I recently changed the title of this video although I cannot change the title card within the video itself. When SoW launched it was lambasted by critics and I myself didn't love it for plenty of different reasons. This video aims to go into it fresh and see if I was too harsh or if the critics were right. The previous title "Shadow of War: As Bad As We Remember?" seemed to detract from the content of the video as this is a fair analysis of the content of the game, but many people took issue with the title and never engaged with anything I actually discuss about the game, so I decided it was time to change it to be more neutral. Despite this I do feel the original title was very appropriate. Sure, those who loved Shadow of War never thought it was bad, that's valid, but critics and gamers alike at release did take issue with a lot of this game, you can find plenty of articles totally shitting on this game (fairly and unfairly) it wasn't received as fondly as Shadow of Mordor, that is all I was referencing. I wasn't suggesting nobody liked it, I wasn't suggesting it was objectively bad, I was merely referencing the very general and mainstream opinion of this game at launch, which was mainly negative due to the loot boxes and the grind involved. I hope by changing the title, people can engage a bit more with the actual substance of the video, even if you disagree with my ultimate conclusion, I feel I'm pretty fair and I overall had a lot of fun with Shadow of War despite it's shortcomings.
I don't think people were saying that the game itself was bad, people were saying that the publisher's decision to put agregious lootboxes into the game was bad Edit: To anyone who want to use the "Oh but it's optional, you don't have to buy the microtransactions/lootboxes, I played through the game Day 1 with the lootboxes still in the game and I got by just fine" argument with me, please don't. I've had plenty of people replying to me uses the same excuse over and over again and it's getting monotonous. It's a bad argument and I don't want to keep repeating myself explaining why it's bad. There's a reason most people call lootboxes/MTX a cancer to the gaming industry, it starts small and inconsequential but it WILL grow and it will be too late to stop it when it finally grew too big (the fact that there are people here trying to defend it is already proof enough that it has already became somewhat normalized and that should be absolutely terrifying to anyone who love gaming as a medium, it's red flag that many people now has elected to ignore and that is a red flag in and of itself)
@@klemens5509 I know. I bought the game way after they've already removed lootboxes and I was pretty happy with the game that I got. But before I ever bought it, Shadow of War to me was one of those games that has a reputation of being infested with lootboxes alongside battlefront 2. My point is that even after they removed it, the game's reputation is already stained by that awful decision and like wine stains on a white dress, a bad reputation is quite hard to scrub off
Compared to its predecessor this game was a cynical, repetitive, grindy cash grab with a predatory micro transactions model. If you didn't play that one, then sure, this was probably a fine game.
Im honestly kinda confused by "As Bad As We Remember", I personally think SoW was a direct upgrade from SoM except for the microtransactions at launch. Other than that I think SoW is the overrall better game
At that the micro transactions (at least for me) haven’t been noticeable other than the dlc, which are actually worth the price tag. This game is actually a solid package. This guy opening up with the fact that this game isn’t cannon is just pointless. It was never meant for the super fans of the franchise to flesh out lore, but for people (fans or not) to have a fun experience lol
You’ve misunderstood Talion’s purpose in keeping Mordor in a state of perpetual warfare. It wasn’t to reach a particular goal, it was to buy the world of men and elves time to overcome Sauron. Talion didn’t fail, his succumbing to darkness was inevitable, and as is evidenced by Frodo’s destruction of the ring in Mount Doom, he actually succeeded in his main goal.
@@m1nas953 nope, he says that Talion’s mission in Mordor was a waste of time because he died. This is false because even though he died, he delayed the forces of Mordor long enough for Frodo to yeet the ring.
The point of Talion being a Nazgûl is that Sauron could now turn to Middle Earth and invade it. Talion is keeping the orcs and uruks not united and unable to invade. Talion buys 60 years for Middle Earth, and those 60 years allowed the Fellowship to do their thing. If Talion hadn’t been there, Sauron would have been free to go ham on Gondor and the like much sooner.
I know right I don't normally get mad at things especially on the internet cuz I know it's useless. but as he keeps trashing on the story all I can think is you have to pay attention to the details talion and celebrimbor are fighting amongst themselves for control and that's what leads up to the end of the game. It's not just all right. I'm leaving. It's more than that in every side arc. One of them doesn't want to do what the other is saying to do. I just maybe I noticed it because I played the game like four times now but I don't know
I adore this game, am a massive LOTR nerd and this game really was the perfect game I needed, there’s a split of people enjoying it and others saying it’s mid, but I say, this was a golden experience that I tend to replay again.
This game is by far my favorite of all time in its finished state. It has its issues but makes you feel like a actual threat to Sauron. Although the story absolutely sucks, the gameplay redeems it for me
After playing some of the newer AC games I went back and replayed this, it truly is in its own right an amazing game, it does what alot of developers should be doing, making the game fun, while presenting a variety of challenges with the ability to customize your experience
08:11 Talion didnt just "gets a conscience" and tell celebrimbor its bad, Talion already knew Celebrimbor was off after the ring was forged, but he cant just reject Celebrimbor as they havent even started going into war with Sauron. Through countless stories event and battles, Talion recognizes it even more. Celebrimbor only wanted war with Sauron, defeat him and rule Middle Earth as Bright Lord instead, which is basically the same as Sauron did. Celebrimbor dominating Isildur was the final straw that makes Talion condemn Celebrimbor. Talion always prioritize those who lives, humanities, etc. (you know those chivalrious human stuff, yeah its that) Talion wanted Isildur's soul to rest in peace in Mandos (i think thats the place? im no LOTR fan so please correct me on this one). Celebrimbor being an elf that is already dead and only caring about defeating Sauron, considers everyone else as tools. dont like Talion anymore and chose Eltariel instead.
As far as where the spirits of Men go when they die, it's stated in 'The Silmarillion' that neither the Valar nor Elves know wither they go. There has been speculation over the ages by Elves that they go Halls of Mandos separate from those that the Elves go to, but only Iluvatar knows.
I'll never forget Saulron actually told him "you lost the ranger, that was a mistake," it's amazing how he thought either so highly of talion, or as low to the two elves but to critique them.
@@grayden4138 I’m pretty sure the souls of men go to the halls of Mandos before they depart to where no one knows. That’s how Beren and Luthien were reunited because Beren hadn’t passed on from the Halls. The halls are described as the place where the souls of all the children of illuvatar go
@@thatguy5391Shelob foresaw that Celebrimbor would be able to best Sauron with Talion's help. She did not want the Bright Lord to triumph completely, so she worked to break their union.
I feel like you did yourself a disservice not playing the Baranor DLC, it's basically supposed to be taken as a rogue-like type of mode aiming for a faster completion or higher score each time, kinda like the similar one from the first game. Plus Baranor is pretty cool and can shield bash orcs off of cliffs. Of course if you don't like it either way, fair enough, but I do feel it's worth a shot.
Lol I got the platinum trophy for Shadow of War on ps4, but I never got myself around completing the game100%. Because that would require me to do the boring Baranor dlc. It just isn't my taste I guess. I did like the Eltariel dlc a lot!
@@Matt15199 if youre still wondering; play on nemesis difficulty and just capture every outpost, it’s really not hard and you have a lot of time so no need to stress as well. Only thing to watch out for is dying so better play slow and calculated than fast. Your 3 legendary mercenaries should do most of the work anyways.
One of the few games I’d actually pre-order if there was a third. Everyone that I know who’s tried this game has loved it, myself included. There’s so many damn variations of enemies, and plenty of ways to approach them BUT ALSO limited ways to approach them on harder difficulties which gives you a lot of room for how you want to play the game. The story was really great too. And that song at the true ending? Beautiful.
