Disclaimer: this review was made on an Early Access version of the game.
Plenty of us old-schoolers spent a lot of our earlier days huddled in front of our computers and roaming the realm of Azeroth with our friends. I'm talking, of course, about the last good Warcraft game, which graced us in the early 2000's: Warcraft 3. The game would solidify and define the standards for real-time strategy games for decades to come. Even its famous DOTA mod would branch off and become its own genre of games, with DOTA 2 coming to be owned by Valve and be profitable, both things that no one has ever been able to properly explain to me. It's very hard to overstate how important the game was for its time, and Daedalic Entertainment title A Year of Rain makes no effort to hide its heavy Warcraft influence. The style, combat, and visuals all scream "Warcraft 3," and not necessarily in a bad way. Right off the bat, any veteran of Warcraft 3 will be able to jump straight into Year of Rain and know exactly what they're doing.
Ah, yeah. I know what to do here.
Gameplay is both extremely solid, and my only source of complaint with Year of Rain. While combat itself is relatively smooth and intuitive, the AI (and, in particular, pathfinding) can be problematic, especially when attempting to deal with large groups. Still, we're in early access here, so I won't knock that too much. However when it works, it works well. Leveling up your heroes is satisfying and rewarding, and reminiscent of Warcraft 3 and the best parts of its MOBA spinoffs. While troop variety could be more plentiful, it doesn't exactly feel lacking and the ones you do have do their job well.
The soundtrack, voice acting, and general audio is pretty spot on. The same can be said for the art and style, and it all blends together to convey the world in an effective manner. The world is vibrant where it needs to be, dark where it needs to, and it always seems very well thought out and executed.
