Heroes are boring, magic is boring, units are boring. Items are REALLY boring.

I really wanted to like this game, but there's too many shortcomings for me to recommend it in confidence. It's hard to explain the game play because there hasn't been many games with this design in recent years but I will try to explain it for someone new to this genre. Each mission you will have your main hero and maybe one or two extra heroes that will lead various troops in an open 2D RPG style world. You will start out each mission exploring the world and then finding settlements to recruit for your cause which will help you to fight other heroes.

Let me first explain what this game does well, the character designs in this game are so fun. Every hero, every unit type, every enemy, has some unique design to them that peaks your interest through out the missions. The 2D design in this game is well done, it really feels like you are playing a tabletop board game and I mean that in a good way. The music is original and catchy(it's called songs of conquest so of course it's good). Finally the dialogue and overall writing is pretty decent for a strategy game, there's different dialects and accents for different characters, it's well thought out.

Now into what I didn't like and why I wouldn't recommend to most folks. Many of the negative reviews have a hard time conveying their issue with the game. While I was reading them after playing, I totally understand where they are coming from, its hard to fully explain why it just doesn't feel "right." Remember how I said that each mission is pretty open ended and you have to explore the world? Well the game mostly preset's paths for the heroes to walk through so its not truly open world and every mission is just littered with loot and garbage to click on everywhere. In the first mission, everything is new and exciting so you don't realize it, but after awhile you realize they are just recycling the same content over and over. The heroes use different items like armor and weapons, just like in a normal RPG and you can find these throughout the game world. But the game rarely gives you any weapons or armor and when it does, its likely not going to be better than what you already have so you always feel like the game is wasting your time. You can spend entire missions clicking around the whole map looking through garbage loot just to get nothing at the end, 3 hours wasted with little progress for your character. Sure the game will give you Gold and resources and tiny buffs, but these all reset between missions so it doesn't even matter, ultimately the exploration will start to feel like a chore.

This illusion of progress is so dumb, at first you will be having a good time because there's so much loot all over the screen and all this stuff is happening. Over time you start to realize the game isn't actually open world, I'm not actually looting anything new and all the decisions and strategic elements have already been decided. So as the player you aren't playing a game, if anything the game is playing YOU.

I think it's the illusion of an open world with tons of garbage loot and fake strategic decisions that ultimately makes the game feel wrong. Any seasoned strategy player will eventually know they are being duped, they just can't put their finger on how they are being duped, because the game play is packaged with so much graphical polish. The game is so "in your face" that you don't really stop to think if your decisions as the player actually matter.

I can't recommend this game to anyone except maybe someone who likes 2D game design and has a deep appreciation for pixel art. But to anyone looking for a great strategy game where you have the flexibility and freedom to make major decisions as the player, it might take a minute of playing before you realize it, but I bet you will started to feel a bit conned towards the later missions.

The Marsh Provides!