Back in 1996 I got my hands on Fallen Haven Demo, the demo of a game developed by I-Magic, and it was a wonderful experience! Fallen Haven has two types of gameplay: Strategic and Tactical. Strategic is when you develop your base, grow your army, in general all the administrative part, while Tactical is either when you attack your enemy or you get attacked by them. Unlike other strategy games, your base and your enemy's base(s) are situated on different maps, and you use a ship to transport troops from map to map when you attack or relocate. Make sure you build artilleries as early as possible, since they're vital to your attack force. I remember getting beaten by the AI in the demo because when I was a kid I had no clue I could build equivalent tanks to what he had, so I was unaware I could fight back his artillery with mine. The game has a set of unique mechanics that were neither used before, nor after, and it is what makes it unique. Graphics might look outdated, but by God, it looked wonderful on my old CRT monitor! It deserves all 5 stars!
I will start by saying I very much love turn based games, regardless of the genre. I started playing ToME hoping I will find another favorite, but this was not the case. While class selection is wide, characters are complex and can grow in various ways depending on what you want to do, the gameplay is clunky at best, you just click erratically and bump into enemies along the way. You also find things to pick up, but you have to right click and then click "Pick Up", which slows the gameplay even more. Now, I expect my turn-based games to be slow, in the sense hey'll allow me to take my time before making a decision, but not to impede gameplay and prevent fluency. I simply couldn't get into this game, no matter how much I tried. Part of the downside was also the fact that it started in 4K automatically even though my screen is 1080p, so I could only see a part of the game screen and had to reach the menu and change the resolution (luckily the part of the screen I could see contained the menu as well). On the other side, the game has plenty of customization options both in terms of gameplay/character, as well as in options, how to run it, how to make it look and so on. That is a plus, I guess. But in the end, where therețs no fluency in gameplay there is no fun in doing it.
