A review for Warden #36, as per The Grand Review Exchange!
I've previously written a review for Bonechiller Burrow and Solen's Sanctuary when they were lone-standing maps, but I think I'll take the time to write up an updated review of the Warden Campaign now that it has become a campaign with a progressing storyline.
Before continuing, I need to point this out: Warden is not yet finished. I can only comment on the version that I played (Warden #36). As such, there are parts missing or incomplete, and it is likely that Rufus will still be refining and adding things to it. Some of my criticisms as this point will likely not be relevant later.
The fundamental thing that makes Warden special is its control scheme. The style of game requires the player to move the Warden with precision and care, and the control scheme actually allows for that. I never felt that any navigation error was the fault of the controls. It's an innovative and technically impressive achievement.
The control scheme feeds directly into the gameplay, which is completely and refreshingly different from vanilla Warcraft III. Warden's challenges mostly involve puzzles, navigating tricky obstacles, and some fighting. I'll address these three in turn.
The puzzles for the most part are tried-and-true types, like tile sliding puzzles, lever puzzles and the like. They are tough enough to require some time and/or thought, though to be honest I mostly just solved the tougher ones through trial and error (as I'm notoriously bad at these sort of puzzles). In at least one case there's a tougher version of a puzzle after you complete it for the first time - I think this one must be for really dedicated players as I sorely doubt I could complete it - but wisely this is optional. There are some other more original puzzles scattered here and there as well, but none of them are particularly difficult to figure out.
The navigation challenges are some of the most fun, which is a positive reflection on the quality of the control scheme. These challenges include dodging moving projectiles, avoiding patrolling guards, and moving across narrow bridges while winds threaten to push you off the edge. The hitboxes involved in all these challenges seem very accurate and fair, and I felt a lot of effort went into making sure they turned out right.
Combat is perhaps the weakest area for the game. There are really just three techniques usable in combat: attack, dash and stun. There are only so many combinations you can use these in. Unlike the navigation, combat occasionally feels just a little bit off in terms of responsiveness - though the visual feedback is good in indicating if something is getting hit or not, in general it feels a bit less 'immediate' and a bit more clunky than it should. Battles against normal mooks are rarely exciting. Against bosses the battles become more interesting, with some using the combat arena to interesting effect. That said, it's usually just a matter of dodging attacks and studying patterns until the enemy leaves an opening, then going for a few hits and repeating. It's also possible to cheese some of the battles, which I'm not sure is intentional.
The game's regenerating health system - which can be boosted by pickups - is overall ok. It prevents players getting stuck and the amount of health you get is generally fair. The main problem with it is that it is possible to make mistakes but still return to full health at the cost of just sitting around and waiting for the health to come back, which is a very boring but reliable strategy. While not every challenge allows this, many of them do. I avoided exploiting this during my playthrough, but it can be tempting at times. Overall difficulty is reasonable - it is recommended to save regularly, but for the most part there are only a few tough spots (typically boss fights) that require a few tries to get right. That said, the difficulty of the campaign is a bit uneven, with some early parts harder than later ones.
Terrain is excellent overall, though the "Forest Temple" (which is also the last area I was able to test before the game ends) is noticeably weaker than the rest. For the most part however the terrain is imaginative and immersive - I felt "Bonechiller Burrow" was the best of the lot.
The UI is custom and while it's minimalist, it is an excellent choice, creating a much more immersive experience. I do wish it would display the number of available 'dashes' though.
While previous versions did not have a plot, the campaign does now have one to tie the action together. The overall storyline does a good job of framing the action, giving our protagonist a reason to do what she does, and is interesting enough to give the player a reason to want to see it through. It is important to note however that as it is not complete - the game cannot yet be 'finished' and there is no resolution. There are also some pretty rough patches in the plot, with certain things not fitting into chronological order. This will likely be cleaned up in time but it's a problem at the moment.
The writing quality however is uneven. There are some awkwardly written scenes and a number of grammatical errors, and the tone feels a bit inconsistent at times. The tone may be a stylistic choice but the grammar definitely still needs to be worked on.
While I did not run into any major bugs in my playthrough, there are still some niggling errors, largely due to how the Warden maps/campaign have changed over time. The tutorial is not entirely correct (it lists the button for bringing up the Warden's character sheet incorrectly) and it makes reference to pickups that give you more 'lives', when the current campaign map actually no longer includes those (except at one point during Bonechiller Burrow just before the boss fight, which I suspect was missed by accident). Instead a new revive system has replaced it that gives a limited number of lives for each quest, as well as a 'par' to shoot for. I'm not sure how I feel about that system - getting additional 'lives' used to be a cool reward you could get during the individual maps, but now that's gone. In a way it also feels extraneous because you can always reload the game.
There was also a very annoying sidequest in the first area that required searching for hard-to-spot locations/landmarks. While I think the attempt is admirable, it essentially boiled down to a pixel hunt that didn't really require much in the way of thought and mostly just long periods of running around a huge area looking for annoyingly hard-to-spot things. To top it off, the final reward was bugged and would let you get the quest reward as many times as you wanted (thus heavily unbalancing the game if you did so). I believe Rufus may have removed/be reworking this quest at present though.
Overall:
Warden is an excellent work-in-progress and I very strongly recommend it to everyone, since it's so refreshingly different. A ton of polish and effort has gone into the game mechanics and terrain, and it shows. Unfortunately it still has a number of rough edges, which make me think it's more of a high 4/5 or low 5/5. However, seeing how much work continues to go into it, I have little doubt that once it's complete, it'll easily rate a full 5/5 - which is also the rating I'll go for for now