Review

I'm all for quaint games, particularly quaint turn-based games. I actually liked both Deadlock games, if you believe that. But damn if Disciples didn't turn me off and turn me off quick. You won't hear me complain about the fixed (low)resolution graphics, nor the utter lack of resource management. To the contrary, I actually liked the style of the graphics (if not the resolution), and am always interested in different approaches to resource management. No, what rubbed me wrong was the combat. How can a game that centers around the advancement and preservation of a small number of units make it almost utterly impossible to retreat from a battle and also simultaneously make it difficult, inefficient and time-consuming to predict the capability of enemy companies? Maybe I just fundamentally missed something. It's possible, since the manual is about as comprehensive as the coupons that come with your pizza delivery. Furthermore, the actual combat itself is incredibly constrained, and the problem is that the degree of constraint is very awkward. It sits in this middle ground that makes it neither very fun nor very challenging. Prior to combat, you arrange who is in each of your groups, or companies, and also their formation, which isn't really a formation but rather just who is in the front and who is in the back. This is the first example of the awkwardness. Guess who always goes in the front? [ding] Righto, the melee units. And who goes in the back? [ding] Right again! The ranged units and magic users go in the back. This is the degenerate policy and I couldn't conceive of any reason to violate it, which begs the question: why make me do this pointless management as a player? When your company actually gets in a fight, you're then tasked with the drudgery of having to tell each of your units whom to attack each turn. Just reading that you might say, "that doesn't sound like drudgery". It is. It's not the opportunity for tactics that you might think. As best as I could tell, the outcome of combat encounters is determined almost entirely by the capabilities of the two companies involved. This is as you would expect, and didn't bother me. What bothered me is that despite the fact that combat outcome is essentially predetermined based upon who's involved, I still had to suffer through the turns, conducting the micromanagement of the fight. Game design tip: If what the player is doing doesn't affect the course of the game, don't make them do it. Sure, I had some marginal influence of the outcome of combat, but only in the way the person who shuffles a deck of cards affects the outcome of a hand of poker. In the end, I think I would have been much happier playing Disciples if it had just resolved company combat for me, and left me to create companies, govern cities, and strategize about coordinating control of the game map. Hmmm... sounds like Deadlock.

Apparently the stand-out aspects of this turn-based strategy game are the story and some role-playing elements. I don't know how I'm supposed to take this seriously when the voice-acting is the most atrocious I've ever encountered. It's ridiculous to the point that it's (almost) funny. The mountain clan lords sound like they're doing improv and joking about fantasy stereotypes. Besides, if I want my itch scratched with story-telling and role-playing, I'll play something from Black Isle. A decent story should be required for turn-based games, but it shouldn't be something that you point out as compensating for weak strategic gameplay.

Holy Moses, how bad is this interface? I'll tell you: there is no hotkey for "end turn". My priorities are probably more whacked than those of your average Joe Gamer, but not having hotkeys, let alone customizable hotkeys, is like a 3D shooter not having strafe. Sure, it's tolerable... for about 5 minutes. It's obvious that Strategy First wanted to accommodate newbies with the interface, and kudos to them for all of the tooltip pop-ups, but they can't just neglect the need for eventual efficiency with the interface. There are, all told, 11 hotkeys. One of these is [ALT-F4] for exiting the game. This is actually listed as a keyboard shortcut in the manual. Why they left out "double-click the desktop icon" as a shortcut to starting the game is beyond me.

Ultimately, I couldn't shake the feeling that everything redeeming about Disciples is done better, much better, in the later HOMM games. Eventually I'll get around to playing one of them, and if I'm dead wrong, I'll come back here and apologize. Maybe I'll also give Disciples 2 a peek, to see if by some chance I'm not allergic to it like I am its predecessor.