Demigod - 6/20 hours

For the past few hours, I have been trying to be as systematic as possible while I work my way through all ten of Demigod's characters. Although, not that I have five of them under my belt, I realize that I've been doing it wrong. I've been playing the same map, at the same difficulty, with one demigod on each side, but I've been letting my opponent get chosen randomly. So, it's entirely possible (and, indeed, likely) that characters I thought difficult to play may have just had the bad luck to be matched up against stronger foes.

I think I'm going to have to start over again, so I can approach this more scientifically. A baseline is necessary because the characters are fairly diverse. Regulus is a fallen angel whose crossbow allows him to do damage to enemy fortifications and demigods without fear of reprisal. Rook is some kind of weird humanoid animated castle, who is slow and vulnerable to concentrated attack, but who deals massive damage. The Demon Assassin and Unclean Beast, I did not get much of a read on, probably because they were the first two characters I played. They both seemed straightforward melee types to me, though. And Oak, the character I most recently played, was a general-type character - he could reanimate the spirits of the dead, and then use his abilities to make them stronger in combat - but I didn't get much use out of him, because I didn't really understand that the "general" and "assassin" categories of demigods had a meaningful gameplay distinction (I thought they indicated the faction to which the demigod belonged).

The characters are also distinguished by their respective backstories, but I don't even want to begin to touch the game's lore. There's not much of it, but what I've seen has been more or less incomprehensible. I'm not at all sure that there is a consistent story underneath all this. Basically, each demigod has a unique origin, and they are all fighting each other for the favor of the gods. The demigod who triumphs over the others will be promoted to a full deity. However, trying to infer from the character descriptions the shape of a larger fantasy world is all but impossible (or maybe I just don't want to put in the effort).

The actual gameplay itself is nothing to write a blog post about. I described it in the previous post, and in the three hours since, nothing has really emerged to add nuance to that original description. The distinction between assassin demigods (who do best by engaging the enemy directly) and general demigods (who can summon minions and improve your regular troops) is the biggest twist. Also, buying items from shops has proven to be very important. But really, it's the same thing over and over again. Level up your demigod so that you can break through the enemy's fortifications while dealing with the enemy demigod. Get to the enemy citadel. Destroy it. Nothing I ever do or learn about the game will ever break that pattern.

I don't mind, but I do worry that I'll run out of things to say.