Recent reviews by stmack

Not recommending simply because it's been tagged as an Action RPG, Strategy RPG and CRPG and it is none of those things.

Can't believe this has just been sitting in my steam library for 4 years untouched. What a gem! Doesn't look like much but its an absolute joy to play.

very satisfying ARPG that has you feeling strong from the get go and allows you to respec your builds as you go without too much of a penalty. The skill trees for each individual skill are very cool and powerful, allowing for tons of combinations. Powerful unique items drop fairly frequently, even while levelling, allowing you to feel powerful and try out different builds way before the end game

Warning: Had performance and crashing issues until I switched to the in game setting of rendering with Direct X11.

Otherwise, loving the game, big throwback to early BioWare stuff like Mass Effect and Dragon Age, albeit with a less open world. That said the combat is very satisfying and has that puzzly feel especially as you unlock more cards and abilities.

Great tactical rpg with a lot of depth to character builds and synergies.

Great strategy RPG that harkens back to the likes of Ogre Battle and Fire Emblem.

A lot of reviews claim this is too much like Hearthstone, I'd like to list some many differences since I wholeheartedly disagree with that statement:

* Turn Structure: In Hearthstone you play all your cards, take all your actions and then end your turn. In LotR for every action you take, or card you play, Sauron gets to take an action.
* Resources: In Hearthstone you start with 1 mana and it ramps, no mana carries over. In LotR you get 3 resources a turn and you carry any unused over to the next turn.
* Willpower: In LotR there's a completely unique stat on Characters that allows you to complete quests, defeat hazards, or use Fate effects.
* Varying Objectives: many quests give you more than one way to successfully complete an objective
* Traveling: During a quest when you complete an objective you travel to the next one, which causes the enemies board state to shift completely while you carry over what you had.
* Branching quests: Many quests give you options when traveling that go to completely different objectives and board states, adding options and replayability depending on your deck or state.
* Fate Events: Fate, mentioned previously, is like another resource that gives access to effects unique to each quest, this could be gaining a unique Ally, one shotting an enemy, changing the objective, etc.
* Threat: Threat is basically a race condition and there's lots of ways it can be manipulated by you or Sauron. It also causes Threat Events which benefit Sauron at certain thresholds.
* Heroes: There are many (or at least will be) Hero combinations you can base your deck off of which also effect which cards you can add to your deck. There's lots of variety in stats and powers of these Heroes.
* Spheres: As mentioned, Heroes each have a sphere, and you need a hero of a cards sphere to add it to your deck, this makes it important to not only choose what hero you like but what sphere they are so you can include certain cards as well.
* Co-op: Not implemented yet but the game will have offline and online co-op so you can play with friends.

Lots of other stuff but this is what comes to mind immediately. So I ask, aside from oval shapes and cards, how is this Hearthstone?

(Comments are on for this review so let me know why you think it is like Hearthstone)

Fun little turn-based tactical game with a decent sized campaign.

Great game, play Ironman mode for the full experience, feel anguish at your losses and triumph when you finally persevere.

Great game, its hard but the gameplay is solid once you figure out the mechanics. Story is well done too