pilot. It's a truly baffling omission. Even the most rudimentary of campaigns in other flight sim titles allow the player to create a virtual pilot and then track their progress throughout the campaign. Even Rise of Flight allowed this. Battle of Stalingrad does not. You don't create a pilot. You don't join a squadron. There are no historic markings, bases, aces, or dynamic battlefields. It doesn't matter if you shoot down 2 enemies of 20, nothing will change on the battlefield. Nor does it matter if every single one of your AI wingmen is shot down. The game doesn't keep track of them. They have no names and there's no penalty for losing them. As the AI kind of **** anyway, there's absolutely no point in caring about what happens to them. They tend to be more of a threat to you than an aid anyway as they will sometimes ram you if you're both chasing the same bad guy. Rather than creating an immersive, historically accurate representation of the battle with player and squadron stats being tracked and updated, the developers came up with a truly idiotic system wherein the player is expected to grind for XP in order to earn unlocks. The system lifted straight out of an MMO or Battlefield-esque FPS and has no place in a flight sim. Your only goal in the game is to earn enough XP to unlock plane modifications such as rockets, bombs, or new plane skins. Earn enough XP and you can unlock the next of 5 chapters in the campaign. These chapters are largely pointless as the battlefield in each chapter is completely static and you're always fighting over the same map with the same weather regardless. The only difference is the position of air bases and front lines. It's all just crushingly dull. What makes it even worse is the fact that the developers have removed choice from the player. For the longest time during the pre-access stages, the players had the ability to select custom difficulty options to tailor the game experience in such a way as to get the most enjoyment out of the sim. For some unknown reason, the developers took the difficulty customization away from the campaign portion of the game and instead force the player to select either "normal" or "expert" difficulty. I prefer to play in full-realism mode with external views turned on but I can no longer do so in the campaign. I have no idea why they refuse to let me. The unlock system carries over into multi-player as well. If you want the planes and unlocks for use in the online portion of the game, you'll have to grind through the single-player portion in order to earn them. The MP community has suffered as a result as players can't join missions if they don't have the unlocks required. It's a huge disappointment because the flight dynamics are great. Shame the game itself is so bad. Avoid it.