Songs of Conquest is blatantly in the same vein of the Heroes of Might & Magic games, but unfortunately it fails to improve on them. (I can't comment on any story or campaign aspects - please check other reviews if that's what you're looking for. I've always preferred to jump into the Skirmish mode to play random maps as that's what interest me) I really enjoy the HoMM gameplay pattern - all turn-based, with larger world map turns and smaller turn-based tactical battles. Songs of Conquest follows the HoMM gameplay pattern and that's great. But SoC doesn't really add anything, and even misses out on a lot of opportunities. I'll start with the graphics. They're dated pixel art graphics. They're very readable and even enjoyable, but nothing that wows the user. And unfortunately, in the world map, there's nothing to make things you can interact with distinct from everything else. Minor items like camps that can give gold and other resources are completely indistinguishable from random flavor art on the world map. This isn't a huge issue since you can hover your mouse over anything to see what it is, but it's frustrating that you can't immediately tell what's important and what's not. There are four factions, but they don't feel distinct or important. I've played a few games with three of the four factions, and none of my games felt distinct form the others. There are VERY slight advantages or disadvantages, but those come down to my initial hero choice (eg, range vs melee), NOT my faction. Most disappointing of all is that the magic system is very disappointing. The biggest innovation that Songs of Conquest brings to the genre is how mana is generated (each unit generates a specific type of mana when it gets its turn). But the spells are, frankly, boring. If you build your entire army around a single mana type, you get better spells, but they're not worth the effort. Nice to see another game in the genre, but Songs of Conquest fails to add anything interesting.
