Brutal Gamer

Elven Legacy (PC) Review

By Zeth - April 2, 2009 - 15:41 UTC

It has been a good chunk of  time since I last played a game on my PC (Half Life 2 Ep2 & Portal I think! – Does Peggle count actually?) so I was eager to see if PC gaming had moved in the past year.  I was surprised at the results from the spiritual successor to 2007′s Fantasy Wars, Elven Legacy.

The basic story is that a rogue individual has attacked the elves Great Tree and as such the elves spirits can now no  longer be returned to the great whole of the universe.  This is a major blow for the elves I can tell you!  Due to this situation many Eons later after the war had waged long and hard against said demon the demon unleashed it’s soul on the land and poisoned the magic within.  The lands around the attack start to turn to ash and from these infected lands sprung fourth a twisted and mutated human generation.  As the dead rose from the earth the diseased lands started to spread.

All this was of great threat to the elven way of life.  Humans have banded together to to try and quarantine these infected area using their Inquisitional squads.  The elves have sent fourth Gylven to help in this endeavor.   You start the story as Gylven witnesses a powerful mage materialize Sumgam and use a long forgotten ancient elven spell.   The elves were furious that a human could learn and wield such a spell so you are sent fourth to track this mage with the help of your elven brethren and the mysterious Gylven.

Elven Legacy is a turn-based strategy came trading tanks and airplanes for knights and armored eagles.  Is works on the same principles founded in game like Battle Isle back on the Amiga in the 90′s (and a 101 board games before it).  There have been a few attempts to perk the ideas up and by no means are we suggesting your playing a game from the 90′s.

You take control of your elven armies as their commander in chief.  Unit deployment and asset manipulation is the order of the day as you try and fight of squads of  enemies and attempt to capture towns and strongholds held by them.  There are, as you can imagine, a huge selection of unit classes such as Scouts, Knights, Aerial, Archers, Wizards etc.  All units have their own unique qualities to bring to the battle.  Scouts can, for example, pass by enemy units without alerting them.  Knights are large bullish units that charge in to battle but have anger management issues and sometimes just sprint head long into battle at the worst of times.  You have a certain objective for each mission which must be completed – kill x, amass x amount of y that sort of thing as you move through the mission map.  At the completion of each mission you receive a mission completion brief and are awarded a reward level or performance.  Each mission can be selected and performance review when you are on the overall mission map screen.  You are free to go back at any time to re-do a mission BUT (and this is the kicker) if you do that you MUST replay all the levels again after that mission.

Don’t at any point labor under the idea that this is a simple turn-based knock out.  The game play and “lore” runs very deep in this title.  So much so that myself, as a non-player of this genre, found I was struggling a times to keep up with the complexities of the action.  Don’t take that as a negative though as this game was not necessarily aimed as players like myself but more over aimed at the massive and loyal fan base created by the initial game Fantasy Wars.  I have merely scratched the surface in the synopsis of the gameplay as there elements of play are multifaceted.

Graphically Elven Legacy is a mixed bag.  The play areas and units look presentable enough and models make use of Anti-Aliasing to smooth the edges.  The animation sequences are done well but very little “polish” seems to of been applied to the overall aesthetic.  The game is by no means ugly but it is only slightly better than the graphics in say something like Guild Wars – an art style that this titles seems to have aped quiet well (especially in cut scenes) – which has been on release since 2005.  Whilst talking of the cut scenes these do look very nice indeed but this level of details seems to swindle on the battlefield.  As mentioned before the games graphics serve their purpose but not a whole lot more – but then there is little call for particle engines and vertex sharers to be honest! All said and done though the graphics seem to fit well even though they are a little old skool.

The audible level of the game hits the same pitch as the graphics to be honest.  The game has all the elements you would expect and the voice acting is passable for sure.  The spot effects and relevant grunts and groans are all present and correct it just feels like it is lacking a certain “punch” to it.  That said the music in the game is all suitably adequate and fits the genre well.  There were, on occasion, clipping issues with the sound playback.  Certain sounds, especially voice, would be cut off mid flow or just stop all together.  This was never a deal break just a mild annoyance at times – especially in the tutorial levels.

Longevity is an area this title does pick u points as there is a fairly meaty campaign to sink your teeth into that offers a passable narrative that you can tackle in a pseudo non-linear fashion.  Add to this the multiplayer elements which can be either on the same PC, on LAN or over the Internet and you have a crap-ton of game for your money.  The games are always a mine of opportunity to go and do certain things better, or differently.  I can not comment on the multiplayer further as at the time of review we have the final retail code release from the developers but the multiplayer games are not yet available.

Lets also not forget they offer a fairly sizable and powerful mission and character editor to boot – something I will not be delving in to here as if your interested in that sorta thing you need to dig into it more yourself.  The brief hour or so I spent with it revealed it to be a fairly use able and powerful tool that should lend itself well to further creations and will be a great way for people to share their missions over multiplayer.  There are many elements that  I have not even touched on at such as the “perks” system you can use to level up your units.  As you progress, perks are unlocked and earned and these can have effect on your units such as dealing poisonous blows to enemies etc.

You would think that all this game-play for the pretty reasonable sum of around €29.99 can’t be wrong – and you’d be correct.  If your a huge strategy fan looking for a game with implausible amounts of depth that you can sink yourself in to for weeks then this would be a strong recommendation for you.  Even as a gamer who has not really touched strategy gaming for many years it has drawn me in.  This is one of those titles that is better than the sum of it’s parts.  The graphics are OK, the sound is good enough and the story is done well enough to be absorbing BUT put that all together and you do come out with something better.

So to sum up my ramblings I say give it a try.  Strategy fans will love every minute of it I’m sure, as there is a game with a  monumental amount of depth handled with skill by it’s developers.  For everyone else I say certainly mull it over and, if you fancy a change from the endless onslaught of FPSs and other mindles twaddle, you can’t go far wrong with a look at this hidden gem – just be prepared to use your brain for a change.

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