A decade after the First Great War, the final prophecy continues to unfold. Deep within the crevices of the Sacred Lands, the Chosen One has emerged, fated to bring salvation to some and destruction to others.
Braced with renewed faith and newfound conviction, each race must once again take up the sword for the sake of their people and the glory of their God.
Disciples II Gold includes the entire award-winning Disciples II series including Dark Prophecy, all three expansion packs (Guardians of the Light, Servants of the Dark, and Rise of the Elves), as well as new and exciting scenarios. Set in the magical realm of the Sacred Lands, four races--the Empire, the Mountain Clans, the Legions of the Damned, and the Undead Hordes--battle for the destiny of their gods. All of the campaigns and hundreds of hours of gameplay in one adventure package.
This game has been patched to the latest official versions. Disciples II - Rise of the Elves: 3.01, Disciples II Fantasy Pack Patch: 2.02.
Age requirements: ESRB Rating: TEEN with Mild Violence. PEGI Rating: 12+ with Violence.
Minimum system requirements: Windows XP or Windows Vista, 1 GHz Processor (1.4 GHz recommended), 512MB RAM (1 GB recommended), 3D graphics card compatible with DirectX 7 (compatible with DirectX 9 recommended), Mouse, Keyboard.
If you have any experience whatsoever with games such as Master of Magic, Heroes of Might and Magic, or the Warlords series (the original games, not the Battlecry spin-offs) then Disciples 2 will seem quite familiar. However, it has quite a few things going for it that not only produces an easier to learn experience, but provides a breadth of options despite its seemingly simplistic... full review systems.
Like any other game of the sort, Disciples 2 provides you with a capital city, a hero (which you can export to carry across scenarios as he improves) and allows you to explore a map filled with monsters, treasures, and land to be conquered.
What makes these maps unique however, is the incredible atmosphere that exudes from every single pixel within Disciples 2's majestic world. The music is at times haunting, at times beautiful, and typically always carries a low, somewhat soothing (and at times, eerie) tone throughout gameplay. This means Disciples 2 carries none of the crass and obnoxious bass heavy orchestral soundtracks that Fantasy games seem to like so much (I'm looking at you TES, tone it down). Equally beautiful is the terrain and units, Disciples 2 maintains a very dark stylized look, every unit and hero has its own unique personality, and the artwork provided for each unit is very high quality.
Backing up this gorgeous display of aesthetic is an equally impressive combat system, unlike Heroes of Might and Magic, combat in Disciples 2 is carried out by individual units rather than representation by number of mass armies, units will always do a similar amount of damage no matter their health. However, this provides an extra layer of strategy as you cannot simply amass hordes of pathetic units and whittle down your enemy, victory is obtained through careful training and combat of your units. Your soldiers regularly upgrade into stronger variants as they gain experience, what they upgrade into depends on the structures built at your Capital, an Empire (one of the four races present, an additional race is also available in Rise of the Elves) Squire for example, will upgrade into a Knight if the player built a Stable.
There are separate trees of construction available, so picking one upgrade path over another will cut off the other, forcing you to pick and choose strategically based on which you believe will serve you best.
Gameplay is tight and there are very few bugs present, I could only count a few, such as one annoying bug that appeared when playing windowed where a turn would not cease loading until you click on another window and return to the Disciples 2 process, which causes windowed play to be more of a chore than it should be.
Disciples 2 does possess a few problems that prevent it from achieving a 5 star rating in this critique, first off, the AI on any difficult below Hard is incredibly imbecilic, often sending decently leveled heroes with upgraded units straight into powerful Neutral units that tear them up. This wouldn't be a problem if the AI resorted to such stupid tactics rarely, but the AI seems quite inclined to perform such actions repeatedly in a single game, eventually providing little challenge to the player. This would most likely have lowered the score even more if it weren't for the fact that the AI on the harder difficulties is quite intelligent without cheating.
Another apparent problem in Disciples 2 is that there's a small amount of scenarios. While all four races carry length campaigns (labeled "Sagas"), it's disappointing to see only a dozen scenario maps.
These problems don't drag down the whole of Disciples 2 however, and the systems within the game are so well sculpted and polished that the scenarios you do play will be incredibly entertaining.
Worth playing for fans of HoMM, Warlords and MoM, and even for TBS players who would like to enjoy a little fantasy kick.
- Wonderful artworks that reflect the beauty of the 2d graphic (both in the strategy and in the tactical map)
- A very LONG and interesting campaign for different races, with the possibility to bring your hero in the subsequent steps of the plot, taking place in the three expansions.
- A dark and gloomy atmosphere that I personally liked a lot.
- One of the best... full review mechanics and balance I've ever seen in a fantasy turn based strategy game. The tactical side, despite the max 6 units on each side, is incredibly deep and funny to play.
- Aside from the stategic and tactical components, there's an exceptional "managerial" side in which you HAVE TO manage the financial and territorial resources (if you wish to survive).
A golden breeze from a strategy carved with gold.
(by
Goliath)
I remember my first time i played the game I was kinda young to have the patience of a strategy gamer, so I typed the cheat... voila I had the best creeps of my inferno in several battles, but what made me realize that this game was different then other were primarily the unit tactic- though I had the most upgraded creatures that didn't stop a fairly unexperienced computer to wipe... full review me out. The diffrence between the other turna based games (ex. Heroes) that you need to think in a huge scale, meaning
1: 90% of the cases or maps you need at least 4 battle heroes to even have a chance of beating the map or objective. Not like other games where one can be made to grind in front.
2: Also you need to maintain a sizeable army of terraforming heroes otherwise you automatically have lost the game.
3: Because each creature needs substantual amount of xp to level up (heroes too) which means in advance you should know which battles for whom hero are and which not
4: As I wrote earlier even low level creatures in the right tactic can cause serious damages (battle placement & magic effect are cruicial)
5: Usually mines and crystals (needed to perform spells) are scarse troughtout the map so believe me when i say that you'll claw though hell for each one.
6: Again unlike other TBS, heroes cannot start to carry artifacts, tomes, orbs ect. from lvl 1, its earned as a level up skill, choose wisely.
Every novice gamer will be totaly scared when he rads this but i assure you the interface is very light, clean and helpful , it takes from 30 min to 1 hour max to fully undestand all the processes. The engine is one of the best from what I've seen from TBS games in world map play its a quite decent 2D color, but the true beauty comes into battles great animation, the spells eyecandy is colorfully satisfaing. As I recall there is no backround music at all, but the fx and ambient sound's are quite realistic and doesn't bother even after continus play. To end this review I would say that this is trully a unique TBS game, it's a must for people with turn based genre in their blood for the others this is a passionate game with a lot of patience, where action before desicion is not an option. Behold Disciples II !
EyeNixon)
Nilth)
Goliath)