@@MythicAce218 basically it's one ending but to get it you had to do so many defend the fortress missions. Back to back to back, for hours on hours. I think since the games release they've made it much easier now to get to the ending, but basically if you didn't choose to do all of the defense missions, you'd just be free roaming around mordor with talion as a wraith. No "true" ending. But the one actual ending was after you did all of the defense missions, you get a nice cut scene finally of what happens when Sauron falls and you see what becomes of Talion as the credits roll and music plays in the background. It's an amazing ending, though when the game first released not a ton of people knew you could get it, since the game just keeps telling you to "defend this area" repeatedly.
@@nosleepforme2242 I've done majority of the fortress missions(they were very enjoyable) but i don't remember how many eaxctly cuz it has been a bit. I've played thru it twice but i don't remember beating it cuz I got distracted
@@MythicAce218 yeah at first that was the case for most people, i think it was around 20 or so fortress missions you had to do to get the ending. Most people did 5 or so and saw that it didn't make anything new happen and ether put the game down or went and did something else. I think now you only have to do around 3 or 5 to get the ending since it's been updated throughout the years.
Interesting. I thought the story was one of its best aspects. Am I alone in that? Edit: After having finished the video, I think he just didn't really understand the story or was stuck in the "that isn't cannon and is therefore terrible" mindset. There was so much cool stuff and an absolutely amazing ending (narrative wise). I feel like I'm constantly having to defend this game from people who never gave it a fair shake.
The story was great, and Lazers wasn't saying it was bad overall. It just had a bad structure, and then the game ended off on those grindy endgame wars, which is more a gameplay issue, but the fans overall agree that part of the game wasn't fun, despite the game's golden gaemplay.
@@ClaimedMinotaur Did we? He never said the story was bad, and he even said all the plotlines made sense even if they ultimately led nowhere in the grand scheme of the games. I loved the story, as did alot of other fans, but we all agreed it had its flaws that we can't defend. We can love the game and its story, and still call it as it is. Frankly, Lazers was also very detailed and despite us both loving the story, neither of us have the evidence to prove him wrong. All you done is argue that he has a bad attitude about the game, despite him ultimately saying its better than he remembers. Ur right that many people were unfair to this game, like the crowd who simply blasted it for loot boxes which were easy to ignore, but there's a far cry between them and Lazers.
The Mordor games are so underappreciated, SoW perfected the AC/Arkham formulas in my opinion. Effortless yet challenging freeflow combat, preparations to learn your target's weakness and exploit it, lots of enemy types forcing you to use every tool at your disposal. Everything that Batman or an Assassin should need to utilize but rarely do in games. Not to mention SoW struck a decent balance of ranged enemies who are really annoying but not totally unfair or laughably trivial. Tying combat, stealth, ranged, and traversal all into the same combo system was a stroke of genius, the armor sets in SoW let you customize your playstyle to a surprising degree discovering powerful synergies or just wacky fun builds (even Ghost of Tsushima took inspiration from this it seems), the ability to convert enemies to your side and tame beasts leads to great sandbox moments, and of course there's the amazing Nemesis System. Endless player-driven narratives and unforgettable moments that are unique to every single player, as well as staggering enemy variety and dynamic interactions between all the varied systems, to the degree that not even the developers can anticipate what might happen in any given run. Despite the huge story issues and infuriatingly grindy endgame, Shadow of War is one of my very favourite games of all time, and is the game (along with Jedi Academy) I've put the most hours (154) into. And I still keep seeing new stuff every time I play, an absolutely unbelievable achievement. Very much looking forward to the new Wonder Woman game, which will use the Nemesis System and likely a similar combat system💜
Can’t say most hours (CK3 is currently sitting at 803 hours) but consider it one of my favourite games of all times up there with SWTOR and FF7 (original).
This was not a masterpiece when it came out. The developer overhauled the game from all of the criticism towards the siege grind, the lootboxes and the balancing around it. There was plenty of criticism over the story and drop in graphics, as well. Personally, I stopped playing it after finishing the endgame grind and never returned to see the overhauled changes. Seems like most of the positive views are from people who were never tainted by the first version of the game.
@@zufaredris1659 I was loving the story, but the ending is one of the most jarring gaming experiences I’ve ever had. After Talion takes Minas Morgul, the game just… stops and then we get a “blink and you miss it” cutscene. Very underwhelming.
This was the start of insane micro transactions just to get through the campaign, so just by virtue of that this is one of the worst games the industry has produced because of the standard it set
@@C1umsyJester I actually thought the micro transaction controversy for this game was overblown. You could easily dominate enemy captains. This game was released in 2017 around Battlefront 2 and I think that games negative stigma rubbed off on SOW
@@jrad410 Star Wars was definitely the main culprit but I think this game definitely participated in integrating micro transactions and progression with the story together and set an industry standard for single player open world games
I feel like I’m reiterating what’s been said, but I bought the game on day 1, I absolutely enjoyed the story, combat and mechanics of it all, the nemesis system was amazing, having an orc come back 3 times just trying to beat me was great
Besides microtansactions , I have NEVER ever heard anyone from my friends or anyone else who played the game said it was bad....in fact I had an absolute blast and I still play it for tropy hunting and reasons from time to time
During the first year, yeah. The game was a huge grind fest to encourage people to buy loot boxes and the shadow wars was even more grindy with very minimal rewards. But after the patch came out that removed all the micro transactions and made the end game a lot more bearable, it helped people realize the game was actually fantastic with good combat and a good story. The only thing that was keeping it back was the greed.
I don’t understand why everyone went insane over the loot boxes, I played when it came out and literally never felt like “oh shit, better buy some loot boxes” it’s not hard to get good orcs in this game.
@@captainstu It's actually too easy to get good orcs in this game. So much so that the entire Nemesis system trivializes the lootboxes. I feel like it was intended by the devs.
My issue with the game is the fact that when they increased the maximum lvl´s they dident increase the xp scalling u get from the orc missions. U will run out of main and sidestory missions long before u get close to the top lvl´s even if you are doing side stuff in betwinn. Also when they removed the online market system they also removed pretty mutch everything u could spend the in-game currancy Myrrian on making it almost useless. It´s mutch better gameplay to just restart the save after u beat the game rather then just grind very low xp orc missions to reach max lvl.
This game was the fist next gen game I ever played and I loved every second of it. Still one of my favorites. It was just flat out fun because of the combat and build variety.
The core gameplay is imo very good especially with the added difficulty settings they added later on. What is not so great and is in fact very bad is the late game. More specifically the xp curve as u lvl up. Even without only following the storyline u will run out of quests LONG before u reach the higher lvl´s. The fact that they removed the real money currency market is great. But in doing so they also removed pretty mutch everything u could spend the in-game currency on aswell. Also the middle/end game orc missions do not give u nearly enough xp for u to reliably grind them. The orc missions xp scalling is just way to low. As a result i end up restarting my save alot rather then grinding at the top lvl´s.
@@Shiftry87 tbf I farmed a lot for gear and orcs, and had white gems on all everything that gave exp boost, and for gear I did these threat missions which gave sometimes about 20k exp, maybe these lvled me so hard
I don’t think people do. I made it quite clear in the video, the game has a lot to love, the changes improve it but it still has a lot of narrative and structural issues that hold it back despite being quite a fun experience.
Shadow of War is my 3rd favourite game of all time (only behind Red Dead Redemption 2, and Ghost of Tsushima) But I really liked hearing your thoughts, and I appreciate that you recognize lots of people love this game💜 So, all that being said, You didn't play Desolation of Mordor?? I'm baffled that you were recommended Blade of Galadriel above it, and I actually *liked* Blade of Galadriel. Desolation isn't just more SoW but permadeath, it's a really fun rogue-like with Batman-esque focus on gadgets. The shield, crossbow, grapple, and glider all lend interesting mechanics to Barahir, and the Nemesis System is perfect for a rogue-like. Please give it a chance someday. PS: Shadow of War is the perfect blueprint for a Jedi/Sith game but it'll never happen
Also would recommend for all fans of the Prototype games (power fantasy). Those games are tough to get running and, strangely, Shadow is the closest thing I can find to those experiences; namely having a measured control of events
Maybe... Watch the video? If you truly want to understand why someone wouldn't like it, or the problems they might have with it, maybe listen to their concerns and critiques instead of clicking on said critique, knowing it's a critique, and then feigning ignorance?
