Songs of Conquest - Early Access Review
- Thread starter HiddenX
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mercy
SasqWatch
- Joined
- March 21, 2013
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Oh! It has intriguing combat and HOMM 3 / Kings Bounty-style walking on the overworld map. Aand they offer EA-playable! I need to check this gem out!
. . .
Tried it out:
( - Game uses Unity Engine - )
1. Graphics is beautiful. You can zoom in on the game-world with a nice parallax-scrolling effect. This is the very pretty world, where you are walking.
2. GUI has been carefully built with lots of work. Unfortunately the fonts are so small, they're almost unreadable. So I couldn't [bother to] read / wasn't interested in reading [if the game developer doesn't care about displaying information in a receivable way to the player, why should I care about reading it??] most info, including tooltips, etc.. This fact essentially made me 'text-blind' for the game.. ..
3. Gameplay is horrible. Some idiot at the development group thought that the Kings Bounty / HOMM3 style FREE walking on the overworld map should be done in an agonizing turn-based mode… and it needs a RIGHT CLICK to specify a target - to walk to - and then the game needs another RIGHT CLICK to actually walk to the destination. WHY?? Why??? :-oOOoo Then if you are out of turn-steps, you cannot walk anymore, until you press NEXT-TURN. Ugh..
I could beautifully walk in King's Bounty using my Wacom digipen, the tip of which is set to LEFT CLICK and I can tap on the pad a million times and movement in games is usually super-convenient! Not in this game, though.. :/
4. Anyway.. adventuring on with my Heroine, on the road I met a nice number of militiamen, who agreed to join me. I thought this meant join my army, right? Then I met some archers as well. Oh.. okay, I'm thinking, these groups should make a nice beginner army, right? So when I first encountered some goblinoid monsters at the first cave, I thought, I'll beat them with my army!
But when combat began neither my commander was visible on the Battlescape - like in HOMM3 - nor were any of the militiamen in sight who joined me earlier… WTF?!
So my poor archer[6] unit was beaten.
4. Music is okay.
5. Sound effects are built into the UI. Dunno why a UI needs so many clinking-clanking sounds on button presses.. Devs should have concentrated on the QoL gameplay instead..
6. COMBAT is almost as flashy, as Iron Oath. You can't zoom in on the Battlescape, like you can zoom in onto the worldscape, this makes the units too small and uninteresting. Anything I can't zoom on or can't see in big it is made uninteresting.. as the graphics of the combat units cannot be EyeBalled / observed / scrutinized properly.. sigh..
7. Anyway.. while the combat felt okay, I found shortcuts in the menu for building buildings. Since I'm interested only in combat - Etherlords I-II.-style - I decided that its better that I delete the bookmark from my browser and forget the game. Refunded.
A V O I D W A R E™©℗®
. . .
Tried it out:
( - Game uses Unity Engine - )
1. Graphics is beautiful. You can zoom in on the game-world with a nice parallax-scrolling effect. This is the very pretty world, where you are walking.
2. GUI has been carefully built with lots of work. Unfortunately the fonts are so small, they're almost unreadable. So I couldn't [bother to] read / wasn't interested in reading [if the game developer doesn't care about displaying information in a receivable way to the player, why should I care about reading it??] most info, including tooltips, etc.. This fact essentially made me 'text-blind' for the game.. ..
3. Gameplay is horrible. Some idiot at the development group thought that the Kings Bounty / HOMM3 style FREE walking on the overworld map should be done in an agonizing turn-based mode… and it needs a RIGHT CLICK to specify a target - to walk to - and then the game needs another RIGHT CLICK to actually walk to the destination. WHY?? Why??? :-oOOoo Then if you are out of turn-steps, you cannot walk anymore, until you press NEXT-TURN. Ugh..
I could beautifully walk in King's Bounty using my Wacom digipen, the tip of which is set to LEFT CLICK and I can tap on the pad a million times and movement in games is usually super-convenient! Not in this game, though.. :/
4. Anyway.. adventuring on with my Heroine, on the road I met a nice number of militiamen, who agreed to join me. I thought this meant join my army, right? Then I met some archers as well. Oh.. okay, I'm thinking, these groups should make a nice beginner army, right? So when I first encountered some goblinoid monsters at the first cave, I thought, I'll beat them with my army!
But when combat began neither my commander was visible on the Battlescape - like in HOMM3 - nor were any of the militiamen in sight who joined me earlier… WTF?!
So my poor archer[6] unit was beaten.
4. Music is okay.
5. Sound effects are built into the UI. Dunno why a UI needs so many clinking-clanking sounds on button presses.. Devs should have concentrated on the QoL gameplay instead..
6. COMBAT is almost as flashy, as Iron Oath. You can't zoom in on the Battlescape, like you can zoom in onto the worldscape, this makes the units too small and uninteresting. Anything I can't zoom on or can't see in big it is made uninteresting.. as the graphics of the combat units cannot be EyeBalled / observed / scrutinized properly.. sigh..
7. Anyway.. while the combat felt okay, I found shortcuts in the menu for building buildings. Since I'm interested only in combat - Etherlords I-II.-style - I decided that its better that I delete the bookmark from my browser and forget the game. Refunded.
