rather low replay value

[*****id]

I like the game at its core but after beating the campaign thrice and playing with each hero I feel like there's little more to gain here. The basic structure for replayability is there: the choose-your-own-path approach and the many events with multiple outcomes. What's missing particularly though is enemy and encounter variety. You'll just be fighting the same few types of demonspawn over and over which gets boring quick. And they never have random modifiers or extra skills. Early on you at least get to fight some humans as well, but it changes little in the overall picture.

Even without designing and implementing lots of new enemies there should at least be some variety in goals and win conditions for combat. Right now every single encounter is won by eliminating all enemies. Some varied goals like "survive for X turns" or "make it to the exit point" would have been much appreciated. Or have bonus objectives like "+1 supply for each villager that survives the encounter".

The chapter finales particularly suffer from this lack of variety. In another rogue lite you might encounter different bosses in different arenas at least but here it's the same map with the same starting positions and the familiar enemies for each chapter. There isn't even a real boss until the very end. 😔

Being able to unlock new heroes and spells is neat for meta progression. But overall the additional heroes you unlock don't really change the way you play too much. The only unlock that I couldn't attain is the one that demands a full party of lvl 10 heroes. I don't even know how to get this one, even when always choosing experience and combat best I could to was to reach level 8 by the end. I also wasn't able to unlock the other spell cores which is a bummer because I would have loved to see them. The clues to them seem rather cryptic. I visited many magic nodes and also went to Gethsemane in the final chapter as the description suggests but no unlocks for me.

Endless mode deserves a special mention here. It is so bare bones that I'm baffled it was included at all. Most everything that's appealing about the campaign is completely absent here: the beautiful overworld maps, being able to choose your own path, the writing, the random events, choosing what to spend your money, etc. Above described lack of enemy and tactical variety are compounded here a hundred fold because fighting all you do here. I've played it once and don't even feel like returning to it even once because I've seen it all.

Please don't think that I hate this game, I enjoyed it much for what it is. With extra work on replayability however it could have been like Battle Brothers or Faster than Light, games which you can sink hundreds of hours into if you enjoy them. By contrast I'll now considered Hand of Merlin "finished" and probably never touch it again.