I loved SoW. i played through the story many times for the whole experience and only played SoM once. DoM dlc is great it's more like rogue like where you get to keep some updrades even if you die and the whole story is short and very replayable, it was made to be replayed.
Great video! I replayed war at the start of this year and I really liked it. I understand what you are saying about the story not really meaning much especially most of the missions. But I don’t mind it and I think the idea with Talion turning is that he held back the forces of Mordor long enough for Frodo etc to destroy the ring and without him doing that middle earth would of been lost. But the nemisis system is definitely the golden egg of this series! Would love to see it in other games somehow!
I absolutely LOVED this game and still do! It was my game of the year the year it came out and I still continued to play it regularly even after getting the Platinum because I felt the combat and the Nemesis system were just that good. It was what I like to call a "True Sequel". It takes everything the prequel did and ramps it up to 11. A sequel that delivers in every aspect. It quickly became one of my most favorite games ever. Edit: Ok so having finished the video... yeah I don't agree at all with that "Shadow of Mordor is the better of the 2" at the end there. I think the upgrades to the Nemesis system alone put War above Mordor. Guess just agree to disagree.
All I got from your analysis was "game good." "Nemesis system good." Of course you're going to disagree with him about the first game being better, because you didn't even attempt to address his criticisms or what your stance is on them. His points ranged from the story being lackluster, forgettable, and often a force that slowed progression. That the game would've been better without them. That was enough to make him think it was an inferior sequel, despite him clearly saying he loved the nemesis system.
I got the gold edition of the game a week after it came out and I frankly love it. The shadow wars is a bit weak, but other than that, phenomenal. I've beaten it at least 8 or 9 times across Xbox and pc. Still worth it imo
Personally I really liked the desolation of mordor dlc, even if you only live once it doesn’t really seem to be too big of a worry once you unlock the tech stuffs
For me, I never had a Nemesis because I never really died in these games? But I LOVED the system of hierarchy and the information makes it easier to kill them. I really love that for these games and Mordor is still one of my favourite games to this day
I first played this game after all the patches fixing looboxes and things like that. I fucking loved it, despite destroying canon material it made you feel like a badass and it really sucked me in
22:24 The fact that Baranor is mortal I'd what attracted me to that mode. Hell, I beat it before the main campaign. Knowing that death is permanent made me play a lot differently and made encounters that more terrifying. I really enjoyed it. But then again I played the base game as Baranor 90% of the time so I maybe bias. I would recommend at least trying it out for a bit. It puts in perspective just how powerful Talion is.
shadow of war/mordor helps fill a plothole of why sauron didnt attack middle earth sooner, because his army was already busy dealing with all the infighting, civil war, and unrest caused by talion
never have watched a LOTR related movie, show or youtube video even but i still have this as top 3 favorite games ever and i have 430 games on ps so i’ve played a good bit, this game was just gold is really all i can say
Literally never heard someone call this anything remotely close to bad. My perspective on this game is pretty much the exact polar opposite of what you said, but everyone sees things in their own way.
Dude it’s a title 😂 it refers to the general critic consensus upon release, the game was HEAVILY criticised. I thought people would be able to understand that and just see what I had to say about it. It’s absolutely insane to see nobody can, seemingly just wanted to have a go at me for a title that accurately reflects the majority of the industry’s opinion of the game in 2017.
This was one of the only games where I reached a 100 hours I know it’s isn’t a lot but I was only allowed to play on weekends and I enjoyed every second of it
Looks like most people in the comments disagree with this video and I'm on that boat too I find imo that SOW improved every single aspect from Mordor and more.
As someone who played through the original 20-stage Shadow Wars, I actually found it to be one of the most enjoyable sections of the game! As you said, the actual story is pretty lackluster and the game really shines when the nemesis system is allowed space to breathe on its own. Well, Shadow Wars did that: the story took a backseat, so you knew you were working towards something but the path towards it wasn’t fully defined for you. But, as you progressed through each of the stages, you’d create unique stories of your own through the nemesis system! Between each siege you’d experience all sorts of crazy moments and twists: You’d lose a fort and have to plan out how to get it back step-by-step. All of your captains might die in a poorly prepared siege. One of your captains might come out of nowhere and kill that one warchief you could never beat. Another captain might betray you, kill the current overlord of the region and take the fort for himself. (I kid you not, that last one actually happened to me!) It really was the perfect balance of story progression and emergent gameplay, and I’m sad they got rid of it in the patch. The Nazgul helmets were a good addition, but you barely got to experiment with each of them because of the reduced number of Shadow War stages. Anyway, in conclusion, bring back og Shadow Wars
I carried Bruz around with me as basically a permanent bodyguard until eventually he died in some random fight. Truly made an example out of the traitor
I was playing a couple a week ago, it was long, and kinda repetitive and even boring at times but never feel bad, the combat was amazing, the nemesis system is just the best, the fact that you die to an orc can make them stronger and rank up is one of the most original I had seen in a while in a game and how interactive were the orcs and how they could betray you was so cool, I thing the title is kinda misleading
To be pedantic: Tolkein does suggest in TLofR that Shelob has merely settled into a spider form, but is capable of others. Appearing as a sexy brunette in SoW is fundamentally canon.
For me Middle Earth Shadow of War was a MASTERPIECE. Sure there are grind issues and lootboxes when it first came out. But besides that it was amazing. The only thing i'm sad we never got was a DLC or game where you play as Sauron because he's my favorite. The music, the vibes i got. Pretty much everything in the game SCREAMED Lord Of The Rings. It was awesome. My favorite part of the game is when Talion gets Sauron's Ring. So cool. 😊
Once I shut off my Tolkien lore memory bank, I had a lot of fun. Being a fan of the usual epic fantasy swashbuckler and games like the first few Assassin's Creeds and both Prototype titles, this game was a dream come true for a good hundred hours.
Idk what you tryna say but i love the cannon quest especially at the end of the fire monster thing. I love how the game makes you follow it from region to region
The shadow of games contained a great deal of fun that a large amount of games failed to do in a single player game. These games easily get into the top ten of my favorite games even without trying to tell a compelling story.
Seems like a Hot Take Click Bait title. I’ve never heard anything bad about it, other than the Loot Box “controversy” that was tacked into a every game released at the time. That was since amended and I’ve never heard anything else negative regarding the game. The only valid complaint I’ve heard regarding either game is from die hard canon nerds who hate the liberties taken with the lore.
I'm confused, either I was living in a different universe where people were saying the game was amazing or it was secretly bad and I dont remember people saying it was.
It’s crazy because most of the discourse surrounding this game at launch was that it was a grind, repetitive and full of micro transaction, I didn’t pluck it out of thin air 😂
@@LazerzZ those complaints weren’t as common as you seem to think I’m in many different lotr groups as well as gaming groups and guess what a majority of all the comments in those groups were of love for the game not saying the game is bad Maybe your misremembering or maybe you are going from a different perspective then the Gamers you know the people who played, talked about and would watch this video
Me and my friend played through the shadow of mordor game and loved it, then right after we came to this game and honestly that was probably a mistake because we hated this game. We found it incredibly tedious and just straight up awful the only fun we had with this game was when taking over a fortress, but with how many there are even that became a chore after about 25 hours. We personally also really disliked the gear system, mainly because of the lore reasons from the first game, the rules that they had already established. Throughout the first game you stay with same weapons and slowly upgrade them to hold more abilities and perks, they also held sentimental value to talion with the dagger being the broken blade of his dead son, so when going into this game to just throw that on the ground to pick up a random ranger dagger felt really disengenious to the character. Anyway we did not like this game at all.