A V O I D W A R E™©℗®
Last edited:
- Joined
- Mar 21, 2013
- Messages
- 3,456
SSIGuy
An Islander Returned
I have no idea what game mercy played but it clearly wasn't this one. I've thoroughly enjoyed the game so far and I think when this comes out of EA, it will be a jem of a game. As a big fan of HoMM and KB (I'm old enough to have played both when they were first released - and I've played ever subsequent one - multiples time for many of them), this game gives me the same joy. It is also remarkably polished for an EA title. There are things I think (hope) they'll still improve but I've not run into any bug and the gameplay is feature-complete.
I also like the fact that they're not adhering strictly to the HoMM formula and have made some changes I quite like (towns are built and grow on the actual over world map - and you'll make choices about what you want to build because you can't build everything in one town; casting spells is not tied to a simply mana pool but to a developing mana pool based on the unit composition of your army and how they act). Both are interesting design changes that add some additional strategic and tactical considerations in the game.
Anyone remotely interested in the genre should check out the game… and look at the EA reviews coming out; they're very positive. I'm not certain why anyone would put much stock in your review mercy… "Since I'm interested only in combat" … then why are you playing a game where that's only half the gameplay?! That's the HoMM formula. If that's not your thing, then that's cool - but it does not seem fair to bash a game because it's a different game than the game you'd like to play.
Or a comment like this… "Gameplay is horrible. Some idiot at the development group thought that the Kings Bounty / HOMM3 style FREE walking on the overworld map should be done in an agonizing turn-based mode… and it needs a RIGHT CLICK to specify a target - to walk to - and then the game needs another RIGHT CLICK to actually walk to the destination. WHY?? Why??? :-oOOoo Then if you are out of turn-steps, you cannot walk anymore, until you press NEXT-TURN. Ugh.."
Huh?! Have you actually played an HoMM game? That is how movement in works. You have a limited movement pool for each hero that you have to manage - and if you choose to, you can improve it. This is baked into the HoMM formula and is a well-considered design choice in this genre. Players have to manage this because in-between your turns, other enemy heroes on the map spend their movement points and this becomes one of the core, tactical components of playing the game.
And fwiw, I really like the UI, had no problem with font size with my 53 year old eyes. I like the use of pop-ups; it is easy to get more info on town buildings and units.
I also like the fact that they're not adhering strictly to the HoMM formula and have made some changes I quite like (towns are built and grow on the actual over world map - and you'll make choices about what you want to build because you can't build everything in one town; casting spells is not tied to a simply mana pool but to a developing mana pool based on the unit composition of your army and how they act). Both are interesting design changes that add some additional strategic and tactical considerations in the game.
Anyone remotely interested in the genre should check out the game… and look at the EA reviews coming out; they're very positive. I'm not certain why anyone would put much stock in your review mercy… "Since I'm interested only in combat" … then why are you playing a game where that's only half the gameplay?! That's the HoMM formula. If that's not your thing, then that's cool - but it does not seem fair to bash a game because it's a different game than the game you'd like to play.
Or a comment like this… "Gameplay is horrible. Some idiot at the development group thought that the Kings Bounty / HOMM3 style FREE walking on the overworld map should be done in an agonizing turn-based mode… and it needs a RIGHT CLICK to specify a target - to walk to - and then the game needs another RIGHT CLICK to actually walk to the destination. WHY?? Why??? :-oOOoo Then if you are out of turn-steps, you cannot walk anymore, until you press NEXT-TURN. Ugh.."
Huh?! Have you actually played an HoMM game? That is how movement in works. You have a limited movement pool for each hero that you have to manage - and if you choose to, you can improve it. This is baked into the HoMM formula and is a well-considered design choice in this genre. Players have to manage this because in-between your turns, other enemy heroes on the map spend their movement points and this becomes one of the core, tactical components of playing the game.
And fwiw, I really like the UI, had no problem with font size with my 53 year old eyes. I like the use of pop-ups; it is easy to get more info on town buildings and units.
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I've only seen the beginning parts of the game, but it's superb so far.
The complaints above are ludicrous.
Walking is it should be, as explained by SSIGuy
The UI is excellent on a typical monitor (no idea about "pads" or small laptop screen).
The encounter with the miltiamen explicitly asks you to select which ones you want to transfer to your army, leaving the others there. The other ones usually give you the option of troops OR gold, so if you select the wrong one the troops go poof. So, sounds like someone done fucked up.
The complaints above are ludicrous.
Walking is it should be, as explained by SSIGuy
The UI is excellent on a typical monitor (no idea about "pads" or small laptop screen).
The encounter with the miltiamen explicitly asks you to select which ones you want to transfer to your army, leaving the others there. The other ones usually give you the option of troops OR gold, so if you select the wrong one the troops go poof. So, sounds like someone done fucked up.
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I also gave a positive review on Steam. I've already played over 20 hours and want to wait until the game is closer to release to play anymore.
They squashed the bugs I had on the first day and they have already patched in a few changes. Very happy with EA and really has that HoMM 2-3 feel.
They squashed the bugs I had on the first day and they have already patched in a few changes. Very happy with EA and really has that HoMM 2-3 feel.