The follow-up to Shadow of Mordor, Shadow of War is something I thoroughly enjoyed as much as the first one, thankfully. While Shadow of War is much more polished than the first game and improves on it some ways, it also is much too flawed to be a significant improvement.
Shadow of War's story is good at best, fine at worst. Shadow of Mordor's short mission style is still a thing in this game, but now it is fragmented across several different characters in a GTA-like mission structure. Each character has their own set of main story quests that can be completed. Shadow of War seems more open-ended and you can go about much of the meat of the game in any order you'd like. The writing of this story has a bittersweet and awesome payoff but as a complete package, the mission structure does make it a slight downgrade from Shadow of Mordor overall, but only very slightly.
If you enjoyed Shadow of Mordor's gameplay you'll like Shadow of War's as well. The Skill system is a bit more interesting and allows you to pick and choose, shaping your build for Talion to however you wish. I wasn't a fan of the hardcore shift to the tired loot system that so many AAA action games love to do for no explicit reason (looking at you God of War), but that doesn't mean it's a bad thing. What I do miss is inserting Runes into your weapons and armor, as opposed to just having a single Gem with a stat boost in this game. It removes depth from a system that was a little more interesting, in my opinion.
I think the major flaw holding this game back is enemy design. With the way Orcs roll their passive effects and immunities, it makes every boss encounter feel really unique and interesting! Most of the time. There are times, mostly towards the end of the game, where you're just kinda at a loss of how to beat a really spongy enemy if you don't have intel. I mean, what am I supposed to do against an enemy that's immune to executions and ranged attacks who is holding a shield and also immune to vaulting? A lot of later game enemy encounters are just exhausting to deal with, especially when Talion is surrounded. It makes the Shadow Wars epilogue in particular pretty difficult.
It is most noticeable when fighting Overlords. In the boss room, Talion is vastly outnumbered while fighting a pretty strong boss. Since the minions constantly respawn in this enclosed space, the boss is really difficult to deal with on the fly. And it's where another issue with the combat shows itself - there's no reliable way to heal. I mean, jeez, even Dark Souls isn't afraid to give you a way to heal yourself mid-combat. Draining enemies is fine, but since you can get interrupted while draining or have to expend a finisher to do so, Talion doesn't have a reliable healing method. This makes many of the more difficult encounters very grueling to handle, especially when there isn't anyone to drain. I summoned allies in some of these just to drain them because I didn't have anyone to drain! I know you can put lifesteal on Talion's weapon - but this goes to my problem with the change away from runes for gems instead. Having only 1 gem per weapon means I'd have to sacrifice damage on my sword for lifesteal. Which isn't reliable in itself either.
These though, are very nitipicky. Shadow of War excels at doing the Ubisoft formula better than Ubisoft by making its open-world not feel exhausting to delve into. I managed to grab all the collectables and didn't feel like I wasted too much time doing it. I was actually surprised I had finished them when the game said I did. And no, I don't care that it messes with the canon of Middle-Earth. Who cares? We still enjoy Star Wars games that are no longer canon, don't we, like KOTOR or The Force Unleashed? So why can't Shadow of Mordor/War do the same?
I came away from Shadow of War feeling satisfied as much as I did with Shadow of Mordor. A "wow that was awesome" but nothing really blew me away. It was more polished Shadow of Mordor, and that's cool, but it makes only marginally better as a sequel, and the new war mechanics aren't in-depth or interesting enough to really make it a significant upgrade. Nonetheless, Shadow of War is a hugely underrated game.
Score: 90
Shadow of War's story is good at best, fine at worst. Shadow of Mordor's short mission style is still a thing in this game, but now it is fragmented across several different characters in a GTA-like mission structure. Each character has their own set of main story quests that can be completed. Shadow of War seems more open-ended and you can go about much of the meat of the game in any order you'd like. The writing of this story has a bittersweet and awesome payoff but as a complete package, the mission structure does make it a slight downgrade from Shadow of Mordor overall, but only very slightly.
If you enjoyed Shadow of Mordor's gameplay you'll like Shadow of War's as well. The Skill system is a bit more interesting and allows you to pick and choose, shaping your build for Talion to however you wish. I wasn't a fan of the hardcore shift to the tired loot system that so many AAA action games love to do for no explicit reason (looking at you God of War), but that doesn't mean it's a bad thing. What I do miss is inserting Runes into your weapons and armor, as opposed to just having a single Gem with a stat boost in this game. It removes depth from a system that was a little more interesting, in my opinion.
I think the major flaw holding this game back is enemy design. With the way Orcs roll their passive effects and immunities, it makes every boss encounter feel really unique and interesting! Most of the time. There are times, mostly towards the end of the game, where you're just kinda at a loss of how to beat a really spongy enemy if you don't have intel. I mean, what am I supposed to do against an enemy that's immune to executions and ranged attacks who is holding a shield and also immune to vaulting? A lot of later game enemy encounters are just exhausting to deal with, especially when Talion is surrounded. It makes the Shadow Wars epilogue in particular pretty difficult.
It is most noticeable when fighting Overlords. In the boss room, Talion is vastly outnumbered while fighting a pretty strong boss. Since the minions constantly respawn in this enclosed space, the boss is really difficult to deal with on the fly. And it's where another issue with the combat shows itself - there's no reliable way to heal. I mean, jeez, even Dark Souls isn't afraid to give you a way to heal yourself mid-combat. Draining enemies is fine, but since you can get interrupted while draining or have to expend a finisher to do so, Talion doesn't have a reliable healing method. This makes many of the more difficult encounters very grueling to handle, especially when there isn't anyone to drain. I summoned allies in some of these just to drain them because I didn't have anyone to drain! I know you can put lifesteal on Talion's weapon - but this goes to my problem with the change away from runes for gems instead. Having only 1 gem per weapon means I'd have to sacrifice damage on my sword for lifesteal. Which isn't reliable in itself either.
These though, are very nitipicky. Shadow of War excels at doing the Ubisoft formula better than Ubisoft by making its open-world not feel exhausting to delve into. I managed to grab all the collectables and didn't feel like I wasted too much time doing it. I was actually surprised I had finished them when the game said I did. And no, I don't care that it messes with the canon of Middle-Earth. Who cares? We still enjoy Star Wars games that are no longer canon, don't we, like KOTOR or The Force Unleashed? So why can't Shadow of Mordor/War do the same?
I came away from Shadow of War feeling satisfied as much as I did with Shadow of Mordor. A "wow that was awesome" but nothing really blew me away. It was more polished Shadow of Mordor, and that's cool, but it makes only marginally better as a sequel, and the new war mechanics aren't in-depth or interesting enough to really make it a significant upgrade. Nonetheless, Shadow of War is a hugely underrated game.
Score: 90