Of Orcs And Men

There's something special about this game, sure the graphics could be considered probably outdated at this point, but the characters, the story, the plot, the choices that you make, they matter and they all lead up to a big finale that you genuinely feel like you are a part of, you affect the lives of the people in this game and you can feel the impact as you play it.

It's certainly not like Styx: MoS or Styx: SoD where you only take control of the goblin, Styx himself, but a control between two characters who grow to be a lot more than just who we are first introduced to as, they grow as people and grow as a character to their world and surroundings that are changing or coming of change, it's an impactful story that I've taken really to heart and ended up loving so much, no less the fact of a rather surprising ending and cutscene.

I cannot express any further how much I hope this game get's it's deserved sequel some day, although thankfully it does appear a 'sort of presequel' is due in the form of Styx: Blades of Greed.

The gameplay style on the other hand is rather unique or more it's something I hadn't really encountered often in many games, aside from the usual switching between characters, there's some paths you can lead either of them down in choices of playstyle of your choice, you get to choose how to play them and however you play them could lead to your victory or your demise, it's a generally tough game yet at the same time it's really hard to put it down even if you encounter moments that are hard to get past and make you frustrated.

Haven't really encountered any bugs or glitched out moments, it's generally bug free with a few exploits and work around for a high ground, literally, especially when you gain the chance to throw Styx at enemies on higher areas.

Overall this will always be the ultimate fantasy game for me, nothing else can top how much I enjoy- no- how much I love the story and characters in this, I can't wait for the day as I play to achieve 100% on it, I'm passionate to get this game finished to the fullest alongside the other Styx games. 10/10

Love Cyanide Studios, make more Of Orcs and Men and continue in the name of Styx! Best goblin ever. I'm glad I bought the games at full price to support the chance for more.

-From an utter loot Goblin.

Well, I paid $1.09 for a game that I enjoyed more than 70% of games I've played in the last decade. Definitely an underrated gem. Story is fantastic, combat is that healthy level of jank, and it's just a well done game. Props

WORTH IT. ANOTHER GREAT GAME. ONLY COST ME 1.09

You can throw a goblin at enemies like a javelin.

Plays fine on Steam Deck if you change mouse and keyboard to gamepad in the in-game settings.

.....

About the game:

It's in real-time with pause. The levels are almost entirely linear, there is some stealth which helps you a lot before battles and is an obvious inspiration for the more recent games in this universe (Styx: Master of Shadows, Shards of Darkness, and soon Blades of Greed). If you've beaten Styx 1 and 2 and are itching for more Styx story and gameplay, this can scratch the itch somewhat. We pñay as two characters; Styx and alsp an Orc.

It's really not my gameplay style but I found a way to mostly enjoy it. If it's on sale and you really want more Styx lore, then yes I recommend it.

If you're not interested, the one thing you should know that is not mentioned in the other games: Rakash is actually a slur from the orc language.

I recommend playing on easy or normal.

The game can be clunky and junky. It has unfair moments. But the game is good, with good characters and a good story. The game cannot fully make up if it wants to be a stealth with RPG elements or an RPG with stealth elements, but the following games became full stealth games and are even better. Thank you for the game.

The characters are funny but the dialogue in this game is definitely not for anyone under the age of 18 (UK) .

It helps to have a good notion of the something like dungeons and dragons/hobbit/warcraft for the humour.
A bonus humour point for the ability to throw the goblin during the fights as a missile attack for the orc.

The game-play, itself, is predominantly a classic hack-n-slash dungeon crawler with a fight lurking around each corner. Some of the fights are fairly severe, even when playing on easy mode.
I still haven't worked out how to kill more than 5 opponents without dying, maybe the skill points aren't set in the correct stats, who knows.

The story line and the selection of possible answers with the npc chats are very reminiscent of the old-style point and click RPGs, which is why most of us probably like it.

A major problem that people might find, is that the graphics and game engines are specifically with nVidia style cards in mind (originally I tried to play this a few years ago when it was first released but discovered my nVidia chipset wasn't latest/greatest enough for the game). Not quite sure why they do that. I also doubt that this will run under linux or a vm directly. Currently running this on an AMD Ryzen 7 with a GeForce RTX3050 and it has no audio or graphics glitches.

Would I rate this as a good game? On whole, I'd say so. Give it maybe 7/10 (mainly because of the monotonous fighting, the story line is really worth your time though).

lit orc

Didn't think I'd like this game as much as I did.

Goodstuffs:
Gameplay is like dragon age, but more focused on two dudes designed with weaknesses and strengths to play off of eachother. Arkail is the beatstick who gets owned by ranged and spearmen, whereas Styx is a glass cannon who can also debuff and fight at range but struggles with shieldmen

The story seems like a pretentious "what if orcs...were black people." at first. but it's carried by the great voice acting of arkail and styx (the other actors are pretty forgettable) and the way their friendship develops from arkail straight up trying to kill styx to him standing up for the goblin when other orcs shit talk him is really endearing.

The real meat of the game is the strategy based RPG combat, it's like turn based combat in real time, no taking turns people just go at it. Even though the combat is simple I found it enjoyable having to manage arkail and styx at the same time, they each have unique mechanics that make them interesting characters:

Arkail will go into tard rage if he deals/takes too much damage, which will give him a nice damage boost but also make him more vulnerable and unable to differentiate friend from foe, meaning he'll fucking rip styx apart if you're not managing his rage well enough.

