Disciples II: Gallean’s Return
!!!!! ON WINDOWS 7/10: !!!!!
Run with Direct3D turned on, stretch to fullscreen, and 800x600 res. Trust me btw, the 800x600 res looks INCREDIBLE b/c of the awesome textures in this game.
70 hours in at the time of this review, I just finished the 2nd campaign (there are 4, and this isn’t even the expansion set) on Average (normal) difficulty. This is a game that will challenge you, but also reward you. Whether you build massive armies or put all of your time and energy into one unit, you will be surprised how difficult it is to stop moving those little bastards around. Buy this game if you have the opportunity.
– Real player with 213.3 hrs in game
Read More: Best Turn-Based Strategy Classic Games.
One of the all times favourites games : Diablo2, Age of Empires 1&2, Disciples 1&2. Special mention for Civilizations 3 Heroes of might and magic 3. There was nothing like them at that time, and there still isn’t.
For fans of the genre and disciples 2 in special, i recommend checking Atlantica Online (cashgrabber and if you are not in an active strong guild there is no way to have the top mercs and craft top equipment, but the game itself is so much like Disciples 2, only mmorpg)
Disciples 2 had lots of room for improvement, but is a fantastic game, simply amazing. Disciples 3 unfortunately turned away from the style of the game, moving units in battle ruined the tactical pre-battle arrangement of troops.
– Real player with 135.3 hrs in game
Rogue State Revolution
Let me start by saying that this has the potential of being a great game, but this game is far from being ready for release. Consider this game an early access.
Here’re some warnings if you wanna purchase:
-
Update 1.2 introduces a lot of CTDs, every few turns.
-
Game mechanics is only partly there. For example, there’s still no building to help boost a province’s security score. Dev is also still working on mid-to-late game progression issues such as running out of imported resources.
-
Many QoL changes needed. Ffs let me look at my current exports every time my neighbor asks me to increase export!
– Real player with 29.9 hrs in game
Read More: Best Turn-Based Strategy Sandbox Games.
Rogue State Revolution is a resource management game with a novel theme and deary indie production values, but falls into to the typical issue of initial hump of difficulty after which you are free to explore and express regardless of difficulty. (Mind I’m a bit sadistic with difficulty on these games.)
After setting up your economy and surviving the initial diplomatic/societal/environmental challenges the game throws at you, one slowly but surely is on top of the wave. This is where the game suffers from bad pacing and/or balancing. I found myself having way too many actions while not having enough favors and/or money. There are several stretches like this in the game and it seems the team tried to introduce mechanics into the game that one can sink extra resources into (civilians & space missions & casino), but all of these will be exhausted relatively quickly leaving you, again, just passing the turn waiting for something to happen.
– Real player with 29.4 hrs in game
Archons of Doom
This can be a fast paced game, but if you are very crafty you can slow it down and make it yours, but you will have to have worked on your skill with your spells and any objects you may find.
You can think you are winning and then BAM you are lost! Very good challenging game play by the enemy Archons, they’ll trick you and surprise you with their antics!
A very very addictive game. You lose so you want to try again, you win so you want to better your score. Very repeat playable. I Beta tested this but there were times I loaded this up just to play it anyway as it is that good!
– Real player with 306.7 hrs in game
Read More: Best Turn-Based Strategy Turn-Based Tactics Games.
This is in the top 10 games of any turn-based game on the market. I is in my top 20 of all turn-based game I’ve played, ever. It takes a while to hone one’s skills, but that is the fun of the game. I was fortunate to beta-test the game and subsequently I learned a bunch about the mechanics. However, the finished and polished game is even more challenging, despite me knowing several of the maps.
We can also create our own Archons! Having played around 175 hours when this specific feature was added, I thought, “oh, I’ll mop up with my hand-designed Archon along with a hand-picked team. Nah. Wrong. This game is challenging. There is always another Archon with minions that counter your advantages.
– Real player with 187.1 hrs in game
Frontline: World War II
the animations are nice and the system is well made. Use the tactics of the era and you’ll do just fine.
– Real player with 33.4 hrs in game
IN A WORD: MAYBE
IN A NUTSHELL:
WHAT TO EXPECT: WW2 themed turn-based wargame. ‘Beer and pretzel’ play style. Attritional combat model. Chess-like battles. Unit class levelling and combat abilities. Tactical combat states. Tiny hex-grid maps. Good-looking combat models. No core force. Dynamically purchased order of battle. Some annoying bugs. GUI obfuscated game rules/mechanics. Incomplete scenario implementation. Active dev. Single-player only.
