Review and opinion of the Republic Campaign

[Yurgon]

Here's my personal and very much subjective review of the Republic Campaign.

 

Unavoidably, there will be spoilers ahead, so do not continue reading if you remotely plan on playing the campaign and be surprised by its design. You have been warned.

 

The gist of it is: Could be better.

 

The awesome thing about the Republic Campaign is that it's the first official campaign since Medvedev II that came with the release of Black Shark 2.

 

Republic was the kick in the butt I needed to finally finish my personal BS2 profile for the Warthog (with a couple of the 3-position switches set up in Lua script instead of TARGET, more here). For that, I can't praise it enough.

 

The setting

 

The campaign's setting, with the player as "Ronin" flying the only attack chopper that the "Republic" has available, is very much fictional, which allows for a rather liberal approach at mission design. Whether one perceives the enemy faction known as the "Butchers" as a real world party or a totally fictional one has already been the matter of quite some discussion. I take this as entirely fictional and don't have a problem with it.

 

Realism

 

The campaign is not realistic, period.

 

In the first couple of missions, a plethora of enemy tanks and armored vehicles need to be destroyed. Things get more daring after that by killing two enemy Mi-24 Hinds, and more daring after that by attacking Senaki airfield, defended by SA-11 Buk, and destroying all their Su-25 before they manage to take off.

 

Immersion

 

Here's where the fun stops. My personal opinion is that despite the fictional setting, the campaign seriously fails to deliver immersion.

 

That starts with superfluous briefings. While they do develop the story as well as the player character, the actual briefing parts are terribly void of meaningful information. Here's an example from one of the aforementioned daring missions:

 

Takeoff from "Gail" (FARP Otkrytka).

 

Objective 1.

Fly along the route, on the ridge find and destroy Buk SAM complex.

 

Objective 2.

Destroy all Su-25’s using ATGM’s and rockets.

 

First neutralize known air defense sites in airdrome.

 

Land at "Gali" (FARP Otkrytka).

 

That is not what I expect from a briefing in a DCS campaign. That's like a 90's arcade shooter mission loading screen (while there are briefing images with much more information, this text is still way not informative enough IMHO).

 

The player is given sketchy information at best, which makes proper mission planning difficult.

 

To make matters worse, despite its brevity, this briefing is contradictory. What's the second objective? Is it to first destroy the Su-25s and then the air defenses (it's written in this order) or is it the other way around (the second item clearly says "First")? I'll give you a hint: If you destroy the air defenses first, chances are at least one Su-25 will be able to take off and you'll face an A2A threat. Good luck killing an airborne Su-25... :doh:

 

Another bad thing about immersion is that during the missions, few things ever happen. In most cases, when the player arrives at the mission area, there's a short voiced-over exchange between Ronin and one other unit, and other than that it's "follow the flight plan, destroy the assigned targets, RTB".

 

In one of the first missions, there are other (Russian, in an otherwise English campaign, weirdly) voice-overs saying something like "We're hit! Stop it!". Hell, did I just kill them by accident? Or were those enemies? Or were they friendlies shot by those enemies I hadn't killed quickly enough? What the heck is happening?!

 

Mission replayability

 

I had to replay several mission and as far as I can tell, enemy positions do change on a random basis, which is good in terms of replayability so that things remain challenging. Then again, after 5 or so attempts, things do get pretty boring.

 

Mission realism

 

I already said the campaign as such isn't realistic, but does that mean the missions themselves are unrealistic as well?

 

Yes, and mostly because of artificial time limits. Several of the missions feature these, and the campaign would be much more enjoyable without them.

 

In one mission, the player needs to destroy enemy units in order to clear the path for a friendly Mi-8 CSAR.

 

First of all, the enemy units won't spawn until the player enters a trigger zone -- if you approach the target area very carefully and scan ahead, congratulations, you're simply wasting precious time.

 

Okay, next attempt, rush ahead, shoot everything that moves... ouch, there's an APC shooting me from the side, need to take that out first, and now the Mi-8 is going in for the pickup. Is this guy completely braindead?! I haven't cleared the LZ you extra-moronic idiot, what do you think is gonna happen?! Oh, you got shot down? Haha, saw that coming. Oh, mission failed. Yeah, thanks for that, brainfart, it's not like I had better things to do than refly the mission...

 

There are other missions with totally idiotic time limits. What a great way of destroying a fun mission, by telling the player "You took too long, mission failed".

 

To add insult to injury, the mission "Air Rain" is simply broken in itself. Dunno, maybe (probably) I'm doing something wrong, but once again the briefing is contradictory:

 

Destroy enemy air defenses and ensure there is no threat for our transport planes, by overflying the runway.

 

Avoid flying over the city. Signal to “Zenith” group and ensure they and the Mi-8 land successfully.

 

According to the flight plan, I can either overfly the runway, or avoid flying over the city. I might achieve both objectives by flying far around the city, but I'm on a tight schedule. Or, in other terms: WAT?

