izigame.me

EDIT: Updated review after 39 hours of play.
The more I play this game, the more I have come to believe that it is at heart a RPG with heavy 4x elements.
Like a RPG such as Neverwinter Nights, there is a known game world with fixed cities and deep, well established lore and units, spells, etc. You choose a class and then play through the story that is presented in this fixed world. There are multiple ways to finish the game that has procedural elements and you do quests and gain in power to face the story threat (Circle mages in this case). You have hero companions that have their own companion quests (I’m doing one right now).
Once you finish the story, you can choose a new class (or customize your own) and then play the story again in the same world from a different perspective. In my mind, it’s a RPG/4x hybrid like we haven’t seen before and it’s fairly brilliant, imo. I think this may be why some folks going in expecting a pure 4x are disappointed or confused. It’s actually something new.
ORIGINAL REVIEW
I’m currently 16 hours into my initial play-through (Artificer) and although I’m doing fairly well, I still feel somewhat weak overall. I have 2 apprentices and a hero and 2 and a half armies. My hero has a couple of tier 2 units in it but all the rest are still tier 1. I just managed to clear a bridge being blocked (by a tier 2 army) with an apprentice (with tier 1 units). I just moved my tower for the first time (really cool mechanic) and have set up shop near the Shaper’s Secret tower.
As in most tactical games like this, combined arms are key. In that bridge battle, my army had 2 melee, an archer, a shaman to heal and the apprentice can raise a demon as another throwaway melee. It costs him two stacks of bleed to call the demon but he got the Cleanse ability on one of his level ups so now he can clear the bleed in the same turn that he calls the demon. Enemies really hate that demon so he makes for a really valuable meat-shield while my ranged (archers, shaman, apprentice) units are firing away. I also stuck a spider web glyph on my archers so they can web melee enemies in place on hit so they can’t get near me until their buddies are dead. I love the tactical diversity you can have with this.
Overall, this game is so great. At 16 hours into an AoW3 game, I’d be in mop-up mode. In this game, I feel like I’m hanging on by a thread still. I love how the quests and accomplishments you have to achieve before advancing further in power serve as a gate to regulate what typically becomes a mid-game rush and then a tedious end-game slog to kill everything with your OP stack or two. This feels completely different and compelling at all times.
There is so much to learn and do in the game it’s just amazing. It’s so different from other 4X games I’ve played in many ways and I love it for that. It’s a breath of originality in the genre and very welcome. I was initially worried that a single map wouldn’t make for much in the way of replay value but I now think I was wrong there. This is not a game you can just cruise to victory in your very first run and I love it for that. The map is also absolutely huge and I’ve only uncovered a tiny fraction of it so far. I look forward to learning the ins and outs of all the mechanics, spells, tower abilities, etc. and playing as the other classes and customizing my own class.
To sum up, this game may not be for everybody but it certainly is for me. I love it.