Disciples II: Guardians of the Light

Rating:
Summary: Epic
Review: (Note:) This review is for the core game, Disciples II: Dark Prophecy. In fact, you can't even play the Guardians of the Light expansion until you have a character that's advanced to level 10 or higher. But since this is a stand-alone expansion, the original Disciples II is included.

Disciples II is a great game! Most everything about it conveys a sweeping epic feel to it. Awe-inspiring music and graphics/artwork run all throughout. During combat, the backgrounds change according to what type of terrain or location - if you fight on territory held by the Mountain Clans, you will be fighting on a cold wintry field; likewise, if you are fighting in lands held by the demonic Legions of the Damned your background will be a twisted, hellish place - and of course, if you attack an opponent's city your background will be, well...like a city and attacking an enemy on the water, your background will be as if on a ship.
The graphics during combat are always fun to watch - these are awesome artwork animations imported into the game, not pixellated blocky graphics. It's hard to explain, but once you see how this game looks, you'll know what I'm talking about. The music conveys a sense of both granduer and urgency - like a Conan the Barbarian-type movie with an epic score. The music really does enhance the overall feel and experience.

Bear in mind that this is a turn-based strategy game. That being said, it avoids being the click-fest, micromanagement-fest that real-time strategy games all too quickly become. Disciples plays out more like a game of chess, of sorts. You move your pieces, and then your very sharp and challenging AI opponent (single-player) or human opponent (multi-player), moves his. Each of your characters have only so many movement points per day (turn). Once you have spent all your movement points, you are effectively finished until the next turn. A good example of this is as follows: I had a darn cool Dwarf Engineer named Leif leading a strong party consisting of a Dwarf Fighter, a Dwarf Warrior, and a Dwarf Crossbowman. I moved them to some unexplored ruins and engaged in a heavy battle with some Undead Legions. I won, but all my units took moderate to heavy damage. After my turn, the computer AI opponent moved in his party of heavy-hitting Legions of the Damned and utterly annhilated my Dwarf Engineer party, that for 52 previous turns before that had been roving the map, kicking ... and accumulating lots of experience.

In your capital city, and the cities you conquer and take over, you can hire new leaders. One of them is the Thief. he is cool because he can infiltrate enemy armies/cities. By doing that, you can right click on an enemy icon or city on the map and be informed of who and what you may be going up against - the Thief makes it possible to pick and choose your own fights. He can also poison the water supply to weaken all the enemies and soften them up as you move in your fighting units to engage.

Another great thing about Disciples II is the very minimal system requirements to play. My system is a lowly P2, 400Mz, 4-yr-old relic, and this game plays just fine! The only luxury I have for my aged system is the installation of a 16Mb video card(albeit a discontinued, out-of-business Voodoo 3) upgraded from a 8Mb video card. I did play the game on both cards, and upgrading it did make a significant difference.

Such deep and rewarding gameplay available for such undemanding computer requirements - imagine that!

I have not yet attempted to play another live human being via the internet, but I imagine I soon will at least try it. I have always avoided online play because my connection was to slow with graphic-heavy games (ie Doom, Quake, Half-Life, etc...) or I just couldn't click fast enough to keep up with the brutal experienced players in RTS' (real-time strategy) such as Starcraft, Total Annihilation, and Age of Empires II. But, I sense, that Disciples II online play could be different - possibly no 56k lag because we're not chasing each other through a maze, and not getting overwhelmed and overrun in a real-time rush of enemies. I'm thinking it could be like an epic game of psuedo-chess - I take my turn, my opponent somewhere in the internet ether takes his turn,...it might work and it could be fun.

All in all, I am glad to fork over my hard-earned cash to Strategy First for creating such a simple, yet vibrant and complex gaming world for me to explore on my woefully inadequate computer for most every other game being made today. And even though I like playing the good guys, I will definitely buy the other expansion pack, Disciples II: Servants of the Dark so I can have a total and complete game and, more importantly, show my support for a game company that has delivered one ... good product!

