After playing through both campaigns available at the time of writing this review, one pvp game and a few skirmishes for a total of over 65h in the game, I can say that I thoroughly enjoyed it. - The gameplay: The game is clearly inspired by the HoMM games, and some differences can be seen in the (faq)[https://www.songsofconquest.com/faq#faq-gameplaylore], but SoQ is its own unique self with new mechanics and ideas, and yet with the same addictive concept of "one more turn". - The artstyle: I've seen some people complain about the choice of pixel-art, but I think it works well. The animations are smooth, the design of wielders (equivalent of HoMM heroes) neat, and there is a variety of creatures from different factions. During my pvp match, I spend one turn of my enemy just watching the idle animation of my wielder. - The multiplayer: Without any doubt HoMM3 was not a balanced game. Here, the devs actually try to make sure there is more than one winning strategy, and they are quick to adjust the meta. In less than 9 days from alpha launch, we had a patch nerfing two major cheesy strats. There are currently no simultaneous turn, which means you sometimes need to wait doing nothing, but I believe the issue is being looked into. - The lore: To me, the available campaigns were very involving, and I cannot wait to find out more about the world of SoQ (which, for me, was not the case in HoMM). - The alpha: The game is still in development, so bugs can sometimes be encountered. They are generally not game breaking and haven't prevented me from enjoying the game, and the patches come out frequently, but if that would set you off, then perhaps it's better if you wait for the full release. - Linux support: Though no official support is provided, the game runs fine through wine. The only issue I noticed was a black screen during cutscenes, which I imagine could be fixed with some wine tweaking, but I just found the right files and watched them in VLC. The Marsh provides.
