Nylige anmeldelser av Hat8

This collection is basically just easy access to the last three Battle Network games. You get all of the games and all of their versions without them being changed all that much. That means no new bugs, but also not really any improvements. There are smoother graphics and quality of life improvements like being able to access Japanese exclusive content in a new separate menu and being able instakill mobs for grinding, but those really are the biggest differences. This is just collection, not a remaster. Here are reviews of the games included:

Battle Network 4 might actually be the worst game in the series. The battles play noticeably slower than previous games, there is a significantly higher encounter rates, and the dungeons are a lot more convoluted and harder to navigate with unexplained mechanics. It definitely feels like an incomplete and padded-out game from all of that alone, but it gets worse. The main story is done through series of randomized tournament arcs, and it is designed in a way where you have to play through the game multiple times just to fight all of the unique bosses. Instead of fighting a unique boss Navi, a tournament will force you into a battle with a generic green or purple Navi after going through a storyline that would otherwise be an optional questline in any other Battle Network game. These generic navis are enemies throughout the entire game, and they get boring fast. Worst of all, the game is badly translated, and the game expects players to be able to read to figure out puzzles. The only good innovation is addition of souls which transform Megaman and give him special abilities from other navis at the cost of certain chips.

Battle Network 5 is actually really good. It corrects course from 4 by having faster battles, less convoluted dungeons, reasonably encounter rates and no tournaments or generic navis as enemies. It also keeps the good from Battle Network 4 like souls and mystery data that can be won in battles if it is not destroyed. However, the biggest change is that it makes other navis playable and adds liberation missions to the game. Liberation missions involve using a team of navis with unique abilities to navigate a turn-based map to reach a boss and they play really well.

Battle Network 6 may actually take Battle Network 3's place as the best game in the entire series. It has extremely fast paced combat with lots of different souls that can be accessed without having to deal with sacrificing chips and a unique beast mode that is wildly overpowered. The online areas and dungeons of the game are easy to navigate but are still interesting puzzles to figure out. It has a really good story that even gives characters from previous games redemption arcs and ties up lose ends. It has genuine surprises and even darker more emotional moments. It did an excellent job at ending Battle Network.

This pack has received an astronomical amount of hate, but it is actually pretty good. Nubia is a really excellent civ, and the Gifts of the Nile scenario is a fun challenge.

Nubia is just excellent. Archers are the most commonly used unit in the game and Nubia gets better archers in the form of the Pítati Archer. The Pítati Archer does more damage, has more movement, and even has more combat strength to defend itself. All of this only for a slightly higher production cost that Nubia does not even have to pay because of its 30% cheaper to produce ranged unit bonus. This alone is enough to make Nubia excellent, but Nubia also gets +1 production and +2 gold to mines over luxuries and bonus resources along with a +50% more combat experience for ranged units. The Nubian Pyramid can be used to make desert tiles actually useful as it makes adjacent districts 40% cheaper to construct and the Pyramid itself collects adjacency bonuses from the districts around it that can add up quickly.

The Gifts of the Nile scenario is really good. It is a race between Nubia and Egypt over who can get 7 Temples of Amun first. The two civs start with a truce with eachother which gives the AI time to buildup a powerful army and ontop of this there are major scripted invasions from Sea Peoples, Assyrians, Persians, Macedonians and Romans. Egypt starts with better land, but has to deal with invasions, while Nubia has terrible land, but is far from the invaders so is well setup to be an invader itself. This all happens along the Nile river which makes for some pretty unique combat and the Temples of Amun can only be made with hard to come buy faith so the scenario is able to run its course through the history of Egypt.

Company of Heroes 3 is a pretty good game, but both of its campaigns have strange aspects that make them slightly annoying to play through.

The Italian campaign has a turn-based campaign map, but it does not function like a Total War game where two armies meeting opens a battle. Instead, the armies on the map auto resolve the battle depending on what type of army corps they are and their experience. This is annoying because one can lose their army without having any way to fight it in a battle. An enemy army can appear out of the fog of war during the enemy turn or multiple planes from halfway across the can bomb the army to oblivion. This is playable, and it is nice that it promotes a very cautious playstyle, but it also leads to moments that feel deeply unfair. The campaign also has bugs that have not been patched since release like a whole set of map objectives getting skipped because an army got shot at by the railgun in Anzio. The bug is especially bad because can easily not be noticed on a first playthrough, and it forces players to rush for objectives that are extremely far away in a very unfun way. The actual missions of campaign are very good and it is neat that the campaign has a bad ending (the historical path) that one can get based on their performance, but overall it is just strange to play through. Especially since Relic decided to attribute all of the mistakes of the Italian campaign to arrogant Americans, when it was actually the British who were known for being headstrong and arrogant and making many of the major mistakes of the campaign (bombing Monte Cassino, not bombing Salerno before the landing, etc).

The Africa Korps campaign is absolutely bizarre despite being a normal Company of Heroes campaign without any campaign map. The Italian campaign was lacking in cutscenes and in-game animations, and this campaign decided to make up for that with a lot of cutscenes featuring a family of Arab Jews that get brutalized by the war and Holocaust. They have absolutely no connection to campaign itself that is only about Rommel destroying the British with clever tricks while outnumbered. The actual missions are great and the the Africa Korp have a really unique playstyle, but it still felt strange to play through.