Rating:
Summary: Very Good Gameplay, But WAAAAY Too Short
Review: If you've played the original Disciples II, then you definitely want this (and the other) expansion packs. The gameplay is almost exactly the same as with the original game. Outside of a few minor tweaks, this expansion pack is essentially just an additional few scenarios. That, unfortunately, is exactly why I've rated this expansion pack as only three stars when I rated the original game as four stars. Looking solely at the interlinked sagas instead of the stand-alone scenarios, this expansion pack includes only three scenarios within each race's saga. And, as this is "Guardians of the Light" and not "Servants of the Dark," you can only play as the Empire and the Dwarves. That's much, much, too short for an expansion pack. The original game had seven scenarios per saga (with four playable races). The game also includes a design decision I disagree with: your hero stops getting new abilities from levelling when he reaches level 15. Depending on the scenario, he can still level. But, you don't get to choose another ability. Essentially, up to a point, all he'll get is some additional Hit Points and Damage Points. That sort of takes a lot of the fun out of the game. Especially, since the minimum starting level for your hero is 10. Heck, I imported a level 15 hero from the original game and couldn't even level him at all until the third scenario.

I'd also like to point out that even though you don't need the original Disciples II to play the expansion pack, the game only includes the Empire and Dwarven side of the original. So, if you want to replay ALL the original game (which I did), you either have to have that original game lying around, or you have to buy this expansion pack PLUS the "Servants of the Dark" expansion pack (which I've done). Because of the shortness of this exansion pack, Strategy First would be wise to not sell it, "Servants of the Dark," and "Rise of the Elves" separately. They should put all of them together and sell the combination as the expansion pack. However, if you played the original game and liked it, I still recommend this game. It's short, but good.

Rating:
Summary: Very Good Gameplay, But WAAAAY Too Short
Review: If you've played the original Disciples II, then you definitely want this (and the other) expansion packs. The gameplay is almost exactly the same as with the original game. Outside of a few minor tweaks, this expansion pack is essentially just an additional few scenarios. That, unfortunately, is exactly why I've rated this expansion pack as only three stars when I rated the original game as four stars. Looking solely at the interlinked sagas instead of the stand-alone scenarios, this expansion pack includes only three scenarios within each race's saga. And, as this is "Guardians of the Light" and not "Servants of the Dark," you can only play as the Empire and the Dwarves. That's much, much, too short for an expansion pack. The original game had seven scenarios per saga (with four playable races). The game also includes a design decision I disagree with: your hero stops getting new abilities from levelling when he reaches level 15. Depending on the scenario, he can still level. But, you don't get to choose another ability. Essentially, up to a point, all he'll get is some additional Hit Points and Damage Points. That sort of takes a lot of the fun out of the game. Especially, since the minimum starting level for your hero is 10. Heck, I imported a level 15 hero from the original game and couldn't even level him at all until the third scenario.

I'd also like to point out that even though you don't need the original Disciples II to play the expansion pack, the game only includes the Empire and Dwarven side of the original. So, if you want to replay ALL the original game (which I did), you either have to have that original game lying around, or you have to buy this expansion pack PLUS the "Servants of the Dark" expansion pack (which I've done). Because of the shortness of this exansion pack, Strategy First would be wise to not sell it, "Servants of the Dark," and "Rise of the Elves" separately. They should put all of them together and sell the combination as the expansion pack. However, if you played the original game and liked it, I still recommend this game. It's short, but good.

Rating:
Summary: Enjoyable for hours...
Review: This game keeps you coming back for more. It's a very addicting game that is quite easy to learn without reading the manual. It is a turn-based strategy game that seems to have many characteristics of the Civilization series. Magic is a bit too powerful in this game, however, and can be used to weaken enemies almost to death before engaging in hand-to-hand combat. Still, the game is quite addictive and fun for those who love strategy/empire games.