Middle-earth Shadow of Mordor has a poor story, a cliche unlikable lead, poor use of source material, a poor ending, and combat and stealth that are inferior to the Batman Arkham series and locations and climbing inferior to the Assassins Creed series, both of which the game seems to have been built around, however, the nemesis systems helps to improve the game greatly by giving you entertaining enemies that act against you and each other.
The nemesis system creates 20 captains and five war chiefs in both locations of the game for you to fight against. Each one will have a different name, title, strengths, fears, weaknesses, and their own power level based on their starting power and things that they do or that happen to them. Their strengths, weaknesses, and power can increase or decrease depending on if you are killed by them or they fight you and live, if they complete or fail events they start or are involved in, or if you wound them and they return later with scars from the old battle. These characters can be killed by both you and one another and are soon replaced, getting killed by an unnamed soldier can see that character promoted to a captain. Each character might have a different fighting style, be immune or weak to certain damage types, have a group of followers, etc. You gain the ability to dominate and make your enemies fight for you (3/4+ of the way through the main story), you can then order them to go on missions against your other enemies.
Runes can be added to your three weapons to give you bonuses that fit your style, they are obtained by killing captains and war chiefs and you can get better ones based on how strong the enemy you defeated was and if you exploited a weakness or not. You can gain an ability to force enemy soldiers and Captains to issue death threats on other Captains or Warchiefs which increases their power level, gives them guards, but makes it more likely for them to drop rare and powerful runes. There are 10 missions to complete for your sword, dagger, and bow with every five changing the look of your weapon and adding engravings on it, I assume this made them do more damage (I couldn't tell, no idea how it would effect the knife which is just for stealth kills).
I would love to see a game make use of the nemesis system in the future and I'd want to see some kind of system for allies, to have unique people fighting on both sides, possible with you leading a force. Fighting varied and entertaining opponents as one boring guy who keeps coming back from the dead kind of hurts the system, and seems like an odd choice when it could have been him leading the group of rangers he started with or the other two groups of people (one in each area) fighting the orcs. Talion even mentions that his son, who was killed at the start of the game, was about to become a ranger. Having your son as one of your Captains that could live or die based on your actions could have been interesting.
Combat and climbing don't feel as fluid as they do in Batman or Assassins Creed, I would frequently hit the wrong enemy or jump to the wrong location, and you don't have as many options as you would have in those games, though you do still get some fun abilities. While the core gameplay has been done better, the game is still enjoyable and the nemesis system helps to make the game an easy recommendation. The GOTY edition includes some nice additions such as additional game modes and a new character to play as, new enemy types, and it allows you to start the game with some very powerful runes for your weapons if you choose to use them (I didn't). Playing as Celebrimbor gives you some different abilities during his campaign but your combat animations are the same.
The nemesis system does make me kind of wish I was worse at video games, as I never really bothered to remember any of my enemies because I killed them all so easily (unless I was screwed over by the poor targeting system, that I became convinced tries to make you hit your allies instead of enemies). I never got those stories others had where they had multiple encounters with one person where they got killed, fled, where they made him flee, or where they "killed" him and he came back wounded later. Also, part of the reason why I would have preferred actual allies working with you that could live or die. During the second to last level the orc that was supposed to have given you the most trouble shows up leading a force against your controlled groups. For some that would have been cool, for me it had me thinking, "Oh yeah, you're that guy who killed me once when my character froze and refused to move or attack, and then I came back and killed you easily (I didn't decapitate him so he survived his "death" and now had a metal plate in his head)."
Main missions are very strangely organized with many of them serving as tutorial missions or giving you access to new abilities. You have five tiers of upgrades and by the time I gained one of story abilities in the third tier I had already started to unlock abilities in the fifth, and I could have done other main missions instead of that one. More than halfway through the game you are given a tutorial on how to ride a mount even though you were likely doing that early on in the first area of the game. Once I moved to the second area of the game there was also no reason to return to the first as I had done everything I wanted to there, even with another orc army still in the original area was no story reason to go back.
Having to constantly get information on new captain names, strengths, and weaknesses is tedious and pointless since you should be able to get information from the orcs already under your control, no idea why they make you waste your time with the longer animation once you are able to control them.
I'm not sure if the game is bad commentary or if the writers just weren't thinking with the things Talion does and says or complains about.
