Elven Legacy is one of those games that infuriates me. It is very traditional, which I like. It’s a hex-based fantasy wargame/RPG with elves and orcs and all that rubbish. But it is also one of the most difficult games I’ve played this year.
It isn’t difficult in the sense of hard to play or understand. Like I said, it’s a traditional design and will be instantly familiar to pretty much anyone who’s ever played a game like this. It’s difficult in the sense of impossible to win because they give two too few turns to finish a given mission. Elven Legacy gives you all the tools you need to complete a scenario and never enough time to complete it.
So you end up rushing to your objective and stretching your lines too far into enemy territory and your hero gets surrounded and then he dies. I could play on Easy, I suppose, but I’m not that invested in how the story of General Surly Elf and his Expendable Bowmen turns out.
It may be that I am regressing to a five year old mentality about games. I’m more easily frustrated than I used to be, and with so many better games on my desk, I’m easily distracted, too.
Not that Elven Legacy isn’t good. In fact, it’s an above average game with some unfortunate writing and sadistic time limits. But for now, Elven Legacy can wait until I’m ready for it.
Random thoughts on this:
– It used to be I would start on hard and ramp the difficulty down if it was too hard. Now, if I do that, I ramp the difficulty level down to “play another game”, so I usually start on easy and ramp up if it’s too easy. Probably getting too old.
– Timed missions were never cool, it’s just the games they were in were cool enough to put up with it. Now, there’s almost no game worth playing that has that sort of thing in it anymore.
– There are too many fun games for designers to make even a scenario or mission arbitrarily difficult for no good reason. I want a challenge when I play but not randomly difficult.
– There are too many games in general. Where I used to get a game a month or two, now I could (and sometimes do, sadly for my wallet) get a game or two a week. This means that a game needs to hold my attention in order for me to play it. Timed missions are one of a list of things that will make me go to the next shiny.
I love Elven Legacy and I agree about the # of turns. Hey, I want to unveil that bonus scenario, so I have to rush to the objective withoug a doubt, and leaving alive those stupid militians who are attacking from everywhere.
It is really, really hard…
same issues like Fantasy wars had… but still: not a bad game.
“Elven Legacy gives you all the tools you need to complete a scenario and never enough time to complete it.”
Huh. I was just thinking of the old game “Panzer General” this weekend, and I remembered that while I missed its fun simplicity, the one thing I hated was how you *never* had enough time (or face it, resources) to achieve anything but a few of your objectives, if any at all.
Grrrrrrrrrr!
The comparison to Panzer General is a good one, Dave. I guess I was more patient then.
@Nightmare – I totally agree.
If a game isn”t delivering at least a 5:1 ratio of fun to frestration, I’m moving on to the next game. (And I won’t waste any more money on that developer).
Timed missions are lame, particularly because you generally won’t know until near the end if you are going to fail or not. So you get a lot of tedious replaying.
Game developers way too often seem to lose sight of what’s fun. Or maybe they get so immersed in their games that the only fun left is overcoming greater and greater challenges:
Can you win in only 25 moves? How about 20 moves? What if you have to win with only your 10 starting units? What if you can only build the teir 1 units? Too many games constantly throw that stuff at you without ever giving you a chance to learn and play “normally” (ie: with full access to all units and tech, without a time limit or other restrictions).
Is it really so bad to let gamers feel powerful and free at least some of the time? I haven’t played Prototype, but the reviews describe how you you get this amazing series of powers, but then swamp you with a flood of enemies, force you to follow rigidly scripted missions to the letter, and hit you with a nightmarish end boss. Yay, fun.
And then there’s the whole auto-difficulty tuning thing: Doing too well? We’ll punish you by throwing an extra wave of enemies at you. Or your enemies level up at the same time you do. Grrr.
I don’t mind timed missions in general, but there are some things you really need to do to make it work. First, you have to have a countdown timer of some sort so that the player never loses sight of how quickly he/she has to make progress.
Second, you can’t have the allotted time become dramatically short all of a sudden, and this is Elven Legacy‘s big problem. After the first couple of missions, where you have more time than you would ever need, you get one that reveals a new primary objective only when you’ve activated a certain hex or something. If you’ve spent your previous turns poorly, then you’re screwed. So you reload. And even then you find that you are so outnumbered that you have to ration how often you can rest and heal your troops.
And this pattern continues. I haven’t gotten very far because of this major design limitation on what is otherwise a very nicely done game.
But if it has tits, I’m buying it.
“Elven Legacy gives you all the tools you need to complete a scenario and never enough time to complete it.”
Incorrect. You can get a gold medal on hard difficulty in every mission including all 3 expansion packs. In a number of cases you can beat the gold time handily.
“make even a scenario or mission arbitrarily difficult for no good reason.”
“Too many games constantly throw that stuff at you without ever giving you a chance to learn and play “normally””
Getting gold medals is optional. The game caters to multiple levels of skill.
“you generally won’t know until near the end if you are going to fail or not.”
Replace “you” with “I” and you’ve got a valid sentence. Assuming everyone has the same skill level as you is the height of arrogance.
“After the first couple of missions, where you have more time than you would ever need, you get one that reveals a new primary objective only when you’ve activated a certain hex or something.”
No such thing in the original Elven Legacy. Sometimes optional objectives will show up, but they are ignorable.
“I haven’t gotten very far because of this major design limitation”
What you’re describing is strategy and the game encouraging you to play efficiently, not a ‘design limitation’.
I expected better of ‘the best strategy game blog’. lol
What IS the elven legacy?
A population with long pointy ears and a habit of frolicking in glades?
This game is designed for masochists and strategy puritans. I wanted so much to like this game. I loved the Panzer General series. Yes, the time limits were frustrating, but those games had that inscrutable sense of “FUN” about them. I wanted to keep playing, not to prove my gamerly manhood, but because I ENJOYED PLAYING. The fun to frustration ratio was in good balance, and a loss in PG (if memory serves), led to a branch in the story arc, and an opportunity for redemption.
Not to mention the voice acting and writing are laughably bad (imagine chunky dudes in cubicles reading generic fantasy dialogue into headsets in between sips of Mountain Dew and you’ve got the idea).
You’re better off buying Panzer General.
Oh, and lastly, @mjemerzian…..ITS A GAME! Lighten up and stop taking things so seriously. even if you did design the thing, which would explain your touchiness. And if you did, could you tell me why the hero is called “The True Flame”?
“The True Flame”? Really?
Game on people.