You can still upgrade your starting gear- upgrading it to Tallion’s level, the game just does a terrible job of teaching you that and you have to stumble into that knowledge. Once the ending happens, that gear becomes a legendary set, although the descriptions are quite depressing- as tallion fights the shadow wars and succumbs to the call of the wraiths, he gradually loses his memory of his past lives, and the item descriptions for acharn and ioreths embrace slowly change until they just read “The origin of this [dagger/cloak] has long since faded from memory”
@@dennisthechemist4413 I did not know about that flavor text at the end it's a pretty nice touch, thanks for letting me know! Also I think that it would have been better if the game just had no gear system but instead had something similar to the current way to upgrade gear, and you have to complete a set of specific tasks to unlock a special unique mission to upgrade his things.
@@TheMasterMind144 I know that he does not literally throw away his old gear so my bad for typing it that way, but what I meant was its ridiculous that there is a gear system in the first place and disingenuous to the character. If they had at least put in something like a cut scene to introduce the gear system and him expressing his unwillingness to stop using the weapons, but understands that they are not good enough to get the job done and he needs to use different gear, it would have been nice
I think it's definitely better than Mordor in virtually every way. That being said SoM was pretty overrated when it came out, in that way SoW was a little underrated.
LOVED Shadow of War... out of the two games War was by far the best. The multiple boss fights are all challenging and all of the game play is engaging and a lot of fun. Especially enjoyed the nemesis system as well!
Who remembers it as bad? It's a good ass game, it came out at the same time as assassins creed origins and had a lootbox controversy that's why it didn't get the praise it deserved but no one thought it was bad.
The title is click bait as the vast majority of comments are positive about the game. The few negative ones mostly talk about the lootboxes (which honestly I didn't have a problem with because you could just use the in-game currency which you get plenty of.)
Sauron absorbed Celebrimbor, to set up another sequel, cuz when Frodo destroyed And Sauron, Celebrimbor was freed, setting up the third game where you would likely play as Eltariel fighting to keep the new ring out of Celebrimbor's hands
Would go as far to say this gameplay had wayy more going for it, as a sequel, than Elden Ring does, as a blatant Souls copy and paste. At least in Shadow we get some entirely new mechanics and imo a real kickass story!! No idea why LotR fans wouldn't like it, even if it was cannon! I'd love for a new set of films to go in this higher fantasy direction, it's like the exact opposite of what Netflix is doing haha
Wait people thought this game was bad? I remember people being mad at the micro transactions but other than that Idk. Personally I thought this game was amazing but that's just me lmao.
I feel the same way about the story for Shadow of War because it really isn't a good part of the game but the nemesis system is easily the best part of the game, basically the best part of the game is actually The Shadow Wars because it is the sandbox with the nemesis system, it just has the addition of the sieges and defending your fort, but all you have to do is die once in a defense and you lose the fort, then you are able to build your own story with the Orcs and play that out for a while. A great example of a youtube series which actually does tell its own story in Shadow of War is the TearofGrace Shadow of War series and to be honest I feel the nemesis system allows a lot more to happen in Shadow of War.
I honestly prefer this one over the original. It seemed to me like a step up in every way, and expanding on Talion/Celebrimbor and their story really felt good. That and the gameplay, outfits, and the Nemesis system. Overall damn good game. Definitely not nearly as bad as some might remember, especially with micro-transactions gone.
@@nugget6820 The artstyle and atmosphere are the exact same as they were before (though the atmosphere is a bit varying depending on which region you may be in, it ultimately doesn't stray far from the original).
As bad as we remember? Who is "we"? For me, Shadow of War is my favourite game of all time. I remember I was having sooo much fun. Every second of this game was masterpiece.
Wow now that’s a hot take, everyone I know loves/likes this game and I’ve never really seen it discussed negatively online except the micro transactions controversy.
I recently changed the title of this video although I cannot change the title card within the video itself. When SoW launched it was lambasted by critics and I myself didn't love it for plenty of different reasons. This video aims to go into it fresh and see if I was too harsh or if the critics were right. The previous title "Shadow of War: As Bad As We Remember?" seemed to detract from the content of the video as this is a fair analysis of the content of the game, but many people took issue with the title and never engaged with anything I actually discuss about the game, so I decided it was time to change it to be more neutral. Despite this I do feel the original title was very appropriate. Sure, those who loved Shadow of War never thought it was bad, that's valid, but critics and gamers alike at release did take issue with a lot of this game, you can find plenty of articles totally shitting on this game (fairly and unfairly) it wasn't received as fondly as Shadow of Mordor, that is all I was referencing. I wasn't suggesting nobody liked it, I wasn't suggesting it was objectively bad, I was merely referencing the very general and mainstream opinion of this game at launch, which was mainly negative due to the loot boxes and the grind involved.
I hope by changing the title, people can engage a bit more with the actual substance of the video, even if you disagree with my ultimate conclusion, I feel I'm pretty fair and I overall had a lot of fun with Shadow of War despite it's shortcomings.
When does the new part of Shadow of War start? 😢
I've never heard anyone say this game was bad.I loved every second of it.
I don't think people were saying that the game itself was bad, people were saying that the publisher's decision to put agregious lootboxes into the game was bad
Edit: To anyone who want to use the "Oh but it's optional, you don't have to buy the microtransactions/lootboxes, I played through the game Day 1 with the lootboxes still in the game and I got by just fine" argument with me, please don't. I've had plenty of people replying to me uses the same excuse over and over again and it's getting monotonous. It's a bad argument and I don't want to keep repeating myself explaining why it's bad. There's a reason most people call lootboxes/MTX a cancer to the gaming industry, it starts small and inconsequential but it WILL grow and it will be too late to stop it when it finally grew too big (the fact that there are people here trying to defend it is already proof enough that it has already became somewhat normalized and that should be absolutely terrifying to anyone who love gaming as a medium, it's red flag that many people now has elected to ignore and that is a red flag in and of itself)
@@khoavo510 but they removed them already
@@klemens5509 I know. I bought the game way after they've already removed lootboxes and I was pretty happy with the game that I got. But before I ever bought it, Shadow of War to me was one of those games that has a reputation of being infested with lootboxes alongside battlefront 2.
My point is that even after they removed it, the game's reputation is already stained by that awful decision and like wine stains on a white dress, a bad reputation is quite hard to scrub off
That's why I knew the title was going for clickbait.
Compared to its predecessor this game was a cynical, repetitive, grindy cash grab with a predatory micro transactions model.
If you didn't play that one, then sure, this was probably a fine game.
Im honestly kinda confused by "As Bad As We Remember", I personally think SoW was a direct upgrade from SoM except for the microtransactions at launch. Other than that I think SoW is the overrall better game
At that the micro transactions (at least for me) haven’t been noticeable other than the dlc, which are actually worth the price tag. This game is actually a solid package. This guy opening up with the fact that this game isn’t cannon is just pointless. It was never meant for the super fans of the franchise to flesh out lore, but for people (fans or not) to have a fun experience lol
@@dudewhy6953 exactly, lore or not the game is still a masterpiece
@@dudewhy6953 there aren’t any micro transactions, they got taken out ages ago
@@xaviersunderland9840 that’s what I thought lol
Its just another shitty TH-cam account playing the clickbait game.
You’ve misunderstood Talion’s purpose in keeping Mordor in a state of perpetual warfare. It wasn’t to reach a particular goal, it was to buy the world of men and elves time to overcome Sauron. Talion didn’t fail, his succumbing to darkness was inevitable, and as is evidenced by Frodo’s destruction of the ring in Mount Doom, he actually succeeded in his main goal.