Talion: He hides in darkness
...So do you
Talion: Climbing like
...You
Talion: Enslaving people, this is awful
...You have an enslaved army
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVmW8DXBlik
The nemesis system creates 20 captains and five war chiefs in both locations of the game for you to fight against. Each one will have a different name, title, strengths, fears, weaknesses, and their own power level based on their starting power and things that they do or that happen to them. Their strengths, weaknesses, and power can increase or decrease depending on if you are killed by them or they fight you and live, if they complete or fail events they start or are involved in, or if you wound them and they return later with scars from the old battle. These characters can be killed by both you and one another and are soon replaced, getting killed by an unnamed soldier can see that character promoted to a captain. Each character might have a different fighting style, be immune or weak to certain damage types, have a group of followers, etc. You gain the ability to dominate and make your enemies fight for you (3/4+ of the way through the main story), you can then order them to go on missions against your other enemies.
Runes can be added to your three weapons to give you bonuses that fit your style, they are obtained by killing captains and war chiefs and you can get better ones based on how strong the enemy you defeated was and if you exploited a weakness or not. You can gain an ability to force enemy soldiers and Captains to issue death threats on other Captains or Warchiefs which increases their power level, gives them guards, but makes it more likely for them to drop rare and powerful runes. There are 10 missions to complete for your sword, dagger, and bow with every five changing the look of your weapon and adding engravings on it, I assume this made them do more damage (I couldn't tell, no idea how it would effect the knife which is just for stealth kills).
I would love to see a game make use of the nemesis system in the future and I'd want to see some kind of system for allies, to have unique people fighting on both sides, possible with you leading a force. Fighting varied and entertaining opponents as one boring guy who keeps coming back from the dead kind of hurts the system, and seems like an odd choice when it could have been him leading the group of rangers he started with or the other two groups of people (one in each area) fighting the orcs. Talion even mentions that his son, who was killed at the start of the game, was about to become a ranger. Having your son as one of your Captains that could live or die based on your actions could have been interesting.
Combat and climbing don't feel as fluid as they do in Batman or Assassins Creed, I would frequently hit the wrong enemy or jump to the wrong location, and you don't have as many options as you would have in those games, though you do still get some fun abilities. While the core gameplay has been done better, the game is still enjoyable and the nemesis system helps to make the game an easy recommendation. The GOTY edition includes some nice additions such as additional game modes and a new character to play as, new enemy types, and it allows you to start the game with some very powerful runes for your weapons if you choose to use them (I didn't). Playing as Celebrimbor gives you some different abilities during his campaign but your combat animations are the same.
The nemesis system does make me kind of wish I was worse at video games, as I never really bothered to remember any of my enemies because I killed them all so easily (unless I was screwed over by the poor targeting system, that I became convinced tries to make you hit your allies instead of enemies). I never got those stories others had where they had multiple encounters with one person where they got killed, fled, where they made him flee, or where they "killed" him and he came back wounded later. Also, part of the reason why I would have preferred actual allies working with you that could live or die. During the second to last level the orc that was supposed to have given you the most trouble shows up leading a force against your controlled groups. For some that would have been cool, for me it had me thinking, "Oh yeah, you're that guy who killed me once when my character froze and refused to move or attack, and then I came back and killed you easily (I didn't decapitate him so he survived his "death" and now had a metal plate in his head)."
Main missions are very strangely organized with many of them serving as tutorial missions or giving you access to new abilities. You have five tiers of upgrades and by the time I gained one of story abilities in the third tier I had already started to unlock abilities in the fifth, and I could have done other main missions instead of that one. More than halfway through the game you are given a tutorial on how to ride a mount even though you were likely doing that early on in the first area of the game. Once I moved to the second area of the game there was also no reason to return to the first as I had done everything I wanted to there, even with another orc army still in the original area was no story reason to go back.
Having to constantly get information on new captain names, strengths, and weaknesses is tedious and pointless since you should be able to get information from the orcs already under your control, no idea why they make you waste your time with the longer animation once you are able to control them.
I'm not sure if the game is bad commentary or if the writers just weren't thinking with the things Talion does and says or complains about.
Talion: He hides in darkness
...So do you
Talion: Climbing like
...You
Talion: Enslaving people, this is awful
...You have an enslaved army
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVmW8DXBlik