Shadow of War released at the end of 2017 and is the sequel to Shadow of Mordor. Seeing as I recently reviewed SoM, I'm just really going to speak about the new features. Most of the good things are back, like the Nemesis system, so there's no point repeating myself.
First off, the story again is quite weak. It's great being in Gondor, but the human allies again are lacking, but they're a big improvement on the last group, you feel more invested with these characters, but it's still weak. It's all about orcs, but I guess there's got to be a human side. As well as the fortress battles, the Nazgul play a big part in the story, and you're often pitted against them. I think the story is slightly stronger, but we need more orc storylines, that's why we play these games!
One of the new additions was difficulty, there was now three difficulties instead of just a standard one in the original. I went for Nemesis, as it was the hardest and would give the best the nemesis system had to offer. It was challenging too!
So there were new orc types called Ologs, they were much larger than regular orcs, and were like mini trolls. They were tough, but could be dazed by arrows to the end, and you can even ride them to bash through other orcs. There's also orc classes now, there's tricksters, tanks, assassins, marksman and many more. Each had their own abilities and you had to think on how to take orcs out instead of just going in swords blazing.
There was plenty of new traits for the orcs too. Iron will meant you could never recruit that orc no matter what, betrayals from already recruited orcs, blood brothers which meant two orcs had a close bond and could even rescue each other as you were about to kill them. You can now only recruit orcs if they are a lower level than you, anyone who is higher has to be shamed, that happens by beating them and choosing to shame them over killing them, lowering their level by five. Orcs can now also adapt to your fighting style, forcing you to constantly change how you fight.
There is equipment for Talion now, outfits, swords, bows and daggers, all have different stats and you can unlock more through chests, and even purchase some orcs to recruit in your army. Because you could buy as many orcs as you wanted, I constantly found orcs with the same names, it really took away from the unique personalities I thought the game had, every time I looked at the army screen, I was noticing too many orcs with the same name and it felt cheap. I found no use for micro transactions as you always found equipment by killing orcs, and there's infinite orcs to recruit. I thought it was just a cheap way for Monolith to make more money. If you purchased equipment at a low level, it would be absolutely useless by the time you've leveled up and have just wasted money. You can get XP boosters, they lasted a certain amount of time, but they were real time, you didn't even need to be on the game and you'd lose time, if you set it. There are also gems they give boosters to your equipment, you can level up gems for better boosters, but I think this whole section was a pointless addition.
The towers were now Sauron Towers, and when you took over one, you could use it to locate collectables. Bonus objectives now give you rewards, so they feel like they're worth doing. Executions were no longer triggered by your combo, you'd have to build up your might to be able to do them, this was a big improvement. You could also daze an opponent by exploiting their weaknesses, that left them completely open, and couldn't defend themselves at all. You could also employ a bodyguard, by choosing one of your recruited orcs and call upon them to help fight with you. Another problem was having to hold down the 'A' button to do so many things, it was so clunky and would always end up doing something different to what I wanted, and got me killed a lot. It was easily the most frustrating thing, and needs to be changed ASAP.
There are lots of new skills and my favourite was the double jump, as you could really cover a lot of distance and it was simple to control. What was rather odd, was having to relearn skills you got in the first game, what, did Talion forget how to do it all? There's plenty of new areas, you can explore Gondor and Cirith Ungol, two complete different areas. There were now Drakes too, very similar to the fell-beasts a new creature for you to fight against and ride once tamed. It's cool flying around.
I loved the new personalities of the orcs, the first guy who killed me was talking about how he killed the "tark", a name orcs often called Talion, he then became known as 'Ashgarn the Tarkslayer', I loved that. I liked how an orc you killed could have cheated death, and they are literally built back from lost pieces. The more you killed an orc, the more messed up and built back from old parts they looked. I did feel so many orcs came back to life too often, but that just might be on nemesis difficulty. If you were knocked down and about to be killed, one of your loyal followers could jump in and save your life, I was blown away by that the first time it happened.
Now on to the big selling point; the fortresses and their overlords. Now this is what The Lord of the Rings was all about! Big epic battles, and that's just what we got. You'd pick your best followers to go with you and attack the fort. You'd have to take over a bunch of checkpoints and fight off enemy orc captains who attempt to stop you. After taking all the points, you enter the fortress and face off against the Overlord. It's never a one on one fight as they always have back up, you have to plan your fight though, by knowing their strengths and weaknesses, you'll do yourself a favour. There's nothing worse than accidentally enraging an Overlord, as they're powerful enough, you don't want to give them a power boost.
After taking over fortresses, you'll have to defend them too. You have to set up your orc captains and pick your overlord. You can also pick your defences too, like spikes to stop people climbing up and reinforced walls. They work the same way as attacking, just that you have to defend the checkpoints this time. Every time they take a checkpoint, a new captain will arrive, so you want to defend as best you can, so you don't get overwhelmed. A huge flaw happened as I was defending a fortress, while I was in the middle of a massive fight, my screen just cut to black, and then said I'd lost the fort. It was ridiculous as I was in the middle of defending a point and got ripped off.
You can recruit captains from forts and get them to infiltrate the fort as a spy, be wary though, as your spies could be instantly killed if discovered or captured and you'd have to attempt to free them. Another disappointment was that I started to randomly lose recruited orcs, I'd go to the army page and just noticed a number of my friendly orcs had just been replaced by enemy ones. They were never killed and even if they were, I was never notified and I lost a lot of orcs I grew accustomed to. Although they're only orcs, you do grow attached to them pretty easily once you've recruited them. You could get a skill to revive orcs that had fell in battle, providing they were still on the army page. There were also war pits, which allowed you to send in friendly orcs in a one on one fight, if they won, their level increased, it's a great way to boost orcs.
I loved Shadow of Mordor, and I love Shadow of War. I think this improves in every way, the story is what needs the most work, but all the little additions really added a lot to this game. Improve the story, involve more orc storylines and get rid of the damn micro transactions, there really is no need for them!
8.9/10
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