Yeah he just needs to delay things
He literally says that in thr video
@@m1nas953 nope, he says that Talion’s mission in Mordor was a waste of time because he died.
This is false because even though he died, he delayed the forces of Mordor long enough for Frodo to yeet the ring.
Thank you, man. I was gonna type that up before I saw your comment, and I appreciate your service 🙏
@@rafibellamyplaice1767 it was a waste of time, Saurons time
The point of Talion being a Nazgûl is that Sauron could now turn to Middle Earth and invade it. Talion is keeping the orcs and uruks not united and unable to invade. Talion buys 60 years for Middle Earth, and those 60 years allowed the Fellowship to do their thing. If Talion hadn’t been there, Sauron would have been free to go ham on Gondor and the like much sooner.
exactly
Thats how I always interpreted it. These games were about a doomed guy whose only role was to slow down what was going to happen anyways.
For sure honestly I thought this was canon till recently which is a bummer
@@jeremeyortega2371 same
Yeah man!
Shadow of War wasn't bad atall...really fun, good story, fun combat, etc... It has all the things that make a game fun and interesting.
I know right I don't normally get mad at things especially on the internet cuz I know it's useless. but as he keeps trashing on the story all I can think is you have to pay attention to the details talion and celebrimbor are fighting amongst themselves for control and that's what leads up to the end of the game. It's not just all right. I'm leaving. It's more than that in every side arc. One of them doesn't want to do what the other is saying to do. I just maybe I noticed it because I played the game like four times now but I don't know
okay not a good story that was one you were wrong about
@@Narumi_Nokami it’s good.
It’s not ok it’s not bad it’s not great it’s not amazing it’s just good.
@@Narumi_Nokami it's a good story, not WOW amazing, but its pretty damn good.
@@thedankgnasty1890 it really isn't it's mid
I adore this game, am a massive LOTR nerd and this game really was the perfect game I needed, there’s a split of people enjoying it and others saying it’s mid, but I say, this was a golden experience that I tend to replay again.
Same, I still redownlaod this game to play at times
This game is by far my favorite of all time in its finished state. It has its issues but makes you feel like a actual threat to Sauron. Although the story absolutely sucks, the gameplay redeems it for me
After playing some of the newer AC games I went back and replayed this, it truly is in its own right an amazing game, it does what alot of developers should be doing, making the game fun, while presenting a variety of challenges with the ability to customize your experience
Same, I have so many hours on it.
Yeah same, I love this game
08:11 Talion didnt just "gets a conscience" and tell celebrimbor its bad, Talion already knew Celebrimbor was off after the ring was forged, but he cant just reject Celebrimbor as they havent even started going into war with Sauron. Through countless stories event and battles, Talion recognizes it even more. Celebrimbor only wanted war with Sauron, defeat him and rule Middle Earth as Bright Lord instead, which is basically the same as Sauron did. Celebrimbor dominating Isildur was the final straw that makes Talion condemn Celebrimbor. Talion always prioritize those who lives, humanities, etc. (you know those chivalrious human stuff, yeah its that) Talion wanted Isildur's soul to rest in peace in Mandos (i think thats the place? im no LOTR fan so please correct me on this one). Celebrimbor being an elf that is already dead and only caring about defeating Sauron, considers everyone else as tools. dont like Talion anymore and chose Eltariel instead.
Someone who gets it! Thank you for this comment
As far as where the spirits of Men go when they die, it's stated in 'The Silmarillion' that neither the Valar nor Elves know wither they go. There has been speculation over the ages by Elves that they go Halls of Mandos separate from those that the Elves go to, but only Iluvatar knows.
I'll never forget Saulron actually told him "you lost the ranger, that was a mistake," it's amazing how he thought either so highly of talion, or as low to the two elves but to critique them.
@@grayden4138 I’m pretty sure the souls of men go to the halls of Mandos before they depart to where no one knows. That’s how Beren and Luthien were reunited because Beren hadn’t passed on from the Halls. The halls are described as the place where the souls of all the children of illuvatar go
@@thatguy5391Shelob foresaw that Celebrimbor would be able to best Sauron with Talion's help. She did not want the Bright Lord to triumph completely, so she worked to break their union.
I feel like you did yourself a disservice not playing the Baranor DLC, it's basically supposed to be taken as a rogue-like type of mode aiming for a faster completion or higher score each time, kinda like the similar one from the first game. Plus Baranor is pretty cool and can shield bash orcs off of cliffs.
Of course if you don't like it either way, fair enough, but I do feel it's worth a shot.
Lol I got the platinum trophy for Shadow of War on ps4, but I never got myself around completing the game100%. Because that would require me to do the boring Baranor dlc. It just isn't my taste I guess. I did like the Eltariel dlc a lot!
I actually like how Baranor plays much more than Talion. The desolation of mordor dlc might be the best section of the game.
So how do you get the gold score cus I still got a skin to unlock.
@@Matt15199 Playing on higher difficulties mostly
@@Matt15199 if youre still wondering; play on nemesis difficulty and just capture every outpost, it’s really not hard and you have a lot of time so no need to stress as well. Only thing to watch out for is dying so better play slow and calculated than fast. Your 3 legendary mercenaries should do most of the work anyways.
One of the few games I’d actually pre-order if there was a third. Everyone that I know who’s tried this game has loved it, myself included. There’s so many damn variations of enemies, and plenty of ways to approach them BUT ALSO limited ways to approach them on harder difficulties which gives you a lot of room for how you want to play the game. The story was really great too. And that song at the true ending? Beautiful.
i loved this game but never finished it(tho i loved every second). but there's different endings?
@@MythicAce218 basically it's one ending but to get it you had to do so many defend the fortress missions. Back to back to back, for hours on hours. I think since the games release they've made it much easier now to get to the ending, but basically if you didn't choose to do all of the defense missions, you'd just be free roaming around mordor with talion as a wraith. No "true" ending. But the one actual ending was after you did all of the defense missions, you get a nice cut scene finally of what happens when Sauron falls and you see what becomes of Talion as the credits roll and music plays in the background. It's an amazing ending, though when the game first released not a ton of people knew you could get it, since the game just keeps telling you to "defend this area" repeatedly.
@@nosleepforme2242 I've done majority of the fortress missions(they were very enjoyable) but i don't remember how many eaxctly cuz it has been a bit. I've played thru it twice but i don't remember beating it cuz I got distracted
@@MythicAce218 yeah at first that was the case for most people, i think it was around 20 or so fortress missions you had to do to get the ending. Most people did 5 or so and saw that it didn't make anything new happen and ether put the game down or went and did something else. I think now you only have to do around 3 or 5 to get the ending since it's been updated throughout the years.
@@nosleepforme2242 the fortress missions felt satisfying to complete. i go back to the game every now and then because is so underrated
Interesting. I thought the story was one of its best aspects. Am I alone in that?
Edit: After having finished the video, I think he just didn't really understand the story or was stuck in the "that isn't cannon and is therefore terrible" mindset. There was so much cool stuff and an absolutely amazing ending (narrative wise). I feel like I'm constantly having to defend this game from people who never gave it a fair shake.
The story was great, and Lazers wasn't saying it was bad overall. It just had a bad structure, and then the game ended off on those grindy endgame wars, which is more a gameplay issue, but the fans overall agree that part of the game wasn't fun, despite the game's golden gaemplay.
@@CHRISCAMPO-wq8bi Did we watch the same video?
"'that isn't cannon and is therefore terrible' mindset"
He never says this.
@ That wasn't a quote from him. It was just describing the mindset.
