What do you think about the game?

[Evgeny]

We are very interested in your opinion on our games and wish you tell us what you think about Fantasy Wars. What are you waiting from this game? How do you like graphics, gameplay, sound, advantages, disadvantages and so on. Feel free to express your thoughts.

[Vorthrax]

From having played the demo, I love the game.

My only probem so far (and it's a big one), is the technical problem I am having with the demo. See my post in the Technical Issues forum.

What I'd like to see for the game is more factions. For example, dwarves and elves as their own seperate full factions and an Undead faction, etc.

[vanedor]

I was pretty surprised by how good this game actually is. I'm rarely surprised by the demo of a game I had never heard of before. The graphics are nice, the gameplay seems polished and fun. I'm seriously thinking about buying it once it's released here in Canada. Reminds me a bit of the underrated Fantasy General. Watching the fight up close is pretty neat and so is the option to skip these views.

In fact, the worst thing I found about this game is its title.

[Anatoly]

Originally Posted by vanedor

I was pretty surprised by how good this game actually is. I'm rarely surprised by the demo of a game I had never heard of before. The graphics are nice, the gameplay seems polished and fun. I'm seriously thinking about buying it once it's released here in Canada. Reminds me a bit of the underrated Fantasy General. Watching the fight up close is pretty neat and so is the option to skip these views.

In fact, the worst thing I found about this game is its title.

It is actually a modern remake of Fantasy General, at least that's what the leading Russian game portal AG called Fantasy Wars.
We do have plans to release the game in Nort America so please stay tuned, we will announce the release date pretty soon.

[sic!]

While only being able to judge from several demo play throughs, in overall i like the game so far.

The resemblance to Fantasy General is quite obvious (especially the unit-upgrades and the damage system itself), but the game offers quite a lot of improvements graphically and playwise to justify a release of its own.

Graphics are nice, a little bit more animated terrain in the main hexfeld view would have been nice to keep oneself focused. The close up fights in Battle Isle style are quite amusing done sometimes, but i tend to turn them off in long battles, after a while one has seen most of the animations. Still, i appreciate the work done there. Flying units are difficult to judge where on the battlefield they are exactly sometimes.

It's difficult to tell something about gameplay right now with two demolevels. It seems to be fairly balanced (Bronze easily reachable, Silver with taking care, Gold really takes some planing), and i didn't noticed major bugs. Interface feels intuitiv, no deep tree-based menus, everything accessible, although the activated hero and unit abilities are somewhat unconspicuous placed.

The sound is okay, nothing special, but i wouldn't turn it off immediatley.

Advantages:
Well, i do like the customization system with perks. Some perks seems to be imbalanced, but overall the choices are varied enough to have fun playing with various combinations. The support and hero system is well done. The quasi-isometric look makes the game easily accessible while playing, and suits the turn-based system.

Disadvantages:
Terrain seems to influence the game sometimes too much. While having various modifications for different terrain is a common feature, it is sometimes really difficult to break off closely defended high-defensive terrain even with superior numbers and unit levels. In the beginning i did have to look for quite a while where to view artifact abilities and how to assign them to different characters, this is somewhat unintuitiv right now, maybe the tutorial in the full version will solve this problem.

Overall a nice game in a nearly dead genre (turn based strategy), which will please most fans and maybe even draw attention from outside (but no suprise hit like Kohan back then, sorry). Looking forward to the release.

[nmi576]

First of all, I'd like to thank you for opening this forum. It's good to know that the people waiting for the English release of this game are looked after.
I've been playing computer games for more than 15 years now, and I've also had the pleasure to get my hands on a few published by 1C (games made by different developers - e.g. the game Perimeter is still one of my favorites). Although PC is a high-end configuration which is awaiting to fulfill its purpose with games like Crysis and Unreal Tournament 3, I also keep an eye out for less hyped games that are fun and deserve to be played with.

That's how I stumbled upon Fantasy Wars. I've picked up the demo from FilePlanet one day as I was bored after work, and it blowed me away. The game is innovative, provides a lot of fun and the atmosphere is great.
Similar games, like the Heroes of Might and Magic series, King's Bounty (which will have a sequel in a couple of months) or Age of Wonders as in turn-based strategies are all familiar to me and they are one my favorites. It just takes a lot of time to play with them, and I don't have 4-6 hours each day anymore.

The idea is really great to separate the combat (tactic) from the rest (strategy), and because it's turn-based, it still retains it's own deep level of strategy. Okay, we've seen war-games before (Close Combat series for example) but none of them where this fun and easy to play, complex in the background with a fantasy theme for years and years now.
Seems like you are blending every good aspect of turn-based strategy games. Units can gain levels, there are towns and cities to be taken, groups have skills and perks, the number of units can be really seen, there are small quests to complete with various bonuses, hero units, spells and the list could go on and on. All this and now we are finally allowed to only focus on the combat and on the battlefield itself.

Let's start with the graphics. It's not next-gen that requires a Duo Core and a GeForce 8 series but there is no need for that in these kind of games. The scenery is absolutely gorgeous, the colors are vibrant and alive, everything is there to make the player relax and enjoy it. The units are nice to watch as well, so far they all look fine, and most importantly, kind of 'realistic' in what people would expect from fictious monsters would look like. The battle between two parties are detailed well. To say the least, I'd say the graphics are what I would expect from such a game.

The sounds are okay but they need more kick to it. The music is very nice, but the units' noises and responses - well there aren't any. Only while there is a cut-scene. Groups fighting with each other have some grounting noises but they that's almost impossible to hear. The battles should be more convincing in this aspect, make the fighting and the units' attack and taunts noisy, as you would expect from two parties clashing and killing the enemies in a fierce battle. The sounds need a but of adjusting and tweaking in my opinion, just to have the combat (which is one of the most important aspects of this game) more feeling to it.

Gameplay is the hardest to rate, I wrote a couple of positive things about it in the beginning of my post. To be honest, I wouldn't change anything at all. I like everything I've seen and experienced so far and I don't know how I could change it to make it better (if you can make it better, that is) without losing anything or messing with the balance. The 3 factions should suffice as well, hopefully there are a lot of maps to play in multiplayer. The map editor is a nice feature and gesture. There are multiplayer modes like internet play, LAN and hot-seat and that should suffice.

In the end, I like to thank you for reading this looong story-like review through, and I am especially grateful that you made sure that the game supports Windows Vista and has widescreen resolutions that don't distort or stretch the screen in any way. Everything works brilliant.
Fantasy Wars really warms my heart, we rarely see games that are fun and entertaining but won't get frustrating at the same time. I have no idea about the release date of the English version (heard rumors about November, well I hope that's true) but I'm sure to buy one as soon as it hits the shelves.

[Daystar]

I could not get the demo to work, but would very much like to as the game looks good. Is there a patch or sth for Vista? Or perhaps somewhere to go for trouble shooting?

[Evgeny]

The game was developed when Vista wasn't on the market yet, so it wasn't supposed to run in this system, but anyway if everything is ok with the demo itself the game should work in Vista. So, could you describe your problem in more detail, then we'll try to give you an advice.

Thank you for your question.

[markgil]

the demo was great. it really reminds me of a 3d Fantasy General which was a very good game. will it be available via download on your website? hopefully it will sell well enough to merit an expansion.

[Anatoly]

Originally Posted by markgil

the demo was great. it really reminds me of a 3d Fantasy General which was a very good game. will it be available via download on your website? hopefully it will sell well enough to merit an expansion.

We plan to lauhch an online store in about a month or so and Fantasy Wars should be available there as well.