 

I think I flew this mission 6 times.

 

The fist couple of times I failed to achieve the first mission objective in time (like I said, stupid time limit!). When I finally achieved it, the mission said to "Land close to the Mi-8", which I did, but nothing happened.

 

Next attempt, I didn't get that message and, not surprisingly, landing close to the Mi-8 didn't do anything either.

 

Next attempt, I achieved the first objective in world record time, closely watched two Il-76 and the Mi-8 land, then the Yak-40 landed and... "Mission failed". Uh-huh. Whatever.

 

In essence

 

That's when I decided poking my nose is probably a better use of my time than continuing this campaign.

 

And while this one broken mission was the last straw, the overall mission design, the lack of immersion, superfluous briefings and heavily exaggerated mission goals all together are the reasons I decided to put this campaign aside, hopefully let it mature on player feedback and maybe get back to it in a year or five, just because it's one of the few true Ka-50 campaigns around.

 

I don't regret buying the Republic Campaign, but it's a shame because it could have been so much better and I hope that the developers will address some of the (mine, at least) issues that it suffers from.

 

And I'm sure I'd have been much less harsh on it if it weren't for those extra-stupid time limits that simply ruin the fun IMHO.

 

TL;DR

 

I would love to love the Republic campaign. Unfortunately, it turned out to be frustrating to me.

[QuiGon]

That's a really good review, thank you for that!

 

It clearly points out the issues of this campaign and I can just concur. I hope ED learns from that.

[Jafferson]

I stuck on the air rain misson too.

[Yurgon]

I haven't touched the campaign since I wrote the review.

 

I also raised the "Air Rain" issue in the Republic Campaign discussion thread but haven't received any feedback.

 

I can only assume that the devs are either not interested in engaging with the community, or the language barrier keeps them from communicating here.

 

I'm also surprised that after the initial enthusiasm about the campaign, player feedback has all but come to a halt. I'd hoped more people would play it or, if they did, that they would comment on their experience.

 

Here's to hoping the devs are going to check the triggers in "Air Rain" anyway. :thumbup:

[Johnny Dioxin]

Soon after I bought the campaign, I was busy testing 1.5, then decided to wait until we have 2.0 before I give it a go. I can imagine others are leaning the same way.

 

When I do, I'll be posting AARs on my website and responding to any relevant posts here.

 

mind you, I'll probably want to finish Deployment, first, as when I was flying it last time it was halted by some show-stopping bugs (that was about 2 years ago and I read they are fixed now).

[Yurgon]

When I do, I'll be posting AARs on my website and responding to any relevant posts here.

 

Sounds good, looking forward to it!

[audax]

I fully agree with everything Yurgon said about the campaign. However, the mission worked for me, even though it was a very silly and cheesy mission. I had to try it 3 times because I actually didn't notice the part about not flying over the city.

 

I am really missing some communication in the missions, more feedback. It feels a bit sterile. Maybe the next missions are more fun. :)

[WindWpn]

Have not flow this version yet but flow old Republic campaign years ago. Though likely it is basically the same as the original correct?

 

All in all, would be great to see some new stand alone/scripted campaigns similar to the glory days back when we only had BS. I remember ED even promoted campaign contests for folks to create exciting, immersive, and satisfying campaigns. In the end the old Vergeev Group Campaign was my all time favorite, and would be great to see it not replayed, but rather a new chapter in DCS World 2+ ?!

[KaspeR32]

I know this is really late but thanks for this review. I've been eyeing this campaign recently as I've been looking to get into the shark again after a few years. I was hoping for a paid campaign like this it would be a lot better than the default campaigns, but it seems that just isn't so. Since this review, has anyone played or found a good campaign for the shark?

 

Thanks!

[Yurgon]

Since this review, has anyone played or found a good campaign for the shark?

 

The best one I've ever flown was the "Vergeev" campaign by Leroni. It used to be payware, but I think at some point it was released as a public campaign. But I have absolutely no clue if it still works and how or where to get it. If you really want to fly a great Ka-50 campaign, you should go look for it. :thumbup:

[KaspeR32]

The best one I've ever flown was the "Vergeev" campaign by Leroni. It used to be payware, but I think at some point it was released as a public campaign. But I have absolutely no clue if it still works and how or where to get it. If you really want to fly a great Ka-50 campaign, you should go look for it. :thumbup:

 

Thanks for the info, I'll start looking! :joystick:

[the_soupdragon]

Kasper You can get it here (if you havent already found it.)

 

https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/1074179/

 

Not sure if it works on the latest version of DCS world though. But it was a great campaign I bought it when it was originally released.

 

Cheers

SD

[KaspeR32]

Kasper You can get it here (if you havent already found it.)

 

https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/1074179/

 

Not sure if it works on the latest version of DCS world though. But it was a great campaign I bought it when it was originally released.

 

Cheers

SD

 

Thanks!