@@ClaimedMinotaur Did we? He never said the story was bad, and he even said all the plotlines made sense even if they ultimately led nowhere in the grand scheme of the games. I loved the story, as did alot of other fans, but we all agreed it had its flaws that we can't defend. We can love the game and its story, and still call it as it is. Frankly, Lazers was also very detailed and despite us both loving the story, neither of us have the evidence to prove him wrong. All you done is argue that he has a bad attitude about the game, despite him ultimately saying its better than he remembers. Ur right that many people were unfair to this game, like the crowd who simply blasted it for loot boxes which were easy to ignore, but there's a far cry between them and Lazers.
The Mordor games are so underappreciated, SoW perfected the AC/Arkham formulas in my opinion.
Effortless yet challenging freeflow combat, preparations to learn your target's weakness and exploit it, lots of enemy types forcing you to use every tool at your disposal. Everything that Batman or an Assassin should need to utilize but rarely do in games.
Not to mention SoW struck a decent balance of ranged enemies who are really annoying but not totally unfair or laughably trivial.
Tying combat, stealth, ranged, and traversal all into the same combo system was a stroke of genius, the armor sets in SoW let you customize your playstyle to a surprising degree discovering powerful synergies or just wacky fun builds (even Ghost of Tsushima took inspiration from this it seems), the ability to convert enemies to your side and tame beasts leads to great sandbox moments, and of course there's the amazing Nemesis System. Endless player-driven narratives and unforgettable moments that are unique to every single player, as well as staggering enemy variety and dynamic interactions between all the varied systems, to the degree that not even the developers can anticipate what might happen in any given run.
Despite the huge story issues and infuriatingly grindy endgame, Shadow of War is one of my very favourite games of all time, and is the game (along with Jedi Academy) I've put the most hours (154) into. And I still keep seeing new stuff every time I play, an absolutely unbelievable achievement.
Very much looking forward to the new Wonder Woman game, which will use the Nemesis System and likely a similar combat system💜
Can’t say most hours (CK3 is currently sitting at 803 hours) but consider it one of my favourite games of all times up there with SWTOR and FF7 (original).
This game is a masterpiece I've never heard anyone who's actually played it and completed it complain about it
This is clearly a video for clout. Not one person has said this game was bad
@@angelespinoza3925 people can have other opinions?
it was a masterpiece
This was not a masterpiece when it came out. The developer overhauled the game from all of the criticism towards the siege grind, the lootboxes and the balancing around it. There was plenty of criticism over the story and drop in graphics, as well. Personally, I stopped playing it after finishing the endgame grind and never returned to see the overhauled changes. Seems like most of the positive views are from people who were never tainted by the first version of the game.
This game is very fun to play. Loved the siege mechanics and nemesis. The story though was just forgettable.
I actually enjoyed the story but I can see how it wouldn't be for everyone
@@zufaredris1659 I was loving the story, but the ending is one of the most jarring gaming experiences I’ve ever had. After Talion takes Minas Morgul, the game just… stops and then we get a “blink and you miss it” cutscene. Very underwhelming.
This was the start of insane micro transactions just to get through the campaign, so just by virtue of that this is one of the worst games the industry has produced because of the standard it set
@@C1umsyJester I actually thought the micro transaction controversy for this game was overblown. You could easily dominate enemy captains. This game was released in 2017 around Battlefront 2 and I think that games negative stigma rubbed off on SOW
@@jrad410 Star Wars was definitely the main culprit but I think this game definitely participated in integrating micro transactions and progression with the story together and set an industry standard for single player open world games
What do you mean bad? This game was great! And the whole pay to win thing was an exaggeration, I was there from day one for both games and loved them.
I feel like I’m reiterating what’s been said, but I bought the game on day 1, I absolutely enjoyed the story, combat and mechanics of it all, the nemesis system was amazing, having an orc come back 3 times just trying to beat me was great
Yeah but it was hard because they came back stronger.
@@lionfire3359 makes sense though. He trained to finally kill you especially since you’ve been getting stronger since you killed him too
Besides microtansactions , I have NEVER ever heard anyone from my friends or anyone else who played the game said it was bad....in fact I had an absolute blast and I still play it for tropy hunting and reasons from time to time
During the first year, yeah. The game was a huge grind fest to encourage people to buy loot boxes and the shadow wars was even more grindy with very minimal rewards. But after the patch came out that removed all the micro transactions and made the end game a lot more bearable, it helped people realize the game was actually fantastic with good combat and a good story. The only thing that was keeping it back was the greed.
I don’t understand why everyone went insane over the loot boxes, I played when it came out and literally never felt like “oh shit, better buy some loot boxes” it’s not hard to get good orcs in this game.
@@captainstu It's actually too easy to get good orcs in this game. So much so that the entire Nemesis system trivializes the lootboxes. I feel like it was intended by the devs.
My issue with the game is the fact that when they increased the maximum lvl´s they dident increase the xp scalling u get from the orc missions. U will run out of main and sidestory missions long before u get close to the top lvl´s even if you are doing side stuff in betwinn. Also when they removed the online market system they also removed pretty mutch everything u could spend the in-game currancy Myrrian on making it almost useless. It´s mutch better gameplay to just restart the save after u beat the game rather then just grind very low xp orc missions to reach max lvl.
@@captainstu it is pretty hard if noobs dont know how to train orcs
I enjoyed the loot orcs
I didnt know there was anybody who disliked this game, to be honest.
See something new every day.
This game was the fist next gen game I ever played and I loved every second of it. Still one of my favorites. It was just flat out fun because of the combat and build variety.
The core gameplay is imo very good especially with the added difficulty settings they added later on. What is not so great and is in fact very bad is the late game. More specifically the xp curve as u lvl up. Even without only following the storyline u will run out of quests LONG before u reach the higher lvl´s. The fact that they removed the real money currency market is great. But in doing so they also removed pretty mutch everything u could spend the in-game currency on aswell. Also the middle/end game orc missions do not give u nearly enough xp for u to reliably grind them. The orc missions xp scalling is just way to low. As a result i end up restarting my save alot rather then grinding at the top lvl´s.
What do u mean, I played it a few weeks ago and reached max lvl really fast, even before the shadow wars were over
@@nopedontthinkso U got to lvl 60?
@@Shiftry87 lvl 80
@@nopedontthinkso No ide how u managed it with the ridiculously low xp curve in the higher lvl´s.
@@Shiftry87 tbf I farmed a lot for gear and orcs, and had white gems on all everything that gave exp boost, and for gear I did these threat missions which gave sometimes about 20k exp, maybe these lvled me so hard
The only negatives I've heard about this game were the loot boxes at launch, and pre patched Shadow wars.
I was confused reading the title because it was never considered bad
It’s annoying that people still see this game for the loot boxes that it doesn’t even have anymore and decide they hate it
I don’t think people do. I made it quite clear in the video, the game has a lot to love, the changes improve it but it still has a lot of narrative and structural issues that hold it back despite being quite a fun experience.
@@LazerzZ well most of the people I hear talk about it just talk about the micro transactions
I really liked this game and the story. I felt attached to talion because reminded me of Aragorn
Shadow of War is my 3rd favourite game of all time (only behind Red Dead Redemption 2, and Ghost of Tsushima)
But I really liked hearing your thoughts, and I appreciate that you recognize lots of people love this game💜
So, all that being said,
You didn't play Desolation of Mordor?? I'm baffled that you were recommended Blade of Galadriel above it, and I actually *liked* Blade of Galadriel.
Desolation isn't just more SoW but permadeath, it's a really fun rogue-like with Batman-esque focus on gadgets. The shield, crossbow, grapple, and glider all lend interesting mechanics to Barahir, and the Nemesis System is perfect for a rogue-like. Please give it a chance someday.
