27) E is for... Elven Legacy
The challenge: To play through each of the games on my Steam library.
The rules: I have to play at least 1 hour of each game, in alphabetical order.
Elves in fantasy are often pretty boring, in my opinion. Aloof, magic-infused folk who are excellent at everything just aren't super interesting. There have been some great attempts at making Elves interesting (Terry Pratchett's take being one I really enjoyed) but in general they're not one of my favourite fantasy races.
Elven Legacy takes the above stereotype and dials it up to eleven. The intro cut scene tells me that Elves used to share their knowledge and phenomenal cosmic power with everyone until someone messed it all up, causing them to go into hiding. Also they caused Dwarves to get buried in the ground? You play as an Elf with a superiority complex (gasp!) who seems to like murdering his way through every problem. At least, that's what I guess happens - I only caught bits of the plot as for some reason the voice over kept cutting itself off every other sentence.
I initially thought this game was going to be a Warcraft-style RTS. The menu and intros for each level are incredibly Warcraft-style, even down to the super cheesy voice-acting. However, the game is much more akin to Heroes of Might & Magic, with a hex-grid movement system and over-world combat. Normally I do the tutorial, but this game was simple enough that I didn't really need to. You've got melee combat, ranged combat and magic attacks. It would all be fairly unremarkable except for the fact that your units are represented by one large unit which, when you attack, splits into lots of tiny units. It ends up looking like your troops are all miniatures, fighting against teeny tiny zombies and the likes. Really quite adorable.
There's just not a great deal that stands out in this game - everything is acceptable, I guess? The combat works well enough but is probably way too shallow for Paradox's usual fans, the graphics were clear although not outstanding. The UI is OK although it was very difficult for me to tell which units I'd used in each round of combat - a very important piece of information to have. The music sounded like a knockoff of Warcraft and so was pretty unobtrusive. The only thing about the design I loved that when one of my units defeated an enemy their victory noise was 'WAY-HEY!' - it sounded like a bloke on a TV advert nicking someone's last biscuit.
I debated over whether this is a BG or GGWP. I'm not its target audience, and someone who really likes these hex-grid fantasy combat games would be better off playing Heroes of Might & Magic or King's Bounty. Honestly though, fans of the genre would have already played and completed those games, and I would recommend Elven Legacy as another helping of the same kind of thing. For this reason this game is a GGWP.
The rules: I have to play at least 1 hour of each game, in alphabetical order.
Elves in fantasy are often pretty boring, in my opinion. Aloof, magic-infused folk who are excellent at everything just aren't super interesting. There have been some great attempts at making Elves interesting (Terry Pratchett's take being one I really enjoyed) but in general they're not one of my favourite fantasy races.
Elven Legacy takes the above stereotype and dials it up to eleven. The intro cut scene tells me that Elves used to share their knowledge and phenomenal cosmic power with everyone until someone messed it all up, causing them to go into hiding. Also they caused Dwarves to get buried in the ground? You play as an Elf with a superiority complex (gasp!) who seems to like murdering his way through every problem. At least, that's what I guess happens - I only caught bits of the plot as for some reason the voice over kept cutting itself off every other sentence.
Our grumpy protag. He mentions how hard he'll try to be diplomatic in his voice over, then promptly murders everyone in game.
I initially thought this game was going to be a Warcraft-style RTS. The menu and intros for each level are incredibly Warcraft-style, even down to the super cheesy voice-acting. However, the game is much more akin to Heroes of Might & Magic, with a hex-grid movement system and over-world combat. Normally I do the tutorial, but this game was simple enough that I didn't really need to. You've got melee combat, ranged combat and magic attacks. It would all be fairly unremarkable except for the fact that your units are represented by one large unit which, when you attack, splits into lots of tiny units. It ends up looking like your troops are all miniatures, fighting against teeny tiny zombies and the likes. Really quite adorable.
I'll admit - there is something weirdly comforting about hex grids
There's just not a great deal that stands out in this game - everything is acceptable, I guess? The combat works well enough but is probably way too shallow for Paradox's usual fans, the graphics were clear although not outstanding. The UI is OK although it was very difficult for me to tell which units I'd used in each round of combat - a very important piece of information to have. The music sounded like a knockoff of Warcraft and so was pretty unobtrusive. The only thing about the design I loved that when one of my units defeated an enemy their victory noise was 'WAY-HEY!' - it sounded like a bloke on a TV advert nicking someone's last biscuit.
Sadly, Elven Legacy suffers from a heavy dose of booby armour syndrome
I debated over whether this is a BG or GGWP. I'm not its target audience, and someone who really likes these hex-grid fantasy combat games would be better off playing Heroes of Might & Magic or King's Bounty. Honestly though, fans of the genre would have already played and completed those games, and I would recommend Elven Legacy as another helping of the same kind of thing. For this reason this game is a GGWP.
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