Disciples 3: Renaissance Review

Disciples 2 was a good game. It took a familiar recipe from the turn-based smash-hit Heroes 3 and then successfully shaped it into its own brand of fantasy-themed strategy goodness. It was one of those games I could literally play for days and not get bored. The dark, gothic style artwork and the generally engaging turn-based strategy mechanics worked brilliantly - not to mention the fact that the game was really tough, which meant you had to think several moves ahead, carefully accumulating your recourses and, of course, managing to stave off waves of enemies on the world map. We've waited for Disciples 3: Renaissance, expecting a step forward both for the franchise and the decaying genre of turn-based strategies and, boy, the folks at Russian studio Akella sure took their time to wrap up the project. We were eager to see the results.

The story in Disciples 3 depicts a struggle between several factions -- humans, demons, elves and dwarves -- in the land of Nevendaar. Desperate times have struck the Empire, as The Highfather abandons his efforts to help the people. In a miraculous turn of events, a star falls on the border of the Empire and the people, naturally, saw it as a sign of hope. This crucial event attracted the attention of all factions and now each and every one of them sent their heroes to find it. The star turns out to be a girl named Inoele, who was regarded as a mysterious messenger from the Heavens. Bethrezen, the Dark Overlord who still hungers for his former power, wants to posses whatever powers this heavenly messenger might have.

Do I need these guys or what?

That's a pretty huge bat-thingy.

Naturally, you begin the journey fighting alongside Lambert, the human noble -a courageous warrior and supreme commander of the Imperial Guard. Players are free to choose any of the available races, although the game emphasizes that you play the campaigns in a certain order to keep the flow of the storyline.

The world map in Disciples 3 maintains the same turn-based mechanics of the earlier iterations in the strategy series (yep, the same HoMM-style mechanics we all know and appreciate). Oddly enough, it still works very well. You explore the map, fight off enemies and try to grab recourses in the process. In this case, you'll need gold and stone to improve your Capital city and upgrade units. Also, you'll need to gather the several types of mana required for using water-based, fire-based and earth-based magic. Acquiring these won't be a problem, because there are usually plenty of resources scattered throughout the area.

The first few hours of Disciples 3 were, unfortunately, a great disappointment. The battles lack the kind of excitement and challenge we remember from Disciples 2 (as well as games like HoMM). Each hero character and unit has its own melee, ranged or magic-based skills to employ on the battlefield. Trouble is, the fighting becomes dull very quickly. Skill and powers aren't in short supply, so that's not the real problem here. Implementing these skills in combat wasn't done right, which is why a majority of the battles we fought felt too easy. We got through most of them without even using any of the special abilities of the heroes and units. In games like this, it's always of question of balance. And I must say, even that didn't come across as much of a problem, because the developers have given each faction a satisfying range of skills to counter characters and units from opposing races. What really bothered me is that after only 5-6 battles I had the urge to skip every enemy encounter. Like I said, the skills are there, the unit variety is there and even a few good concepts to enhance battle tactics were thrown in - such as segments on the battlefield that can boost unit defense or augment magic, melee or ranged attacks. Even so, each fight can be won with very little effort and that certainly deemphasizes the importance of strategy on the battlefield. Basically, you don't need to bother much with positioning units, choosing skills or powers; just rush your opponent, chop down his healers and ranged units and that's pretty much all it takes to win any battle. I'm serious. This game is just too easy.

Outsmarting the AI is no problem, even for unskilled players. Enemy armies are too dimwitted to provide a decent challenge, both on the tactical map and the world map. This became apparent after only a few minutes of play. When you're exploring the world map, the enemy almost always rushes to meet your forces head on, even if its units are significantly weaker than yours. Changing the difficulty helps somewhat, but it won't make the battles exciting in any way.

On top of a disappointing AI, the game suffers from a number of annoying bugs. One issue I remember distinctly is having to reload my saves because the game would refuse to display buildings, units and heroes in my Capital. At times, you can't even enter your Capital, because for some mysterious reason, the game tosses into a completely different city on the map, which doesn't even belong to your race (!?!). Other bugs include stuff like the game freezing when you activate the 'Quick Battle' mode during combat.