Review: Elven Legacy

Now, I’m a big fan of tactical boardgames, as well as Paradox Interactive, so of course I was excited to give Elven Legacy a go, after what I had seen of the gameplay. The game has an impressive AI and gave me quite a challenge. However, there was also  a darker side to the game.

In Elven Legacy, you find yourself in control of Lord Sagittel and his troops, after witnessing a human stealing an ancient Elven spell from right under Sagittels nose. Now, as proud elves, we can’t let that go unpunished, now can we? No, of course not. So Sagittel sets out and quickly joins forces with an elven female called Gylven to seek this human evil-doer and let rapid squirrels nibble his feet until he dies a slow and painful death. Well… You could also just catch him for starters.

The story mode unfolds on various battlefields with you overlooking them as if they were on a tabletop board game. From here you move and attack with your troops, call in reinforcements and use spells. It kind of reminds me of a Heroes of the Might and Magic game, but only featuring combat and bigger maps. Being turn based as it is, you get to move and attack with all units before ending your turn, where the enemy will try to stop you of course. You’ll notice pretty fast that the AI seems to know what its doing and it will cleverly outsmart you a couple of times before the end of the game. That being said you’ll want to think your actions through before jumping into any kind of battle. But at the same time, the mission are featuring a sort of trophy system which gives you gold, silver and bronze, based on how well you did. Pay close attention to this, because if you fail getting bronze, then the mission is over and you’ll have to retry it. This makes the game even more challenging and forces the player to carefully think his/her actions through before completing it. Between missions, you’ll sometimes be able to choose the location of your next battle on a tactical map. This may give various alternative goals and end up in bonus missions for example by gaining a gold victory.

You’ll have to keep an eye on your units and level them up from time to time. This may give them new abilities, stronger attacks, better armor, or other bonuses. You’ll also have to keep a constant eye on who’s strong against who for your own units, as well as the opponents strengths and disadvantages. There’s not much reason in challenging an airship to a duel if you can’t reach it with your swords is there? You’ll also have to think about the units support, there might be a team of archers ready to fire at you as you attack the team of swordsmen besides them. Therefore you get an applicable offensive together and this way your units will work together, just by you placing them in the right game tiles.

The first thing you notice when playing the game though is that there seems to be huge glitches with the synchronization of sound and video, the dialog is jumping before sentences are finished. This is something that should have been fixed before release, but after a talk with the nice people at Paradox Interactive, they assure us that it’s being looked into right now. Apparently, the studio that recorded the English voice acting didn’t perform to the guidelines set out by Paradox but they assure us that we should see this fixed with a patch soon, so this really shouldn’t be much of a problem anymore.

It also seems that some people, including myself are having trouble getting the game to play online. This can easily be solved by taking a quick look at this forum topic that has been added by the developers. It’s when you check forums that you see there are indeed folks who care enough  about the title to resolve issues you face.

The game features graphics definitely worthy of notice, with beautiful light settings and landscapes. Something also worth nodding your head in appreciation are the fights, where you can truly see motion capture technology being put to good use in a game. There are a lot of small details to look at and I can only say that it gets better the more you turn your graphics settings up. The graphics are truly inspiring in my opinion.

On the downside, the sounds in game are average. The weapon and magic sounds have been nicely captured and so have the nature sounds, like you’d expect of a modern strategy game. The voices could have used some improvements though, since they tend to get slow and boring easily. Luckily, the music is better though. It definitely sets the right mood for the game and makes some of the waiting times more tolerable, although it tends to feel like you’ve listened to the same thing way too many times later on.

Multiplayer in the game is just alright. There are plenty of campaigns to choose from with various goals, like hold a point for X rounds without anyone else taking the point. Although the AI is quite a challenge, it never beats to have an opponent that actually talks back. That is the great thing about boardgames anyway right? And in its own visual style, Elven Legacy really does look like a board game, which is also why I recommend that you try out the multiplayer for the game whether you play hot seat, LAN or online. It would be a good idea to be patient when playing with others though, since it will feel like it’s taking ages and the gameplay can be really slow. As for the games future I managed to get excited when Paradox Interactive had the following to say:

We are planning some expansion packs for the game, with additional campaigns. The expansions will let you play as other races, and add new weapons and units.

In conclusion, Elven Legacy is a beautiful game, with many challenging hours of gameplay. However, if you are not a fan of turn based boardgames or tactical strategy then you probably want to steer clear from this game.

Pluses

+ Challenging AI

+ Graphics that truly bring the game to life

+ Units gain levels and are vital for the player to succeed in missions

Minuses

- Some very nasty bugs that may ruin the storyline for the player

- Gameplay may seem slow at times.

Available now for PC.

Rating: ESRB (T), PEGI (12+)

Players: 1, 2-4

Played through 60-75% of the single player campaign, as well as a bit of multiplayer.

Try the demo: Elven Legacy