PS: Shadow of War is the perfect blueprint for a Jedi/Sith game but it'll never happen
People thought this game was bad? I knew there was a lot of controversy with the microtransactions but I thought the game was awesome
Also would recommend for all fans of the Prototype games (power fantasy). Those games are tough to get running and, strangely, Shadow is the closest thing I can find to those experiences; namely having a measured control of events
I just started playing this a week ago and beat it last night, this game was amazing. I've never heard anyone call it bad
Imagine not playing the baranor dlc, you really did yourself a disservice it's basically a semi rogue like that's pretty fun
I don't see how someone can not like this game. Great game. I took my time an enjoyed everything about it.
Maybe... Watch the video? If you truly want to understand why someone wouldn't like it, or the problems they might have with it, maybe listen to their concerns and critiques instead of clicking on said critique, knowing it's a critique, and then feigning ignorance?
@@GarrulousHerald Awww someone missed their yoga class😭
@@GarrulousHerald 🤓
I really love the game, especially when we got nazgul talion. I felt so fucking cool and badass playing him
I loved SoW. i played through the story many times for the whole experience and only played SoM once. DoM dlc is great it's more like rogue like where you get to keep some updrades even if you die and the whole story is short and very replayable, it was made to be replayed.
Great video! I replayed war at the start of this year and I really liked it. I understand what you are saying about the story not really meaning much especially most of the missions. But I don’t mind it and I think the idea with Talion turning is that he held back the forces of Mordor long enough for Frodo etc to destroy the ring and without him doing that middle earth would of been lost. But the nemisis system is definitely the golden egg of this series! Would love to see it in other games somehow!
the Nemesis mission and the combat. The combat is *chef's kiss*. And the drip, can't forget the sweet, sweet drip.
who's we? majority of people loved the game, the main negative was the microtransactions
I still don’t get how the game was ever considered “bad”
I absolutely LOVED this game and still do!
It was my game of the year the year it came out and I still continued to play it regularly even after getting the Platinum because I felt the combat and the Nemesis system were just that good.
It was what I like to call a "True Sequel". It takes everything the prequel did and ramps it up to 11. A sequel that delivers in every aspect.
It quickly became one of my most favorite games ever.
Edit: Ok so having finished the video... yeah I don't agree at all with that "Shadow of Mordor is the better of the 2" at the end there. I think the upgrades to the Nemesis system alone put War above Mordor. Guess just agree to disagree.
All I got from your analysis was "game good." "Nemesis system good." Of course you're going to disagree with him about the first game being better, because you didn't even attempt to address his criticisms or what your stance is on them. His points ranged from the story being lackluster, forgettable, and often a force that slowed progression. That the game would've been better without them. That was enough to make him think it was an inferior sequel, despite him clearly saying he loved the nemesis system.
this game was a really big part of my life as a late teenager, i was a lotr fan which helped but the story hooked me and everything was amazing for me
I got the gold edition of the game a week after it came out and I frankly love it. The shadow wars is a bit weak, but other than that, phenomenal. I've beaten it at least 8 or 9 times across Xbox and pc. Still worth it imo
Personally I really liked the desolation of mordor dlc, even if you only live once it doesn’t really seem to be too big of a worry once you unlock the tech stuffs
For me, I never had a Nemesis because I never really died in these games? But I LOVED the system of hierarchy and the information makes it easier to kill them. I really love that for these games and Mordor is still one of my favourite games to this day
I first played this game after all the patches fixing looboxes and things like that. I fucking loved it, despite destroying canon material it made you feel like a badass and it really sucked me in
22:24
The fact that Baranor is mortal I'd what attracted me to that mode. Hell, I beat it before the main campaign. Knowing that death is permanent made me play a lot differently and made encounters that more terrifying. I really enjoyed it.
But then again I played the base game as Baranor 90% of the time so I maybe bias. I would recommend at least trying it out for a bit. It puts in perspective just how powerful Talion is.
This game was great …I can only see someone having a problem with it because it drifts from the canonical writings
shadow of war/mordor helps fill a plothole of why sauron didnt attack middle earth sooner, because his army was already busy dealing with all the infighting, civil war, and unrest caused by talion
never have watched a LOTR related movie, show or youtube video even but i still have this as top 3 favorite games ever and i have 430 games on ps so i’ve played a good bit, this game was just gold is really all i can say
Literally never heard someone call this anything remotely close to bad. My perspective on this game is pretty much the exact polar opposite of what you said, but everyone sees things in their own way.
WE remember this differently, this is a very good game. You're on your own here lol
Dude it’s a title 😂 it refers to the general critic consensus upon release, the game was HEAVILY criticised. I thought people would be able to understand that and just see what I had to say about it. It’s absolutely insane to see nobody can, seemingly just wanted to have a go at me for a title that accurately reflects the majority of the industry’s opinion of the game in 2017.
bruv it got a 47 user score on metacritic, who is we?
@@LazerzZ damn, i got jebaited didnt I?lol my fault brotha
@@breffman1 Yeah because metacritic user scores are definitely trustworthy.
@@breffman1 lootboxes... remember? it was not cuz of the core game
stop the cap this game was insanely good, i put more hours into this game than rd2
This was one of the only games where I reached a 100 hours I know it’s isn’t a lot but I was only allowed to play on weekends and I enjoyed every second of it
If you ever had to play dead by daylight you’d know that 100 hours is tiny
But that’s just the nature of dbd
you definitely got us all to click on the link so we could all tell you this game was never considered bad and was infact amazing. Bravo👏👏👏
And you’re all delusional
@@LazerzZ ignorance is bliss
I just liked shadow of Mordor a little better for the flow of combat, but this was great as well!
After Amazon’s RINGS OF POWER …. Lotta folk coming back to SOM and SOW saying: “ We didn’t know what we had.”
Exactly lmao
never have i ever heard anyone call this game bad
Looks like most people in the comments disagree with this video and I'm on that boat too I find imo that SOW improved every single aspect from Mordor and more.
Never seen it been called bad, i got 938.7 hours on it so every time i did the story it was fun
As someone who played through the original 20-stage Shadow Wars, I actually found it to be one of the most enjoyable sections of the game! As you said, the actual story is pretty lackluster and the game really shines when the nemesis system is allowed space to breathe on its own.
Well, Shadow Wars did that: the story took a backseat, so you knew you were working towards something but the path towards it wasn’t fully defined for you. But, as you progressed through each of the stages, you’d create unique stories of your own through the nemesis system!
Between each siege you’d experience all sorts of crazy moments and twists: You’d lose a fort and have to plan out how to get it back step-by-step. All of your captains might die in a poorly prepared siege. One of your captains might come out of nowhere and kill that one warchief you could never beat. Another captain might betray you, kill the current overlord of the region and take the fort for himself. (I kid you not, that last one actually happened to me!)
It really was the perfect balance of story progression and emergent gameplay, and I’m sad they got rid of it in the patch. The Nazgul helmets were a good addition, but you barely got to experiment with each of them because of the reduced number of Shadow War stages.
Anyway, in conclusion, bring back og Shadow Wars
Nice clickbait, never once heard anyone call this game bad.
I carried Bruz around with me as basically a permanent bodyguard until eventually he died in some random fight. Truly made an example out of the traitor
I was playing a couple a week ago, it was long, and kinda repetitive and even boring at times but never feel bad, the combat was amazing, the nemesis system is just the best, the fact that you die to an orc can make them stronger and rank up is one of the most original I had seen in a while in a game and how interactive were the orcs and how they could betray you was so cool, I thing the title is kinda misleading
To be pedantic: Tolkein does suggest in TLofR that Shelob has merely settled into a spider form, but is capable of others. Appearing as a sexy brunette in SoW is fundamentally canon.
For me Middle Earth Shadow of War was a MASTERPIECE. Sure there are grind issues and lootboxes when it first came out. But besides that it was amazing. The only thing i'm sad we never got was a DLC or game where you play as Sauron because he's my favorite. The music, the vibes i got. Pretty much everything in the game SCREAMED Lord Of The Rings. It was awesome. My favorite part of the game is when Talion gets Sauron's Ring. So cool. 😊
This game was amazing! I’m reinstalling right now.
