Recent reviews by Ronnie

After playing this game here are my thoughts the good and bad.

Let us start with the long bad list:

Broken Achievements not working

Cannot remove the companion that joins you that gets I think 50% less experience being dum in general with the old perk and yet he looks like he is in 20's from his portrait :) Poor design portrait flaw.

Character models stuck with few customize portraits like a crew cut for a hunter during character creation.

Game is to easy, you can reap heaps of gold and spend tons of cash to power level 1 guy buying experience in town then enemies become to easy. I got one guy to level 15 and I only explored a few regions. This destroys the balance in the game literally.

Finding food is to easy making survival easy, Not the case with Battle Brothers where your hard earned coins are spent to food and wondering when you will have enough to buy some gear and training.

A veteran in this game with many levels makes short work of lower level enemies vs Battle Brothers even a veteran could get overwhelmed by weaker enemies if he is not careful.

Lack of a real random world sandbox map vs Battle Brothers you always get a new seed map.

The only 1 minor good thing:

Descent graphics and that is about it. Eye Candy alone is not enough as there are to many cons and barely enough good.The core elements mention above are missing, but I didn't expect much from this game anyways.

My Conclusion would be go play Battle Brothers that addresses all the above problems and makes it very difficult to survive with food and managing your money, gear and company in general. I feel this game is a dum down version of Battle Brothers as it is more story oriented and not a true sandbox with random maps that Battle Brothers offers. This game sadly is story oriented leading you down a certain path. It is easy to do 1vs4 or 1v6th when you power level with easy buying experience in towns. Try doing that in Battle Brothers :) you'd need to earn tons of cash the good old hard way to get a hedge knight worthy of doing such things.

Don't expect any real replay value in this game since it follows a story path with 1 big map divided in regions and not a true sandbox game.

I may try diving more into this game later and update my review which I doubt if I decide to invest more time in it, but so far I can see where this is going and I do not recommend this game at all even though it got a 1.0 release.

I have reviewed a lot of games and have given fair positive feedback if its deserving of it, but not for this game release. If some or many of the things get addressed in the future this title may be worth a revisit.

This game is exceptional, It's been awhile since I actually really enjoyed playing a game.

A note to the Developer: What i'd like to see added in the future is the ability to play as the bad guys and your hearing reports about how the so called good guys are doing as your playing along. It would be nice to start the game as either how its being presented now or the bad guys a two way choice. The way this could work is you really don't have many heroes just a bunch of bandits etc but you control mainly the general and a few heroes... Sorta how battle brothers being the lone knight warband start he was powerful but alone... The Enemy you play you have a bunch of unique minions like bandits etc and not many named allies. When you start as the sisters they mainly fight minions and less generals kinda like that.

Another thing I'd like to see if its possible is the ability to have an enemy warband that is sorta doing what your doing and will level up find items along the way and when the time comes to fight this enemy war band along with standard enemies it may be a 3 way battle maybe some evil mage with his mercs and its a 3 way war and the evil mage may decide to flee only to later be seen to recruit new enemy heroes to travel alongside him. I would like to see some 3 way battles or 4 way battles to make things more interesting. This would keep the game dynamic with each playthrough.

Who knows what this enemy war band will do your enemies or you and what heroes will be alongside him in this battle and future battles if he can escape if hes losing the battle. A recap about this idea is you the player fighting a common enemy as its being presented but there is a 3rd party evil force that likely does not like you or your enemy. Perhaps there could be a temporary truce alliance on some battles that might lead to a possible way to recruit another etc.

Also i'd love to see a really long campaign, I have not finished this game yet as I had to redo due to iron man issues and surprises that happen on the battle field map, but I'd really love to see a x3 long campaign vs the standard campaign as this shows the amount of love and content given to a game to make it x3 greater or more. For example if there is only 25-30+ battles in the main campaign why not make it a 100 battle campaign game. The extra work in content is seen and players will notice that and give proper credit to a developer willing to go the distance for a game they enjoy making for players. Of course as a reward the game can be priced higher and it would be worth it.


Maybe the campaign can possibly also branch off sorta like how Fantasy General 2 did with Empire Aflame as well if you've ever played that where you eventually have to play with one hero or the other hero whom becomes evil to fight against their former comrade.