ACHIEVEMENTS: NONE.
– Real player with 21.5 hrs in game
Disciples II: Rise of the Elves
Introduction
Disciples II:Rise of the Elves is my favorite game but I will try to give it a fair review with pros and cons. I have spent about 400 hours on the game on GoG and started to play on Steam a bit. I will be referring Disciples as D to shorten it. Also, I will try to give as much details as I can about the game.
Review
Gameplay
D:II is a medieval dark fantasy game with 5 playable fractions.
| Faction Name | Simplified |
– Real player with 109.4 hrs in game
TL; DR Disciples 2: Rise of the Elves is a really good game and a fun turn-based strategy-RPG that will last many hours if or when you get into it. This version adds further variety to the base game both in terms of playstyle, balance changes, and in neutral enemies. I highly recommend it; however, the game did not work without a fix so be aware of that.
Note that Disciples 2: Rise of the Elves is an expansion that takes place after the events of Gallean’s Return. Not all campaigns are included in Rise of the Elves therefore Gallean’s Return should be played first unless you just want gameplay and the custom maps.
– Real player with 63.9 hrs in game
Combat Mission Cold War
I’ll quoted part from one of review in Shock force 2
– Real player with 89.2 hrs in game
New Combat Mission convert here. 8/10 would get my tank platoon massacred again, and again. This is a very good tactical wargame, if a dated engine at a steep price-point. The game is unforgiving though. Ironicly the NTC “training” campaign is the most unforgiving IMO. Forces you to learn the hard way I guess. If you want great graphics look elsewhere, and be prepared to deal with some buggy input lag too. But if you can get over that, and the (realistic) poor pathing choices your tank commanders sometimes make, the gameplay is really good. Now it just needs the rest of NATO and the Pact to be great.
– Real player with 63.2 hrs in game
Midnight Protocol
I don’t have many games in my library - I’m quite picky in my tastes. I’m not usually one for hacking games but the Demo left me wanting more. After 22 enjoyable hours, I’m evidently happy to have added this game in my library. I waited to give this revieuw untill I finished the story for the first time - It will certainly not be the last. I’ll take some time to revieuw a few aspects of the game that might interest you most:
Gameplay/Mechanics: 8/10
A game is nothing without gameplay, and a hacking game sets a promise: it will not be just ‘a game’ - but one with depth, complexity, and decision making. To achieve this, Midnight protocol structures its gameplay around levels that feel like a labyrinth or puzzle. A Digital dungeon, if you will. To get around the various obstacles such as firewalls, encrypted nodes and ‘antagonistic’ system operators that chase you down you get access to hardware you can tailor to your playstyle, as well as a host of programs each with their own up- and downsides. You quickly learn how to balance them carefully, using fairly easy commands to allocate memory to the programs you need in order to finish the level. Suffice to say, Midnight protocol nails the hacker-feel you’ll expect. It is not all roses and sunshine of course - there is quite a reliance on RNG to many of the mechanics of the game that can make you second guess your decisions while they are actually fine, or save you when you know you had no right to make it. Aside from that, i found myself at times trying a level, finding where the hidden obstacles were, and avoiding them alltogether once I got to reload the level. This was- at times-unavoidable, and felt wrong. I’ve since noticed that these hidden obstacles are slightly randomized, at least in some levels, which alleviated this somewhat. Perhaps the developers could not just list potential ICE, but also include a map at the beginning of the mission (once you enter a mission you see the layout anyway, except in rare instances), that does not show the obstacles, but layout of the nodes beforehand. With this information I feel I personally would not have had to reload to adapt my strategy as much as I did.
– Real player with 41.0 hrs in game
| 🔵 POI | ✔️ Pos | ❌ Neg | 💡 Ideas | 🍿 Video | ⭐ STAR |
FINAL REVIEW
🔵Ultimately MP is a puzzle game running under the guise of a hacker game.
🔵Each Network is a puzzle, and you must defeat the puzzle using commands & tools.
🔵MP could be considered a Lightweight Hacker game which introduces turn-based gameplay
🔵Has some additional unique and impressive gameplay mechanics.
🔵I was instantly Immersed by the story and the characters.
– Real player with 29.2 hrs in game
Osteoblasts
Target Audience: Those wanting a solid RPG
Summary:
Let me start off this review by saying please don’t take the number of hours that I’ve played of this game pre-release as the game’s length. It’s around 12 hours on a typical run, but I tested a bunch of stuff to confirm some thoughts about the combat system here.