Once I shut off my Tolkien lore memory bank, I had a lot of fun.
Being a fan of the usual epic fantasy swashbuckler and games like the first few Assassin's Creeds and both Prototype titles, this game was a dream come true for a good hundred hours.
Pretty sure no one ever said Shadow of War is bad lol
I did 😨
I never really heard anyone say the game was bad.
Bad????? It was fucking amazing i miss it alot
Idk what you tryna say but i love the cannon quest especially at the end of the fire monster thing. I love how the game makes you follow it from region to region
Since when is this game bad? It didn't get as much as hype as Shadow of Mordor, but I liked it just as much
The shadow of games contained a great deal of fun that a large amount of games failed to do in a single player game. These games easily get into the top ten of my favorite games even without trying to tell a compelling story.
The story and other aspects might be bad, but the gameplay system is amazing, had a lot of fun all the time
Seems like a Hot Take Click Bait title. I’ve never heard anything bad about it, other than the Loot Box “controversy” that was tacked into a every game released at the time. That was since amended and I’ve never heard anything else negative regarding the game.
The only valid complaint I’ve heard regarding either game is from die hard canon nerds who hate the liberties taken with the lore.
In the title it said “As Bad As We Remember” who tf is “we”?
The people who thought it was bad????
@@LazerzZ the game was delightful in my opinion 😫
I'm confused, either I was living in a different universe where people were saying the game was amazing or it was secretly bad and I dont remember people saying it was.
Yeah bro this wasn't a bad game. This was hype af
No offense, but I’m not sure why this video was made. I think most of us can agree that this game is amazing.
Shadow of War was a damn good game and it seems the comment section agrees lol
So we all agree this title is a bit click bait right? I mean this game was gold
It’s crazy because most of the discourse surrounding this game at launch was that it was a grind, repetitive and full of micro transaction, I didn’t pluck it out of thin air 😂
@@LazerzZ those complaints weren’t as common as you seem to think I’m in many different lotr groups as well as gaming groups and guess what a majority of all the comments in those groups were of love for the game not saying the game is bad
Maybe your misremembering or maybe you are going from a different perspective then the Gamers you know the people who played, talked about and would watch this video
The nemesis system is so good. More games need to have it.
TRUE
Sadly only games by them can have it. I believe they trade marked
I didn't know people thought this game was bad.
Me and my friend played through the shadow of mordor game and loved it, then right after we came to this game and honestly that was probably a mistake because we hated this game. We found it incredibly tedious and just straight up awful the only fun we had with this game was when taking over a fortress, but with how many there are even that became a chore after about 25 hours. We personally also really disliked the gear system, mainly because of the lore reasons from the first game, the rules that they had already established. Throughout the first game you stay with same weapons and slowly upgrade them to hold more abilities and perks, they also held sentimental value to talion with the dagger being the broken blade of his dead son, so when going into this game to just throw that on the ground to pick up a random ranger dagger felt really disengenious to the character. Anyway we did not like this game at all.
You can still upgrade your starting gear- upgrading it to Tallion’s level, the game just does a terrible job of teaching you that and you have to stumble into that knowledge.
Once the ending happens, that gear becomes a legendary set, although the descriptions are quite depressing- as tallion fights the shadow wars and succumbs to the call of the wraiths, he gradually loses his memory of his past lives, and the item descriptions for acharn and ioreths embrace slowly change until they just read “The origin of this [dagger/cloak] has long since faded from memory”
Talion doesn't throw away his old gear, pay better attention to the game.
@@dennisthechemist4413 I did not know about that flavor text at the end it's a pretty nice touch, thanks for letting me know! Also I think that it would have been better if the game just had no gear system but instead had something similar to the current way to upgrade gear, and you have to complete a set of specific tasks to unlock a special unique mission to upgrade his things.
@@TheMasterMind144 I know that he does not literally throw away his old gear so my bad for typing it that way, but what I meant was its ridiculous that there is a gear system in the first place and disingenuous to the character. If they had at least put in something like a cut scene to introduce the gear system and him expressing his unwillingness to stop using the weapons, but understands that they are not good enough to get the job done and he needs to use different gear, it would have been nice
Change the title - "Middle Earth: Shadow of War in 2022 | Is It As BAD As I Remember?"
I think it's definitely better than Mordor in virtually every way. That being said SoM was pretty overrated when it came out, in that way SoW was a little underrated.
LOVED Shadow of War... out of the two games War was by far the best. The multiple boss fights are all challenging and all of the game play is engaging and a lot of fun. Especially enjoyed the nemesis system as well!
I really want another middle earth game :(
We all do.
I'm just started playing this on gamepass very fun game, don't remember anyone calling it bad when it released
Who remembers it as bad? It's a good ass game, it came out at the same time as assassins creed origins and had a lootbox controversy that's why it didn't get the praise it deserved but no one thought it was bad.
The title is click bait as the vast majority of comments are positive about the game. The few negative ones mostly talk about the lootboxes (which honestly I didn't have a problem with because you could just use the in-game currency which you get plenty of.)
Doesn’t change the fact at launch the game was panned as being bad by critics. That’s what the title reflects.
Agreed with nothing in the first half of the video :)
Sauron absorbed Celebrimbor, to set up another sequel, cuz when Frodo destroyed And Sauron, Celebrimbor was freed, setting up the third game where you would likely play as Eltariel fighting to keep the new ring out of Celebrimbor's hands
Would go as far to say this gameplay had wayy more going for it, as a sequel, than Elden Ring does, as a blatant Souls copy and paste. At least in Shadow we get some entirely new mechanics and imo a real kickass story!! No idea why LotR fans wouldn't like it, even if it was cannon! I'd love for a new set of films to go in this higher fantasy direction, it's like the exact opposite of what Netflix is doing haha
This is one of the most slept-on games of the last generation
Wait people thought this game was bad? I remember people being mad at the micro transactions but other than that Idk. Personally I thought this game was amazing but that's just me lmao.
I feel the same way about the story for Shadow of War because it really isn't a good part of the game but the nemesis system is easily the best part of the game, basically the best part of the game is actually The Shadow Wars because it is the sandbox with the nemesis system, it just has the addition of the sieges and defending your fort, but all you have to do is die once in a defense and you lose the fort, then you are able to build your own story with the Orcs and play that out for a while. A great example of a youtube series which actually does tell its own story in Shadow of War is the TearofGrace Shadow of War series and to be honest I feel the nemesis system allows a lot more to happen in Shadow of War.
I honestly prefer this one over the original. It seemed to me like a step up in every way, and expanding on Talion/Celebrimbor and their story really felt good. That and the gameplay, outfits, and the Nemesis system. Overall damn good game. Definitely not nearly as bad as some might remember, especially with micro-transactions gone.
Eh, I would say the art style and atmosphere is worse by I agree with everything else you said.
@@nugget6820 The artstyle and atmosphere are the exact same as they were before (though the atmosphere is a bit varying depending on which region you may be in, it ultimately doesn't stray far from the original).
@@thedankgnasty1890 Your right. Gorgoroth and Lithlad was my favorite map since they're lightning is awesome. Also seregost looks great
You should've played the Baranor dlc it's so much fun. His gameplay is so much fun
No one ever said it was bad ppl just doesn’t like to appreciate good tgings
This game was never bad, I’m proud to admit that it’s actually my favourite game ever
As bad as we remember? Who is "we"? For me, Shadow of War is my favourite game of all time. I remember I was having sooo much fun. Every second of this game was masterpiece.
Wow now that’s a hot take, everyone I know loves/likes this game and I’ve never really seen it discussed negatively online except the micro transactions controversy.