The core gameplay of the Company of Heroes 3 is still really good. The RTS gameplay is much better with the ability to make actions while paused in singleplayer, and more units with more abilities. Unpopular map features like extreme weather are gone, and the game is arguably much better balanced.

Cyrus the Great and Alexander the Great are probably the best leaders for domination victories. The Alexander's Conquests scenario is pretty self explanatory.

Cyrus has the ability to declare surprise wars without any penalties and gets a +2 movement bonus for 10 turns of those wars. This is really good for an early game rush as the Persian Immortal that replaces the swordsmen is also an archer unit that can protect itself against cavalry. More skilled players going for a domination victory can chain the surprise wars together to keep the bonus permanent, but for most people going for other victories this bonus has limited utility. The other Persian leader Nader Shah from the Leader Pass has more permanent +5 attack bonus and better domestic trade routes that better compliment the Persian Civ's inherent bonuses to domestic trade routes so Cyrus may be the weaker option for Persia.

Alexander's Macedon has no weariness and gets full heals from conquering wonders. Civ 6 has alot of wonders so this is an extremely good ability. Alexander can basically just be permanently at war and conquering everything. However, he does not really have anything to help him actually govern his conquests.

The Conquests of Alexander scenario is basically the same as the one from Civ 5. Conquer Alexander's historical empire within the turn limit that depends on the difficulty setting. It is pretty difficult.

A map pack with a bunch of continents that have randomized tiles for better replayability. They are fine maps and worthwhile as part of the Complete Bundle, but you may as well just play random maps as playing in a French desert is hardly playing a France map. All you are really getting from this are the outlines of the continents.

You get two new American leaders from this pack. You get Rough Rider Teddy who is more oriented towards military/diplomacy and a replacement for the base game Teddy Roosevelt called Bull Moose Teddy Roosevelt who doubles down on an appeal based playstyle.

The Rough Rider Teddy Roosevelt added by this pack is much better than the base game's Teddy Roosevelt and the new Bull Moose Roosevelt added by the game. Base game Teddy gets +1 appeal for all tiles in a city with national parks and that is it. Bull Moose Teddy gets some culture and science from breathtaking terrain, but that terrain is so rare that this boost is meaningless and the opportunity cost from not developing at the risk of losing that breathtaking appeal is just annoying to deal with. Rough Rider Teddy's envoys count as two when sent to city-states he is trading with and he gets a +5 combat bonus on his continent. This allows him to stack up city state bonuses and defend himself.

The best leader of the American Civilization is still Abraham Lincoln from the Leader Pass, but at least one of these Roosevelts has worthwhile bonuses.

A map pack for a bunch of different real places like the Caribbean, and British Isles with randomized tiles. You can end up with a snowy Caribbean or Jungle UK so it is kind of silly. This pack also includes crazy stuff like being able to make the whole map a desert and a super Pangea mode which removes all oceans.

Map packs for a bunch of real countries that have randomized tiles for better replayability. They are fine maps and worthwhile as part of the Complete Bundle, but you may as well just play random maps as playing in a French desert is hardly playing a France map.

The Viking Scenario is a pretty fun challenge. It is a race between three Nordic Civs for victory points that they get through conquest, pillaging tiles, trade routes and most importantly having the most gold/piety at the end of the final turn. All three of the civs are the same, but have different leader abilities and starting positions that make them all worth playing through. This is mostly a conquest scenario, but the points from other outlets are also a good way to eek out a win. The more powerful empires on the continent do a good job at directing the player to play historically and go for the targets the Norse actually did conquer, settle and raid.

The new city states added are a nice addition - with Antananarivo just being wildly overpowered from giving a 2% culture bonus for every great person ever earned.

The Civilizations added by this pack are excellent and Apocalypse mode is actually fun.

The Maya are probably one of the best tall civs in the game. Cities within 6 tiles of their capital gain +10% to all yields and receive a free builder when founded. They get Cheaper science districts that get adjacency bonuses from farms/plantations and cheaper archers so they also have more production to invest in science.. They are at the mercy of their spawn on the map, but at the very do not have to worry about rivers as they get nothing from being next to rivers. Their farms providing housing makes up for this though. The downside is that they get -15% from cities further than 6 tiles away, but this is a tall or nothing civ so that is fine.

Free generals that heal units on retirement, +1 movement to all units right from the start of the game, cheap light cavalry and promotions that do not end a units turn make it really easy for Gran Columbia to take risks. They can be really aggressive and it is really difficult to fight against them. This is probably one of the best civs to be aggressive with even though they lack stuff to help them actually govern what they conquer.

The Apocalypse mode added by this patch is really fun. It makes all of the disasters in the game much worse and adds more disasters such as forest fires and solar flares. Disasters can be summoned on enemies by a new agent called the soothsayer who gets charges through human sacrifices to volcanos. However, the biggest change is that the late game has meteors crashing to earth destroying a dozen tiles at a time along with the cities on those tiles. It is extremely unfair and luck based, but is a fun challenge.