Aside from that this game is great, It has deep strategy and planning where you have to decide if its worth trying to gather chests around the map or keep your forces together depending on the situation of the battlefield. The battles are interesting and become increasing more challenging overtime being heavily outnumbered often times. As the player you have to decide whom is worth leveling up to help lead your war band across the many battles.The level up system is fairly fun to watch your warband grow overtime to undertake the many tough battles ahead. I give this game a thumbs up and its worth supporting the developer whom appears to be active being a single developer has truly made an exceptional game.

The greatest 4x fantasy game to date even with some of the new 4x games that have come out like Age of Wonders 4 I personally feel this game is better because it plays a lot more like Civilization, but in a Fantasy setting. Fallen Enchantress Legendary Heroes never grows old providing a unique fun game experience playing on a new map each time you setup a new game.

I guess it took me years to finally write a review with 1,538 hours. I finally got around to writing one as I guess I have been to wrapped up lost in playing this great game over the years.

What makes this game great is it almost plays like civilization with town development yet gives the fantasy role playing element of developing your army,heroes and leader. It would be great if Stardock focuses more time into making a proper sequel for this great game and take time away from making SCI fi games because in truth I have not bought one of those, but I'd buy a good fantasy 4x game on the first day it was released. Sorcerer King Rivals is a fairly descent game as well but nowhere near as deep.

Fallen Enchantress Legenday heroes is the game you want to play if you want to lose countless hours into a great fantasy world conquest.

Unlike other games this game has unlimited levels meaning no level caps which I do not like,.
It has unique great quests for your champions and leader to go on and interesting story events and mini bosses to fight. The world itself is very beautiful to explore providing a lot of interesting strategies and ways to play this game keeps the game fun and refreshing. You can really specialize your leader and heroes in a very deep way with their skill trees finding many unique items to compliment their skill class as well.

In conclusion I cannot say enough great things about this game, so I do highly recommend folks get this game if your looking for the very best in world fantasy 4x gaming conquest. There are some pretenders out there and really do not measure up in comparison to Fallen Enchantress Legendary Heroes. The game has some issues with crashing once in a while, but fortunately nothing to keep the player wanting to play for hours. If you like this game you should also try out Sorcerer King Rivals and while that is not a bad game it is a fun game to enjoy alongside this game as well.

I've had my eye on this game for a bit on my wishlist. It is a very deep fun game for $0.99 cents on sale and it is the best 99 cents I've ever spent for the amount of content in this game.

It reminds me of the olden days of Zelda added with good Rpg elements & strategy and being able to play 5 different classes offers a fun experience. So far I have found at least in the early game the Warrior to be challenging and hard on the hardest difficulty level.

It has many random events as your traveling along to make the game interesting along with random things you can find as your exploring.

This is a solid Rogue Rpg Game/Strategy game and worth getting even at the full cost,but at 99 cents it is a bargin.

I do plan on playing this game for some time. I hope they make some future games similar to this one and I saw their other fantasy game was from the same company I'll have to pick that up as well later.

The Black Bird delivers again coming from the success of Fantasy General 2 to bring a unique Rpg Fantasy game that is different, refreshing, and fun and has a bit of replay value. The replay value is much more then that of Fantasy General 2 I would say.

So who is the Black Bird? He is known as Prime_Dev from Fantasy General 2 a hero that joins you in that game so if you have not played that game you will know who the Black Bird is.

So what makes this game fun and different? You have a little sorta fantasy warband trying to learn new spells and explore like you would do like in Might and Magic where it would seem your arch rivals are the circle mages which ultimately you will need to face later in the game that sorta act like A.I players. The game has a lot of lore and reading sorta like Thea and combat is Like Age of Wonders and Fantasy General 2.

This game is a bit of a survival game where you use your tower to move it around to claim resources in hopes to eventually build and sustain a large army that can ultimately dominate the world in Spellforce Conquest of EO.

I think people who like any type of 4x Fantasy Wargame and Rpg Games in general will like this game although it is a bit of a Rpg type game, but does have some elements of rivals that you face being the circle mages that roam around the map and ultimately want to destroy your tower and this is how you lose the game. Resource management of Gold & Mana is very important and the game offers a very harsh difficulty level for veteran gamers along with moderate settings.

The game also offers a lot of various ways to craft magical items to put on your troops and mixing potions etc. So this game brings something unique compared to other 4x Fantasy War games which do not offer this.

This game does offer enough replay value to warrant the price tag so I think you'll enjoy this game if you like Fantasy General 2,Age of Wonders 3 and Thea the Awakening. Much in the same way Fantasy General 2 enjoyed a handful of good DLC's I would not be surprised to see more content coming to this game as this game has been very well received and appears to being enjoying great success since the game has launched.

