Why, oh why, would you make an "age of wonders" game mod instead of just remastering "master of magic"? Just MoM with bug fixes, a map editor, being able to choose and customize opponents, and multiplayer. Would pay $50 for that. This is a SLOW age of wonders mod. Who asked for this? The developers vanity put ahead of what the fan base has been begging for for decades. I remember each time someone had the IP from I believe Atari and wait years each time for them to just lose it (like with *cringe* ELEMENTAL). It finally happened and it is a knock off of a knock off a spiritual successor. Just, god damned why!? I would play age of wonders or lord's of magic if I wanted to play age of wonders or lord's of magic. I hope someday before I die someone finally bothers to just remake MoM and leave their egos at the door.
Most none of the review on this game are in any way reflective of this version of the game. They are reviewing an entirely different version. I am accusing the reviewers of not even having played the game.
The dungeons are an endless pointless, worthless, uninteresting, sprawl without any relevance to the meaning or direction or the setting of the game. I finished 20. Not a single one had a point. 98% of the game is absolutely misdirected unfulfilling filler. Everything is the same. Just different arrangements of being completely pointless. Same floors, same ceilings, same enemies. None of it for anything. None of it means anything. Nothing at the end. Just, directionless rooms that are filled with things.
I know price is not to be mentioned in reviews, but this is a product, products have prices, and value of purchase can sometimes only be fairly assessed that way. Worth at most $4. If undead, witchhunter, globadier, and mercenary were all just released as one damn expansion instead of a half dozen dlc's for maybe $12 combined, okay. This is just awful. If it was a full game or expansion, sure, I could see leaving on price in the review. This is pain in the ass cash grab overpriced micro transaction crap, and we should be allowed to call a spade a spade. This is not a game. It is not an expansion to a game really. It is a product sold within a game and it should be considered fair to rate and judge it as such.
With 100% personal bias, I would call this game a 4. More honestly, the story missions are absolute trash in design. Some absolutely god awful and so specific how to win with a loss easily putting you back 5-14 hours of play, and are god awfully tedious in the worse way. The normal missions demand of wyrd stone collecting NEVER just lets you enjoy the damn game. I get some of the idea behind it, but everything is a chore jut to be a chore to create a chore before you do the awful chore. I really enjoy some of it, but for most people just avoid. The unit upgrade system is extremely deep and satisfying. Though all teams are plagued in some way with classic gamesworkshop cheap stupid limitations and wackyness for the sake of being lame and faux creative. The game does a whole lot right, but damn is it miserable to enjoy. Maps are also a misery to get around and needlessly huge just to create 6 turns of walking toward each other. Again, I cannot stress this enough, so many story missions feel like they were never play tested are made by complete trolls mad at the company.
I have played better flash games. You can go your whole life without this game's story, and it won't be any less enriched. Slow camera, which is unnecessary. Boring elemental themes. Uninteresting units, lore, and world. Baby's first by the numbers fantasy world. I have to ask the everyone working on this 90's web browser quality game, why was this made and who was it for? Like, artistically, why did you need to put this in the world? You invoke the name of so many games in your adds to try for the grossest false equivalencies. If compared against any other $15 game on this one site, it does not even hold up as mediocre.