Styx on the other hand has a stealth mode, which basically adds a sneaking minigame where you can pick off key enemies before a fight, and if you're patient enough you can sometimes have styx solo a room by assassinating everyone one by one. This was apparently one of the most liked features of the game when it came out, so it's not surprising how styx basically stole the show and became the main character in the following games set in this world.

Badstuffs:
There's a lot of dialogue in this game, and apart from arkail and styx the voice acting is pretty bland. For some reason a lot of people speak in a bizarre hyper exaggerated texan accent? You also have the ability to choose different dialogue options, but apart from the scene where you choose your subclass, it's really just for learning lore tidbits, it has no effect on the story. For example here's a scene early on in the first chapter:

Styx is trying to talk his way out of a situation without fighting, but another orc is clowning on arkail. You can choose to have styx take the lead and defuse the situation, or have arkail attack the orc. But it doesn't matter what dialogue option you choose because you'll have to fight them either way. The dialogue options are more for flavour than gameplay. There's even a scene towards the end where you can choose to kill or spare a guy, and if you choose to spare him arkail just gets mind controlled into killing him anyway which is fucking hilarious.

About halfway through the game, the pacing becomes lightning quick for some reason. You get introduced to a new hub in the mage monastery, and immediately have to escape onto the next chapter before you can even explore or check out the side quests. The dev team 100% started running out of budget after the 2nd chapter because everything becomes super rushed.

Overall:
7/10 The core gameplay is fun, and the story is hard carried by arkail and styx's voice actors. I probably won't replay this game but for the price I got it on sale I'm pretty satisfied.

>tfw psychic grape

Pros:
- The game is fun and entertaining.
- The proposal of being able to switch characters is well received.
- Lore, I first bought and played some minutes of Styx: Master of Shadows but then bought this one so I can get to know the story from the beginning.

Cons:
- The fights are a bit boring and slow.
- Too many cut scenes, developers could have created small maps to explorer oneself instead of limit the game experience with cut scenes, an area of opportunity to add collectables.
- There is this bug that all of the in-game menus and icons are shown with some kind of QR code in yellow which doesn't let me read properly what is written in them and I noticed it is also present in the game Bound by Flame whose developer is Spiders so I'm not buying any other game from this developer, plus, the voice acting of both game's main character is the same

It might be a good game otherwise but it has some frustrating gameplay so I can't really recommend this because of that.

Of orcs and men is following the steps of styx ''or beloved goblin assasin'' and Arkail on a mission to help all the greenskins. Its a really nice quest line i really enjoyed and the game is really difficult.
If you have a brain issue and start the game on extreme as i did be prepared for death and furstration. It takes some time and learning how to kite to defeat enemies but after a point it becomes easier. Dont expect much its pretty straight forward move there kill these move here kill them also - boss time next chapter but it really worth a run.

8/10

Rakash

They don’t jank em like this anymore

Overall, it is not a masterpiece, but still a solid game.

Combat reminds of Dragon Age, you assign a queue of actions and can use active pause. I don't hate this system, but never really liked it. It is just okay.

The story is okay too. You even have some choices, but can't really change anything in the story. There will be some spoilers ahead, you can stop reading if you want. The last couple of chapters felt too rushed. In the first three chapters you have your camp from which you can upgrade your gear, go on side missions for extra gear, fight your camp buddies in the friendly duels, chat with them, or skip everything, your choice. It felt a bit like an RPG. But then you get nothing of the above. They give you access to the upgrade gear screen at the start of the chapter and then you are on the murdering spree untill the end of chapter, no side missions or dialogue. And this is a shame, because in chapter 4 we meet the Sisters of Laments, basically sexy Shaolin nuns, who lived on the secluded island, learned martial arts, trained dogs and didn't hurt anyone. And the player is forced to butcher them and their dogs. You can't sneak past them or reason with them, they don't have any dialogue. I actually tried to skip the fights with them and managed to pass the first two groups, but after that if you try to sneak, you reach an invisible wall and your character says that he cant go any further untill he murders everyone. These girls are just a pretty filler to make the game a bit longer. And the choice to kill or not to kill the emperor is just a joke. I reloaded and played both variants, and if you choose not to kill, your character says "It is too easy", a couple of inquisitors show up and make it a bit difficult and then you kill the emperor anyway. Overall, the moral of the story is gray. The orcs are claiming they have honor, yet there are too many traitors, and the ones who are not traitors do some really bad atrocities, like the one with the sisters, or the one where you burn down a temple full of inquisitor disciples. And I guess it is not a bad thing, because it is touched me enough to finish the game and write this whole paragraph.

I kinda liked this game due to its setup and vibes but the solo fights before and after the emperor kill in chapter 4 are literally so bad and annoying, that I must leave a negative review after several attempts resulting in a ragequit. The whole game is encouraging the player to build a party of two supporting each other, then the whole concept is turned upside down and the party members are expected to excel individually against enemies with 80% parry/dodge chc and/or stun-locking abilities. AND to be even more of a disappointment, the game autosaves BEFORE the LONGEST damned cutscene in the whole game before the beforementioned latter fight starts.

Interesting two character game system.
Simple combat but fun and satisfying.