I've played Stronghold Crusader since I was 8 years old and it was one of my favorite games, aside from BFME. In fact, it was the game that got me into the RTS genre.

Right off the bat, I have to say that this does not feel like Stronghold Crusader 1 felt. Hell, it doesn't even feel like a Stronghold game. The UI feels clunky, the game is slow without the option to change it and there are no camera options like there were in the original. Units can get hidden by the bushes or by buildings, ignore when being attacked and are far too spread out, forcing me to manually push them together, not even the formations help, instead they make them move even slower.

Gameplay seems sluggish and slow, some of the reaction reworks confused me when I started to play even though I went trough the tutorial (WHICH I CANNOT RECOMMEND ENOUGH), units seem fairly weak and take much longer to amass, resources seem to take longer to gain and the gold gain trough taxes is a lot slower than in previous games, forcing me to rely solely on selling iron.

As a stand alone game, it's okay. As a sequel to one of the best early rts games? It's bad.

4/10.