Etherlords 2

I still have both of the Etherlords games on disc, and I still play them. My original review was too long, so here is a bullet-point version: Pros 1) Heroes, units, spells, and battle scenes are rendered completely in 3D. When you play a unit card, that 3D unit appears on the battlefield and is completely animated. I can understand why this has not been done since, that I am aware of, because it is so much cheaper and easier to crank out a bunch of 2D cards for a 2D game, but, after playing either Etherlords games, it will leave you wistfully imagining how much better all CCGs could be if they were all rendered the same way. 2) The five races in the game have very distinct and interesting looks, play-styles, and strategies. You will play with all of them during the course of the campaign, and never feel like you are just repeating an earlier race with a re-skin. The races are all well thought-out, and their units and spells always stay true to the nature of each group. 3) The SP campaign is decently long, interesting, and challenging the first time through. It can be frustrating, because it is more of a puzzle game rather than a "always just play your obviously "best" cards". There is no one deck or strategy that will get you past all of the fights. Some fights will take a bit of trial and error to figure out. 4) The deck building/management tools and interface are very straight-forward and easy to use. Cons 1) There is no MP, and no "random map" SP battles like in the first one. The studio released the game before it was finished, with a place for random map and MP play but no content there. When they later released the modding tools, everyone found out why. The scripting system for the game is so complicated and unintuitive that nobody can make it work right. 2) The lack of random and MP play makes the game repetitive after the first run-through (though I still play it). 3) The studio is still in business, but there's still no Etherlords 3.

Etherlords was good, but Etherlords 2 is great! Nival's team has preserved the fundaments of the first game, discarding most of its faults, and adding a dose of freshness -- a recipe for a timeless masterpiece. I'm still dreaming of a 3rd chapter.

One of the best mixes of TBS, RPG and Collecting Card Game genres. It is a bit too reliant on random like any CCG, but still provides a lot of challenging and tactical gameplay.

A few years back I tried this, and got nowhere with it. Uninstalled and forgot about it. But I've just had a second try, and this time got somewhere. In fact I managed to play all campaigns all the way through (with some use of cheats - which I have instructions on how to make work in the forum, don't go off internet cheat sites, they all give the wrong info). The game is mostly duels between two "heroes", spells line up randomly from a "deck" of 16 spells. You must decide on the deck loadout with respect to what spells the opposition has in his deck. You will *seriously* need to think hard about what to pick! It will make all the difference! You then need to work out how and when to use those spells for there maximum effect. And a good does of good old luck comes into it too - dependent on what order those spells come into play! The game rules are so simple, yet cause such complex strategy, and are hard to master. Rather like chess! The only drawbacks are high doses of repitition (but don't most games suffer that?) and some small compatability issues, GOG have not really kept up on their "it works we promise" claim with this. Fair enough GOG have lots of other more pressing issues to deal with, but hey.

I actually didn't play Etherlords II until well after it released. I think I found it looking around for solid PC card games. Etherlords II is an open world-ish RPG, but instead of combat taking using the powers and weapons of party members, it takes place using a deck of cards you've constructed. There are a variety of different "races" in the game, and each race has its own campaign. Each race has access to different cards, although there may be a small amount of overlap (I can't recall). If a battle is lost, it can immediately be tried again, and certain battles require specific strategies to prevail. Although the final boss of the game is absurd, I became very engaged in learning what type of decks were wielded by various enemies, and how I could most effectively combat them. Etherlords II, in a way, reminds me of a single-player Magic the Gathering. Luckily it's not as expensive as Magic.