With that said, Osteoblasts is actually underpriced for the solid combat system and the equipment/skill system the game throws at you. I spent hours upon hours playing with the different configurations of skills for the shaman, but each class only serves as a starting template to make a character that you want. Worshipping to the various gods and the stats that they give becomes the molding clay of how to make your ultimate character. The different equipment and stats and how enemies react to different strategies is smart and intelligent. Stats are a little familiar to other RPGs but all the secondary effects and different stat combos and the strengths of different enemies means that you’ve got to make strategic decisions each turn: conserving your marrow and using defensive and counter skills to take enemies down little by little. Really, a lot of the time in this game is just seeing how you can maximize your self in the enemies you’re facing RIGHT now, and then adjusting to the next set of enemies that you come across.
– Real player with 52.7 hrs in game
This is a pretty quirky one and it’s very hard to review, as a result.
Given the time I played and the overall enjoyment and general lack of bugs or whatnot, I’d give it a decent ‘yes’, with a few caveats. The story/dialog are all kinda ‘wacky’ to say the least. It’s a strange one. I got quite a few pretty good chuckles out of it, but it feels like later in the game tries to really hammer in a bit of actual story and whatnot and, frankly, I could not make full sense of it.
There seem to be a few endings and even an unlockable or two but nobody seems quite sure how to get them or what triggers what, and the writing and pacing makes it a little extra hard to tell.
– Real player with 20.0 hrs in game
Shattered Worlds
This is another GREAT game by Orfeas. I played the demo at Aldorlea, but waited for the game to come out here on Steam.
This game has so much going for it: great graphics, full screen, secret rooms to discover, great story, visible enemies who don’t respawn (yayyy), several game modes, including Story mode as the easiest mode, and Nightmare as the hardest mode, and - something I haven’t seen before - you can choose “Followers on/off, which means that if you go for off, you won’t see the other characters trailing behind you, which always annoyed me in other games.
– Real player with 39.4 hrs in game
interesting game - beautiful graphics with secret rooms and extra special secret rooms - a skill tree allows the player to build up each character and there is plenty of places to gather monies for items- a detailed quest guide helps with the game- story wise - an interesting one. the help sheets available do help with the game but detailed maps would be helpful in some of the caverns as would a portal to be able to return to same place after voiding out instead of having to repeat going through again. battles are not that hard in the normal mode as long as you have plenty of items. would recommend this game
– Real player with 32.2 hrs in game
Winter Voices
Once upon a time, there was an unlucky girl.
~Rule of Rose
Steam library is full of hidden gems. And today, ladies and gentlemen, I’ll tell you about one of them. Winter Voices. An episodic RPG from a small team of talented French people. By looking on screenshots, you, probably, already got some impressions about what this game may be, but let me tell you something – forget it. Winter Voices is not what it seems (Twin Peaks pun intended).
First of all, battles in this game… are not really battles. Even though they’ll look a lot like our usual TBS battles and there’ll be a lot of various skills to learn, the “battles” here feel more like puzzles. Sounds weird and, well, it is. Even though I’ve finished thousands of games in my life, I don’t think I remember anything like that. Your character will have proper TBS-like stats, HP and skills, but you’ll rarely get a chance to directly attack your enemies and the goals will rarely ask you to kill something. Most of the time you’ll need to avoid the enemies, or push them to achieve certain goals. Which can be tricky. To say the least. The “battles” may be pretty hard and confusing, but I ended up liking them a lot. Because of how challenging they were, because of how different they were and, of course, because of the story.
– Real player with 133.3 hrs in game
Winter Voices is an indie text heavy RPG a bit akin to Planescape: Torment, but also very different. Its strongest point is its fairly linear psychological and existential story centred on some of the darker aspects of us humans, but ultimately it’s an experience of struggle, development, hope and growth; made with psychological insight. Next its “combat” encounters and its weakest the free roam hub-sections like the starting village. The game has a lovely artistic vision and ambience created by its hand-in-hand art direction, soundscape and writing. Which all have a wonderful poetic feel and are tied into the “combat system” beautifully. Plus if you are fond of metaphorical writing in works like “Thus Spoke Zarathustra” by Nietzsche, then you’re bound to find the dream sequences interesting, as they employ metaphors to great effect. That said the English translation can be a bit iffy, so play it in its native French if you can.
– Real player with 56.4 hrs in game