Lords of Magic: Special Edition

This game was easily one of my favorite buys back in the day. The gameplay was balanced, the visuals were very good for the time and the use of both rts and turnbased elements was one of the more unique inclusions of the industry at the time. Though admittedly the rts portion was pretty weak the game was overall a huge success in terms of gameplay, replayability, and enjoyment. You choose a faction (each with it's own little differences) and a Hero to start with, as you adventure you are able to capture cities and improve cities, build armies (as well as new heroes), train troops, research spells, spawn legendary creatures, trade with your allies and neutral parties, as well as wreak havoc on your enemies. Even for today it's not a bad game, just dated, but definitely a GoG!

I bought this game some time ago, because I like to collect classics, at first what to expect was unknown to me but after short time of fun with game I knew it's definetly worth attention. Story is set in a fantasy universe and not much different from any other fantasy strategy game. Golgoth, evil death god want to conquer world of Urak. You have to choose one of seven other world's elementals to prevent God of Death from ruling the world. At least Sierra menaged to pull story of and gave it nice feel. Game is turn based, played from an isometric view with using a mouse. Click on your soldiers, then on place where you want to go or enemy want to attack. Nice & simple enough. You even don't have to read manual to learn how to play because buttons on screen are self-explanatory. he gameplay consists of resource management, force development and combat with the aim of extending your domination of the land. You can make many choices and many different things can be done in each game. I mentioned ealier that there is seven elemnts for choose to play as, also after defeating Balkoth you have additional eighth side. When starting new game you have choice to play as mage, warriot or thief so you basically have 28 combinations. Missions can be finished in different ways, depending on your choice, fight or use diplomacy. There is also dozens of weapons to wind or find and collect. Graphic is detailed, at least at battle screens, with many variants of flora and highly detailed soldiers. Graphic in overview, when you are pointing your army when to go is less detailed but it defends itself good anyway. Music changes, depending what you are doing at the moment, nice gente music while building or little dramathic durring battle. Voices in game are also included, when peoples in buildings or soldiers talk to you but their repeatibility sometimes could be annoying... I don't have to say this game is 'have to buy' for any fantasy strategies fan but if you don't like strategies I suggest to consider buying it and give it a try. You can be very suprised.

Apparently, many people like to compare Lords of Magic to a number of games, particularly Master of Magic, Heroes of Might and Magic and Lords of the Realm II. It depends strongly on individual opinion wether LoM actually compares to any of these, and I got my own opinion, which some might disagree. Lord of Magic probably compares best to Heroes of Might and Magic. In both games you move heroes around, who carry troops with them. You don't get to build new towns if I well remember, only conquer existing ones. Town development and resource gathering are VERY similar in both games, based on buildings that bring regional advantages and "mines" you capture. In choosing your faction you also determine your starting types of troops. Lords of Magic is much like Master of Magic in many aspects, although the games feel very different from each other. LoM has much improved graphics and somewhat more content to look for. MoM might be simpler and easier to pick up. Notable similarities are the research of spells that dictate your power in the game, heroes management and empowerment (yes, MoM had heroes too, remember?), and, in a lesser degree, troops management. Both games agree with the concept of mage-overlords (the players). I really don't see why everyone compares this to Lords of the Realm though: despite having real time tactical combat, LotR focuses on resources to build troops (ie. mining iron to build swords), while on LoM your resources go into town development; tactical combat in LotR is much more tactical and focused on fortifications types; LotR has no magic; LotR has no heroes; LotR generally can be beaten much faster and is basically much easier; and so on and on. The only similarity I can think of is that battles are real time, and towns are static (you can't build new ones). The original release of LoM came with lots of bugs and it played really slow, particularly due to long loading times, but also in between turns. The loading screen really got irritating over time. I'd definitely give this game 3 stars in its original release; fortunately Special Edition addressed most bugs. The expansion also adds some replay value, which is great. Otherwise is pretty much more of the same. Anyway, flaws notwithstanding, it's still a very good game, one that I'm willing to replay right away, being a strategy and fantasy fan myself.

Out of the GOG catalogue (as of May 2010) Lords of Magic is the only game I've played before. I know, sad, right? Anyway, this game was freakin' awesome back when I first played it in 2002. The perfect blend of turn based strategy and RPG elements blew my mind, and the mixture is still sweet to this day. The campaigns in the Legends of Urak mode are quite varied, and are all worth a shot. It's a highly strategic game with a high emphasis on leveling up your units, and if they ever did a remake, it would be awesome. That being said, the game hasn't aged too well. Not even the nostalgia can hide the clunkiness of the was-good-then-but-sucks-now controls. The battle music is kind of catchy, but it gets repetitive quickly, and the voice acting is downright horrible; you'll be happier turning the sound off and listening to your own music. Factions are mostly balanced, but there are some that are clearly better than others (Air freakin' sucks). The tutorials don't expain much, so you're better off just messing around on easy mode until you understand it all. If you're a fan of strategy and role playing games and you're looking for a great hybrid of the two, I'd say give Lords of Magic a go. Some of its flaws hold it back in the modern day, but I wish that developers would try to make more games like this. The premise is sound, but the execution falters a bit, so although this game isn't exactly a "timeless classic," it's still a good value at $5.99.