Disciples III: Renaissance Review
I'd like to start off by saying that I was one of the few that clung onto Disciples more than Heroes of Might and Magic. The second Disciples had me yearning for more and they delivered with the Gold Edition. Then the wait was on for this amazing graphic update of Disciples III. I think I set the bar way too high on this one. First off right out of the box the game, if you had the disc version in North America, did not work. So after getting it on release day, I had to wait almost 2 whole weeks before a patch came out that basically was a no-CD patch, which I think a lot of people downloaded a different version of out of frustration. For those who were luck enough to snag this game digitally you were in for a surprise as well as the game had some serious in game bugs as well.
Graphically this game is amazing, is a beautifully crafted game where the units are what you would hope for in an update to the unit types of the previous games. The enemy models also look fantastic. The unfortunate part was the fact that you had to zoom into the battlefield at the beginning of each battle to actual admire what the game had to offer. This also applies to the amazing scenery and level layout, it look gorgeous, but you had to zoom in for it. There was also the update to your castle screen which I think personally looks better than I could have hoped.
Music-wise this game hits it out of the park with some soft melodies and some good battle music, but I caution you now there isn't much variety and as such you're going to find that after a couple of hours you're going to be wanting something else to listen to. The in game battle sounds really generic, as if they were a last minute addition to try to improve upon the battle system.
The controls are pretty straight forward for anyone who has ever played a turn-based strategy game. You're going to be using the mouse... a lot.
So you have 3 playable races which means multiple campaigns, and at first glance you'll be overjoyed to feel that sensations of what Disciples II did for you, but then as time wears on you'll notice that its just a pretty reflection and really has no true substance to it. This is a shell of a game, a game that dearly needed some real QA work done on it. The pace of the game, yes I know its turn-based, is slower than one would like. There are some changes on how to capture points, which I greatly enjoy over the use of the staff carrying unit, and its a lot more powerful too. I don't know there's just something about this game that screams SO CLOSE, but it falls short of what it could really be. As much as I'm a fan of this game I can't recommend it. Maybe in a couple years where there's some expansions and all the bugs get ironed out I can get behind this game, and by expansions I mean free for those who were suckers enough to buy the game, like myself.
Disciples III, under new guidance, lost its way and for that I have to regrettably give it a 4.8 out of 10.