Elven Legacy
It’s hard to pinpoint exactly where Elven Legacy’s insane difficulty spike occurs. It’s somewhere around the fifth mission, as soon as the orcs show up. It starts off the same as any previous mission, a small skirmish against units of orcs and goblins, with you leading your army (capped at ten units) forward. Then that fatal click happens, the press of the ‘end turn’ button that signifies the beginning of something awful. In a flash, 50,000 orc, goblin and troll units emerge from all angles. You stare in horror as a seemingly limitless number of enemies swarm from every direction, casually taking out entire units in a single turn, with absolutely nothing you can do to stop it. Pretty soon it isn’t just orcs but spectral hounds, demons, dragons, zeppelins and ogres joining the fray. One of your mission objectives is always to keep certain heroes alive. It’s entirely feasible for a hero to go from full health to instant death (and subsequent mission failure) in the course of a single opposing turn, while you’re powerless to do anything. This happens a lot.
When you eventually do scrape through mission five, you’ll be left with so few units and so little gold that re-manning your army is impossible. Thus you’re totally unequipped for the next mission, essentially ending the game. Since the game offers no option to return to earlier missions to grind for gold without losing any progress, the only way to overcome this is to restart the entire campaign from scratch (or reload an earlier save) and hope that you can lose fewer units next time. This may be the norm for seasoned TBS players, but as a beginner, in a game supposedly aimed at all playing abilities, this reviewer found such demands unacceptable. There is a second campaign to unlock which I can’t obtain, and bonus missions which are accessed by getting gold medals, which is all but impossible. The game just does not offer what the developers claim. It’s completely inaccessible and ridiculously unforgiving, and I’m not ashamed to say that
I dislike Elven Legacy purely because I am not very good at it, which is a problem when the game is supposedly intended to be accessible to all.
If you’re a hardcore turn-based strategy fan, feel free to disregard this review and seek out the opinion of someone more schooled in the genre. But if, like me, you’re a novice in the genre and have been taken in by Elven Legacy’s promise of a gentle welcome, then keep well away. You’ll only end up getting hurt.
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It’s brave of them to go turn based in the RTS dominated world of strategy gaming. Good move, and kudos on the attempt; even if it is a wee bit wishy washy.
This game sounds like a challenge – just what I’m looking for! I must admit that I’m a hardcore TBS player. And your review just sold a game. It’s no fun to zip through a game without a few set backs. You learn from previous play and move forward with a new strategy on the next attempt. You didn’t mention that if you can save after each level, which is what I would do to help avoid starting from scratch. But sometimes, starting over is the only option to be ready for a level five. Thanks for the review and I look forward to playing Eleven Legacy very soon.
Bob: Glad the review hasn’t put you off. I think a TBS veteran will probably love it. The problem was, as a TBS n00b, I didn’t really appreciate how to micromanage my army in the opening stages, so by the time I’d reached the trickier levels I didn’t have anywhere near enough men or gold to be able to progress. If I’d reloaded an old save I’d have been reloading one from pretty early on anyway, so restarting would’ve been simpler.
This is one of those cases where I really hope people read the review text before looking at the score I’ve given, because it’s only worth 5/10 in the context I’ve reviewed it. The game was flawed for me as a beginner, but does that make it a bad game? Only if you’re a beginner.
I’d certainly like to revisit Elven Legacy one day, maybe after having played some more accessible TBSes, to see how I get on with it then.
Just read your review now, and I have to admit you’re right about a lot of things. The game is indeed difficult for unsuspecting beginners. While I’m not a beginner, I definitely don’t consider myself a TBS veteran either, but anyway I’ve finished the game, bonus missions and all, with a gold rating and without losing or recruiting one Elf unit (main missions only, always lost most of my troops on bonus ones) all the way on easy difficulty.
Before I got this game, I’d already played the first part, “Fantasy Wars”. While I couldn’t really finish it (stuck myself like you did, no army or money), I liked the concept and decided to try Elven Legacy, hoping it would be better. And it was. Much better, simpler, and–imagine this–easier!
So I think it’s not a bad game if you knew what to expect. There’s not one impossible situation in all the missions which you can’t overcome with some tactical flexibility or reloading.
For those looking for a challenging war TBS, and don’t mind its lack of story or sense, it’s a nice game to try–if not always very nice. For beginners, run!
HellCold: All Gold ratings? I think you do yourself a disservice when you say you’re not a TBS veteran.
Some of the Gold criteria was insanely hard I thought… finish a massive mission in ten turns? Did you go back and replay them to get those ratings? I agree with the rest of your post too, I’m sure I’ll enjoy it a lot more once I go back to it and restart the game, knowing how to tackle it.
I believe the mission you are talking about is the one where the Hexer must open the gate but must wait for 3 turns to do so. During that time you must fend off the onslaught of orcs from 3 different locations.
The key to this game is making sure you capture as many cities as you can and not losing too many of your units. Early game play sets up the later game play.
I had to replay this mission several times before I figured out how to win it.
Take it slow. Clear the initial areas without using any magic. You need to keep all area spells for the onslaught at the end. Also make sure you re-heal or re-hire your units before going into the next area. This is done by returning your units to a city you are in control of and using the Recruite button. This will return your unit too maximum. During battle if you rest you only replenish those who are wounded.
When I got to the gate I set up my units so all my melee units were protecting the heroes, hexer and my ranged units. My last step was to bring in Hexer to the spot to initiate the bringing down of the wall. This is what triggers the release of units from the three orc cities.
From this point forward concentrate on using area spells to do damage to as many orcs as you can. Use the healing spell to replenish your units before they are killed.
Doing this I was able to win without losing any units.
Hope this helps.
The first mission Orcs show up is “remnants of the horde” which is the 4th story mission. Being a classic SRPG, your party status plays an important role in how easy or difficult the game becomes. If you start off on the wrong foot and choose poor skills, let units die, and miss good artifacts, you will find the game become progressively harder until it’s more or less impossible to get a Gold rating on Hard. On the other hand, if you do the opposite and kick lots of ass, the game will become easier for you.
Anyway, AOEs and magic in general is overpowered because it has infinite range and does a ton of damage.
Getting gold on every Hard mission is certainly possible if you play smart.
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