This concludes my review enjoy the game.

Don't buy this game it worked before the Patch in Aug 2019. I did play it prior to this patch and it worked but no longer. The patch destroyed the game and players are left guessing how to get this game to work.

Update: This game now works:

I saw a older steam comment that said just copy the wizardry 8 folder from steam and copy the contents to C:\

Once that is done it is C:\Wizary8

Simply Run the game within the folder clicking the .exe file to start the game.

I did run the game and it runs fine.. Do not run it from steam at all. While I am not in the mood to play it now I did manage to get it to work so I figure I'd pass this along to those looking for help as I needed it.

Update: 11/18/2021

This game seems to crash a lot I would hold off before buying this game and there is no auto save feature.


Original Review first impressions about a week earlier from the above date:

This game is pretty interesting, It sorta plays like Battle Brothers with a Fantasy Setting and a touch of Darkest Dungeon when exploring Dungeons,Crypts etc and I feel the Tactical Combat is better graphically then Battle Brothers and giving a sorta Ultima 7 vibe with the combat graphics.

It also has roaming enemies on the world map that seem to fight one another and you probably can fight them as well.

This game is a sandbox that seems to make new random maps and dungeons during each time you play a new game. This game does need a auto save feature as it did crash one time and I had to start over no big deal but be sure to save your game.

There seems to be a lot of various equipment to find to outfit your heroes. You start this game making your hero with one of three choices a knight, paladin or a hunter and overtime it unlocks many new classes in which I have not found yet at the time of writing this review.

One thing this game needs is a tool tip that pops up over a dungeon on the world map to show the potential threat level that is within the dungeon as my newbie hero paladin with 14 health went up against a spider with over 100+ health so I had no idea this dungeon was going to be that tough so the obvious choice was to flee...

My suggestion to the developer would be to add ammo arrows to buy from a merchant for your archery needs to make it more realistic then to have endless arrows this way the Archer/Hunter may have to engage in melee combat when you run out of arrows instead of endlessly shooting with no ammo requirements.

Is this game worth buying? Absolutely it is, but you can find it cheaper if you google the game name and buying a steam key that way from a third party vendor but if u want to further support the developer and buy it from their steam store page directly I think it would be a good thing to do since this game seems pretty unique in its own right.

I personally saw this game originally from a youtuber named turn based lovers on youtube and this game was mentioned so I decided to check some lets play through series and knew this game is worth getting. So I suggest folks do the same to see if it is something you may enjoy, so far it's been great and it is in early access and expected to see a full release within 2-3 months according to their early access information provided on their store page.

My old commodore 64 loaded games faster then Gloom haven. I waited at title screen for 10+ minutes and it never loaded. Sadly I got this from a 3rd party so I cannot refund. Buyers beware if your thinking of getting this game...

I have a gaming Dell G3 Laptop so my computer specs are not the issue at all.

They released this garbage as 1.0 and the game does not even start as many other people are having the same problem.

Uodate:

Ok update 1:

I left the computer alone for I think 15 minutes and it did finally load so its not a total lost but still for a 1.0 release I would expect a faster load time. I am using a Dell G3 game laptop with 8 megs of ram a mid tier type of gaming laptop.

I will change my review back to positive and review the game within at a later time but I do hope the Developers increase their games loading time because in truth this is not acceptable.

I remember with Commodore 64 they had a fast load cartridge if anybody remembers that well without a fast load cartridge the games loaded up faster then Gloom Haven. So Developers I do hope you make this a priority in your game it seems like this game has a lot of good content but that does not matter if people get a bad impression early on which is not good for business. I can be forgiving though and provided I plan to take a shower while Gloom Haven is loading. I do hope to see some fast updates and thanks for reading.
Last edited by Ronnie; Just now


Update 2: I loaded the game a second time it did load within 2 minutes this is much better. So others may have had the same issue I had so I am writing this mini log so people can use this as a reference.

I guess this concludes this issue as resolved unless they can make the game load faster then 2 minutes. Anyways enjoy the game folks.

After finishing the game I have to say I do not recommend this game. I'll give a list of things below..

