fantasy

I am a newcomer to this series, having (finally) heard of it by recommendation of some acquaintances. Seeing as how this 'expansion pack' also includes the entire original Disciples 2, it was pretty clear that this is the one to get.

The game in itself is very well designed, engaging, and exciting. The latter observation is quite significant, since I'm not overly fond of turn based games due to the fact that many of them lack this trait. Despite the fact that you can take all day to make your decisions, Disciples 2 does make the action seem like... well... action. This is at least partly due to the nifty animated battle movements and the surprisingly nice 2-D graphics, but is largely a result of an excellent interface and compelling story.

The game basics are very easy to pick up, and after the tutorial and a brief glance at the manual, it's not a problem to just dive in. You start by choosing a 'lord,' which grants you a set of capabilities (e.g. the warrior lord's units regenerate health). You create parties by buying a leader (first one is free) and hiring units to join them. Aside from the usual moving of groups and securing resources, you have to make critical choices in unit upgrades and spell research. These can easily make or break a mission (termed 'quests' in Disciples) and result in a rather lengthy spate of replaying (or cheating).

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of Disciples is the various races' units, which have significantly different capabilities. This isn't Alpha Centauri or Imperialism, where everyone can deploy the same stuff. The Undead, for example, have several units that are immune to weapon attacks but are expensive and very susceptible to magic attack. The Empire has superior healers, the Mountain Clans are generally tougher, and all of the Legion's leaders can fly. The balance is excellent despite these differences, and it adds replay value to scenarios since you must employ significantly different strategies with each race.

The single play campaign includes a saga of about 8 missions for each of the four races, plus several scenarios that tie into the plot. Aside from a few briefing movies, most of the story takes place via dialogue popups ingame. This might seem a bit dull compared to cinematic-packed games like Warcraft 3, but it gets the point across nonetheless. Multiplay capabilities include 'hotseat,' which lets you take turns on the same PC, internet, and LAN games.

Now, about that expansion. The new elven race includes several units from the original game, plus a slew of new ones (including, of course, new leaders and a thief). The elven strength is in its archers and superior leader move points. Elven healers are also nearly as capable as the Imperial ones, and have the ability to ward the party. The elves use a new type of mana- grove- to power their spells.

The campaign is longer than any of the original ones, but not as well done. Some of the maps are enormous, and two missions in particular are extremely long. The story is somewhat perplexing, and a bit less imaginative and believable than the original quest line. For the sake of avoiding spoilers, I won't go into any further details. The written dialogue is also full of grammatical errors. Someone seems to have fired the editor.

Despite its flaws, I enjoyed the expansion. It was quite challenging at times, and the new race certainly adds flavor to the game. It really is a great game at that, and an immensely good value. Any RPG fan can appreciate Disciples 2, even if they aren't particularly engaged by turn-based games.

I was a bit surprised that I didn't like this expansion pack as much as the previous two. All the reviews I'd read said that this one was better than the others. They gave their primary reason as being that this game gives you a new race to play with new characters and new magic, while the other expansion packs only add scenarios to the original. Well, yes, "Rise of the Elves" does add a new playable race (the Elves)with eight new scenarios in their saga, whereas "Guardians of the Light" and "Servants of the Dark" merely add three new scenarios to the sagas for the existing two Good and Evil races, respectively. But, if you add up the numbers, that's merely eight scenarios in this expansion pack versus six in each of the other expansion packs. The price is cheap, but like the other expansion packs, the play is too short.

A bigger drawback to this expansion pack is that I just don't like the Elves. Essentially, they're evil. Since the Undead and the Legions from the original game are evil and I don't mind playing them, I guess I have to explain a bit. The Undead and Legions KNOW they're evil and behave accordingly. The Elves THINK they're good but BEHAVE like they're evil. Even worse, in the early scenarios, you play the game striving for what seem like good goals and then as you're about to achieve them, the game takes over and turns them to evil. This happens repeatedly and is unsettling. You feel like you have no control over your own gameplay.

Another problem is that the scenarios aren't very consistent in their length and difficulty. Most of them, especially the early ones, are so short and easy that you're lucky to level your hero even once. But, then you hit the final scenario and it's LOOOONG. Way too long. I had leveled my hero three times and maxed her out and I wasn't half way through the map. The last five hours of the game turned into a tedious slog of working my way to where I needed to be with no en-route rewards.

And, finally, though the Elves' magic is new, the special effects they use when casting a spell take much too long. With the other races, you cast a spell, the game does some variation of "whoosh" and you're back to playing. With the Elves, that "whoosh" turns into a five to eight second animation. Neat the first time, but after that you dread casting spells since it breaks up the pace of the game.

NOTE: "Rise of the Elves" includes the entire original Disciples II game (with its four races -- each with eight scenarios in their sagas). A definite plus if you've never played the game since that give you a total of 40 scenarios in the sagas. For a newcomer to the series, then, I'd have to change my rating to the four stars I gave that original game. Purely as an expansion to that original game, though, I'd only rate this as two stars.