Nightfall is so enjoyable and so unique that it truly is beyond compare.
Nightfall is a completely different game from its predecessors. Prophecies was a great game, Factions could have been better, and Nightfall is a masterpiece.
The game unfolds just like a book. You are comfortably introduced into the game’s mechanics, and as you become more familiar with them, the story keeps you hooked and craving to know what happens next. Nightfall’s storyline is so diverse that everyone will surely find plenty about it to enjoy. Players experience invasions of epic proportions, get caught in the middle of political arguments, have tough decisions in which you cannot turn back thrown at them, explore the depths of an ancient temple, defend their once safe havens from intruders, rescue their kidnapped friends, and much, much more. This is a game with a story thas has times where you'll laugh, maybe cry if you're emo, and have your jaw drop whilst thinking, "Dang."
While progressing through the storyline, players will be introduced to the hero system. Heroes are similar to henchmen in that they are computer controlled characters which can be invited to your party. However, they level up along side you, you can choose which eight skills they bring into battle, you can adjust their attribute points, improve their armor and weapons, give them orders such as attack, defend, and flee, and even activate their own skills manually. Because of this, and because of the new PvP style called Hero Arenas, in which players go one-on-one with three of the thirteen heroes by their sides, Guild Wars has been transformed into an Online RPG with deep RTS elements.
The one thing you want to do the most when you first start playing in the open ended wildernesses is explore. The developers did an excellent job of filling up the beautiful, lush game-world with more than just the same copies of the same enemies. Players are given the ability to interact with just about everything - even an average civilian. Interacting with the environment has players making tough decisions; decisions with multiple paths and no turning back.
Combat in Nightfall is very complex – this was previously a hidden gem, but thanks to the new hero system, even beginner players can see it for themselves. It’s not just about how you and your character are doing, but also about how your allies are doing. Since you can now monitor even the most specific details about your heroes, combat can become very hectic and very exciting. Along with your heroes, you can decide what works, what doesn’t work, and attempt to get everyone to work in synergy. You will always be progressing in new ways, and will always be learning more and more.
When looking at combat, the developers also found a way to make the difficulty of PvE great for everyone. Nightfall has a great mix of easy, challenging, and practically impossible PvE content. There will be times where something will be so easy you will think, "I'm done already?" And others where you will think, "Is this even possible?" Some quests are now categorized, with the most difficult ones having a [Master Difficulty] icon next to them.
Furthermore, Nightfall introduces a new audio style. Voice acting is now done by real actors – what they say is now for once believable, and when mixing that in with the new animation facial expressions, cutscenes are rarely skipped anymore. The developers even went so far as to add in gameplay-dependent music, where if you’re not in combat the music is very serene, yet when you are, it quickly becomes flamboyant. Heck, now you can even hear armor rattling when characters move around. It’s a small implementation, but it adds in an amazing amount of depth to the game, depth which was previously lacked.
Lastly, Nightfall also introduces an array of other various new features. There are new items called insignias and inscriptions, which you can add to armor and weapons, making them fully customizable. Also, when you salvage an item, you can now choose what you want to salvage from it, with a 50% chance that the item will be destroyed, with this chance being reduced with the Wisdom Title. Yes, Titles now actually give you benefits. The Sunspear Title, for example, gives you a powerful PvE only skill and hero points – the skill becomes more powerful and you get more hero points as the rank goes up. Even floating combat text has been given a revamp. The numbers are more vibrant, there is a small combat log that shows what skills were previously used on you, skill icons appear over your character whenever an enemy uses one on you, and now there is a, "KAPOW!" effect when you or an enemy is hit by an attack.
Simply put, Nightfall is a lot fun; it's ridiculously addicting. One of the most difficult things in the world would be to play this game and not enjoy it.