The sequel to the wonderfully evil Overlord, this game is largely more of the same, with some fun new stuff tacked on. I beat the original Overlord aaaages ago (albeit not the expansion), and had a blast with it, but the thing that got me into the series was watching an LP of 2. Thus, I waited and waited until I largely forgot the details of 2, and now I finally got to playing through it myself.
You are the Overlord! The old Overlord (the anti-hero of the first game) went missing some time ago, and the land has gained peace and prosperity under the rule of The Empire (who are basically just the Romans in all but name and ruler). It's up to the Overlord to restore the balance of chaos and order to the land, with the help of your trusty army of Minions!
Gameplay-wise, it's very similar to the first game. It's basically evil-Pikmin, where you play as the Overlord, commanding your army of Minions to help you dominate the land. Just like in Pikmin, you have several types of minions who specialize in different types of jobs (and can resist different elements). However, unlike in Pikmin, there is a much larger emphasis on combat, micromanaging a smaller military force (15 to 50-ish), and how each different minion type contributes to combat.
-First you have Browns, who are your tanky/basher minions. They're your front line troops.
-Second you have Reds, who have a ranged fire attack. They're more like archers, and are best put near the back like archers.
-Third are Greens, who are your rogues with a very powerful backstab ability. They can be very effective if used well, but it's often difficult to use them without getting them squashed. I mostly never used them, as the Overlord himself is such a competent unit, just wailing away with his melee is just as good (usually) a use of your time as micromanaging Greens behind enemy lines to get good backstabs.
-Last you have Blues, who are your healers. They can bring dead minions back to life! They're best put between your Browns and Reds, or on top of the Reds.
Approaching each encounter smartly and with the right unit composition can be the difference between victory, or getting your entire army wiped. Especially as your Minions are each individually special, and will acquire better equipment (which they pick up from killed enemies or smashed crates) and more levels the more they fight, so there's an incentive to keep them alive. However, you don't really HAVE to, it'll likely just give you an easier time.
There aren't as many diverse or memorable bosses as the first game, but the overall combat and encounters are still quite tough. The organized battalions of Empire troops can be really tough to get through at times, especially once you start encountering the elite troops. The main addition to this game are the mounts you can get for your minions, as well as spells that your Overlord can cast (I don't recall the first game having those, or if it did, it didn't have these ones). The mounts vary up combat a little by making your minions get slightly tougher or a new ability, but they're so pick-and-choose when the game decides to give them to you that it doesn't change the game that drastically. The spells though, especially the Dark Presence Spell, which allows you to make civilians your loyal slaves OR you can use it to just inflict damage on enemies, really vary up combat, and the mana you have really gives you a new resource that can be the deciding factor in a lot of harder combat (especially the shockwave. Dat be so good).
You find a bunch of gold and a couple other resources on your travels. These can be used to purchase upgrades to your minions' base stats, or can also be combined with Minions souls in your forge to make new weapons and armor for your Overlord. These are pretty cool (and those Minion buffs make a HUGE difference pretty damn quick in how long they stay alive and how much damage they do), but I just wish it gave you actual numerical stats on how good weapons and armor were. There are enough weapons that just give basically no description on how they're actually better, that you sorta just gotta assume that because you unlocked it later and/or it costs so much more of X-resources that it must be better somehow.
The story is largely very silly, with your right-hand Minion Gnarl always keeping you informed of your objectives through his silly commentary magically transmitted to your helmet. You recapture the minion clans, take mistrisses, and conquer towns, all in the name of evil (and yourself, of course). A lot of dry, fairly dark humor. It's not for everyone, but there were a good handfull lines that really gave me a good belly-laugh.
The game has fairly good music as well. I really like the final combat music, as well as the main intro. Very sweeping, and delightfully evil orchestra scores. The framerate leaves a LOT to be desired though (I have also tested it, and it runs just as bad on 360). If you're fighting a ton of enemies at once, or more likely if you're breaking a ton of stuff all at the same time, the framerate starts hopping all over the place. This is a very noticeable problem in cutscenes, as it seems not one in the whole game is free from it, making any lip-syncing of the voices that might be there virtually undetectable. However, I will say that the framerate virtually never impacted my ability to actually play the game.
Verdict: Recommended. It's a fun, silly strategy action game. Not quite as good as the first in many respects, but not bad by any respect. If you want more controller-centric RTS action and you're all Pikmin'd out, then Overlord is a great thing to give you more minions to command and objectives to achieve! FOR THE OVERLORD!
