Anvil Saga Reviews

pika demais mlk, uffffffffffffff

Borring

Its just frustration

Anvil Saga is not a perfect game, and although I have quite a few issues with it, ultimately I believe (hesitantly) it is a game worth the play through if you want a cozy game about running your own smithy with light local politics. What I enjoyed: Overall, I thought the story was enjoyable. It was fun to see the tug of war of the rival factions as they vied for control over the Province. I enjoyed the angle of having this rival who has the same love as you but also acts as a "boss" at the end of every act or chapter that you have to face off against. I felt that the Fair that occurred at the end of the Chapter really pushes you to focus on what roles you want your apprentices to fill, what equipment to use, what books to read, etc. You feel like you really need to adequately prepare for each competition even if you are going in semi-blind between the 3. I also enjoyed the diverging paths in the story where depending on where your current relationship with each faction in-game really pushed the narrative of the story, and the scenery in your village would reflect that as well. It felt like I was leaving some impact on the world to a degree. I also thought the hire system was kinda fun as well as the cameos that occurred throughout the story. Finally, I thought the game play loop was satisfactory. It was fun and kept me entertained for my 18 hour play through (might be quicker on easier difficulties). Neutral Thought(s): Mostly, I thought the game was just a tad too easy. I played it on the hardest difficulty possible, and although it had a learning curve in the beginning with all of the different factions and how they worked when they stood in queue for your shop, once you understood this it was fairly easy to pick up. Once you picked up the game play loop and what needed to be done to your shop, it was just a matter of doing it all. Managing the relationships with the different factions was also fairly simple, and overall once you got in the "groove" of things, the game wasn't very difficult. That said, I know this is a cozier game, and can be picked up by just about anybody, so I'm not going to outright hold that against Anvil Saga, but I felt it was at the very least worth mentioning. What I didn't care for: I hope I don't contradict myself too hard. I really did enjoy the game or else I wouldn't have completed it, and even though I liked a particular aspect of the game throughout it's majority, I felt by act three that even it's best qualities were getting old. So, by that, I mean the game overstayed it's welcome a bit (for me at least). By act/chapter 3, I essentially had my forge fully upgraded, and my house expanded completely. Every room was fully upgraded, everyone had the best equipment for their role, I had a full staff of apprentices, I was at 100% or near 100% with nearly every single faction, and I also had my father's house fixed with someone in it (the guy who gets logs, I cannot remember his job atm and I'm too lazy to google it). With that well oiled of a machine, the game play loop got stale pretty fast, and it was already nearing that by the end of the second act. I know that the game does have story and environmental elements that help keep things fresh, but I found myself not really affected too harshly at that point in the game by negative environmental/societal forces. I also felt that aspects of the game were also forgettable at that point (see comment about "log man" above). When you've gotten along with the bandits or the witches for so long that you haven't paid your employees or taxes properly for a good 2/3 of the game, it made choosing who lived in your parent's old house significantly easier, and even then, once I chose the job of the person who lived there, I kinda forgot about that particular aspect as well. I said earlier that I liked the hire/fire element to the game, but I never really used the firing aspect. Everyone I hired I kept on. Why? Because they've been doing their job for days, why would I fire them -- especially when they essentially work for free due to the witches/bandits -- when the skill they have now is higher than anyone else on the perspective job market? It really didn't seem necessary to me at least. On the topic of paying employees, I kinda wonder what the point of payment is at all? Like, why do we pay them? Of course, it's because they are learning from us as the smith and we need to be provided a wage or else they will get upset and leave, but like there isn't much more to the game play than just "pay them or they will leave". It's not like the employees themselves used the wage I paid them for anything. They live, work, and eat under the same roof and never leave the shop unless I send them on a quest with one of the cameo characters. They really don't do anything with the money outside of affecting their overall mood and work ethic (I guess that answers the question I just posed, but hear me out). I think, personally, that it would have been a much more fun mechanic to have them work on "shifts". Maybe they still stay at the house, etc, but additionally, they might go out in the village to spend their paycheck and have a percentage chance of something happening to them: - it can be a good thing such as a new business venture or cameo character - it can be a bad thing like they get into a fight at the local tavern and now Arthur/We are faced with a dilemma of either firing our apprentice and saving face with the faction that they got into an altercation with at the expense of potentially upsetting other apprentices, or defending our apprentice at the cost of paying a fine and/or losing reputation points with upset/offended faction I think something like what I have above at least gives a more interesting way to interact with the village whilst also giving another in-game reason to why we pay the apprentices versus what is currently implemented in the game. I feel like the game play loop does feel mobile game-esque in regard to some other comments made in other reviews here, and although that didn't bother me too much; it did hurt the game in the third act when the game play loop was getting old. Finally, the bugs. I know every bad review talks about the bugs in this game, and although I didn't encounter too many through out my first run, the ones I did encounter were fairly annoying and did bump the difficulty spike briefly; whether it be me assisting a customer of a faction that didn't like me just to not get any points added despite me seeing the +1 or +2 above their head, or me completing an order correctly in a fair competition to still lose points. Regardless, instances like those were fairly frustrating but they were rare compared to other folks' reviews. TL;DR Anvil Saga does have some issues and is far from a perfect game; however, if you enjoy cozy games, you don't mind putting up with some quirks, or you think being a black smith sounds fun, then Anvil Saga is a game that you will have a good time with! I do recommend buying this on sale (unless you got some cash burning a hole in your pocket) as I believe $20 is a bit too steep of a price for the content, imo.

I love the game but please be aware that at the time of this review, the game developers have essentially moved to just bug fixes and no new content. I'm not sure if it'll change back at some point. If you'd like to play a management sim based around blacksmithing then this is a really good game for it, but don't expect there to be more that what's in the game at the moment.