Some reasons as to why:

-Boring Story
-Endless garbage loot you'll never use
-Easy Final Boss Fight way to easy on the hardest difficulty
-Spent 10+ hours gaining experience that means nothing after I hit level 10
-Dungeon Maker seems pointless to me fighting newbie stuff below level 10 being the cap
-To much micro managing loot your not going to use
-Pointless Factions I never was able to buy all items even at level 10

The few Good:
- I actually finished this game and have not finished other games in this niche that is not really saying a lot though but it is rare for me to finish a game probably because of $31.99 price tag kept me glued

-Was fun early on but lost its fun factor pass level 4


In conclusion your better off playing Pathfinder Kingmaker,Pillars of Eternity 1&2,Divinity Original Sin 1&2 and Lords of Xulima all of which I have yet to finish so guess that is the only real thumbs up I finished Solasta Crown of the Magister.

If you like 4x Fantasy games those are my favorite go play Fantasy General 2,Warlock 2,Age of Wonders 3,Eador Masters of the Broken World,Deity Empires & Legendary Heroes Fallen Enchantress you'll get much better satisfaction with some of the above games I listed and lets not forget Civilization 5 a oldie but a great game as well.

If this game is ever sold for $9.99 it might be worth picking up but it is not worth $39.99 by far. Everybody has their opinion, but the above I stated is very true. This game would of been better if it had a better story line, more interesting encounters instead of lizards all the time.

For example as your exploring a site you see a cutscene of a evil wizard and his evil warrior companion talking back and fourth about how they wanna destroy those pesky adventurers that would of been a lot more fun it reminds me Dark Sun Wake of Ravager which has a much more fun plot story of the Lord Warrior hunting you down.

I am surprised this game has not gained enough attention as I will have to spread the word out about this game.

Here is what I like about this game:

It has a very interesting Hero System meaning as you gain experience points you can spend experience points to improve a number of skills along with improving your main stats of your Hero like health, defense, attack, resist and moving around on the world map. It has at least 20-30 skills you can spend your experience on .

Other 4x games when you gain a level you get some increases based on that new level but in this game you spend your experience as you see fit so there really are no levels in this game so I think it is actually a better system.

For example one skill is about mining so you wanna earn more gold for your empire you can invest into skills to help the economy. Want to learn combat types of skills you can do that as well so there is many directions you can spend your experience on which I really think shines in Leylines compared to other 4x fantasy games.

The regular units I believe can only goto Level 3 the Elite Level so Heroes are the primary Core Elite Units in this game sorta like how Master of Magic has done their system except the Hero System is better in Leylines then Masters of Magic since you can spend experience on a host of different skills.

The Music is not to bad but not enough sound tracks but it is ok.

I have read somewhere that neutral cities build their own units and attack your cities sorta like how the A.I's do adding a extra lair of chalenge to the game.

This game is not as deep as Deity Empires being my favorite game but this game has a more interesting Hero System and it seems to have a descent dialog with other wizards you come into contact with to trade, demand or call a truce etc.

Another thing I love about Leylines is that the Heroes are much more unique then Deity Empires Heroes meaning they have a real portrait like Masters of Magic and how that games Heroes did their unique Heroes Portraits.

The Graphics in this game while not the best they are unique and pretty cool compared to Deity Empires Graphics.

The Battle System in Leylines is actually pretty cool, battles play out the same style as Warlords IV Heroes of Etheria where u get to control your units and which other unit to attack. This is a simple battle system but it is pretty cool actually compared to other 4x game battle systems.

I have only played the tutorial and it is actually really hard to beat so the A.I is great at defending that is for sure or maybe I am still learning.

Sadly, it would appear there are no items in this game or a crafting system to give items to your heroes but semi makes up for it with a unique hero system as mentioned in my above comment. Items for your heroes and a item crafting system is missing in this game and would be a welcome addition should they ever decide to continue developing this game.

I will post more information in a updated review as I continue to play along and I'll probably do a let's play series in the near future seeing how nobody else has done one.

I would ignore the negative reviews as this game is a pretty good 4x fantasy game it also has the charm of Age of Wonders the first game but with much better graphics that Leylines has.

Thanks for reading and I would encourage folks to support the developers and get the game and give it a chance it is a hidden gem for sure and if you like 4x fantasy games like Age of Wonders, Masters of Magic, Deity Empires, Eador Masters of the Broke World, Warlock 2 you will most certainly like this game so get it and enjoy. This game also has a cool multiplayer system as well with split screen as well so it is a perfect game to play locally I am not sure about on the internet but I am up for a game so feel free to add me as a friend if u wanna play sometime.

Take care and God Bless,
Ronnie