(Just a little sad to see in the credits this game came out in 2009! It's been almost 10 years since we got a proper Overlord game ;w; )
You are the Overlord! The old Overlord (the anti-hero of the first game) went missing some time ago, and the land has gained peace and prosperity under the rule of The Empire (who are basically just the Romans in all but name and ruler). It's up to the Overlord to restore the balance of chaos and order to the land, with the help of your trusty army of Minions!
Gameplay-wise, it's very similar to the first game. It's basically evil-Pikmin, where you play as the Overlord, commanding your army of Minions to help you dominate the land. Just like in Pikmin, you have several types of minions who specialize in different types of jobs (and can resist different elements). However, unlike in Pikmin, there is a much larger emphasis on combat, micromanaging a smaller military force (15 to 50-ish), and how each different minion type contributes to combat.
-First you have Browns, who are your tanky/basher minions. They're your front line troops.
-Second you have Reds, who have a ranged fire attack. They're more like archers, and are best put near the back like archers.
-Third are Greens, who are your rogues with a very powerful backstab ability. They can be very effective if used well, but it's often difficult to use them without getting them squashed. I mostly never used them, as the Overlord himself is such a competent unit, just wailing away with his melee is just as good (usually) a use of your time as micromanaging Greens behind enemy lines to get good backstabs.
-Last you have Blues, who are your healers. They can bring dead minions back to life! They're best put between your Browns and Reds, or on top of the Reds.
Approaching each encounter smartly and with the right unit composition can be the difference between victory, or getting your entire army wiped. Especially as your Minions are each individually special, and will acquire better equipment (which they pick up from killed enemies or smashed crates) and more levels the more they fight, so there's an incentive to keep them alive. However, you don't really HAVE to, it'll likely just give you an easier time.
There aren't as many diverse or memorable bosses as the first game, but the overall combat and encounters are still quite tough. The organized battalions of Empire troops can be really tough to get through at times, especially once you start encountering the elite troops. The main addition to this game are the mounts you can get for your minions, as well as spells that your Overlord can cast (I don't recall the first game having those, or if it did, it didn't have these ones). The mounts vary up combat a little by making your minions get slightly tougher or a new ability, but they're so pick-and-choose when the game decides to give them to you that it doesn't change the game that drastically. The spells though, especially the Dark Presence Spell, which allows you to make civilians your loyal slaves OR you can use it to just inflict damage on enemies, really vary up combat, and the mana you have really gives you a new resource that can be the deciding factor in a lot of harder combat (especially the shockwave. Dat be so good).
You find a bunch of gold and a couple other resources on your travels. These can be used to purchase upgrades to your minions' base stats, or can also be combined with Minions souls in your forge to make new weapons and armor for your Overlord. These are pretty cool (and those Minion buffs make a HUGE difference pretty damn quick in how long they stay alive and how much damage they do), but I just wish it gave you actual numerical stats on how good weapons and armor were. There are enough weapons that just give basically no description on how they're actually better, that you sorta just gotta assume that because you unlocked it later and/or it costs so much more of X-resources that it must be better somehow.
The story is largely very silly, with your right-hand Minion Gnarl always keeping you informed of your objectives through his silly commentary magically transmitted to your helmet. You recapture the minion clans, take mistrisses, and conquer towns, all in the name of evil (and yourself, of course). A lot of dry, fairly dark humor. It's not for everyone, but there were a good handfull lines that really gave me a good belly-laugh.
The game has fairly good music as well. I really like the final combat music, as well as the main intro. Very sweeping, and delightfully evil orchestra scores. The framerate leaves a LOT to be desired though (I have also tested it, and it runs just as bad on 360). If you're fighting a ton of enemies at once, or more likely if you're breaking a ton of stuff all at the same time, the framerate starts hopping all over the place. This is a very noticeable problem in cutscenes, as it seems not one in the whole game is free from it, making any lip-syncing of the voices that might be there virtually undetectable. However, I will say that the framerate virtually never impacted my ability to actually play the game.
Verdict: Recommended. It's a fun, silly strategy action game. Not quite as good as the first in many respects, but not bad by any respect. If you want more controller-centric RTS action and you're all Pikmin'd out, then Overlord is a great thing to give you more minions to command and objectives to achieve! FOR THE OVERLORD!
(Just a little sad to see in the credits this game came out in 2009! It's been almost 10 years since we got a proper Overlord game ;w; )