IN Heroes of a Broken Land the player saves and reassembles the world, which has shattered into fragments. The game itself, it seems, was made according to the same principle: the authors assembled it from fragments of other people’s ideas and various game concepts. The result was mixed..
At the start of each new game, the world is generated randomly, and you determine its size yourself.
By someone else’s hands
The plot itself Heroes of a Broken Land reminds at the same time of "Allodach", "Eadore" And Warlock 2. For many years, the Order of Immortal Mages ensured prosperity on Earth: for this, the sorcerers used the powers of the Crystal Heart, the core and center of the planet. But then something went wrong, the Heart was desecrated, the magicians turned into crystal statues, and the planet scattered into fragments that now drift in the Void.
Crystallized magicians are alive and understand everything well, but they cannot act on their own. Therefore, they hire heroes who must explore allods (oh, sorry, fragments of the destroyed world) and restore every Fragment of the Void – only then will the world be reunited in universal happiness and harmony.
A scheme familiar from Age of Wonders and a bunch of other games: there is a powerful magician who seems to control everything, and there are his assistants, hired heroes who directly fight, explore and gain experience. And in the same way, there is a choice of magicians at the start: each has different bonuses for their mercenaries, increasing their attack, the increase in “exp” or, for example, the chance of finding magical equipment.
Selection strategy
Then everything seems to www.casinoplaymillion.co.uk fit into the scheme of a classic turn-based strategy. We build our city and explore the global map in search of resources, treasures, fights and adventures. In the city you can build different buildings: a forge to buy and sell weapons; an alchemy shop to replenish your stock of potions; an arena where heroes will train and gain experience; a farm that increases the daily gold gain; a guild of magicians offering the most powerful spells for sale; and so on.
There is always not enough space for construction, so you have to carefully choose which building to build on the allotted site. At the same time, each building can be “upgraded” – in addition to gold, special crystals are spent on this.
We explore the world, as expected, in a step-by-step mode, when movement points are spent, and each turn is equal to one game day. On the map, of course, there are various interesting places: dungeons, towers, crystal deposits, treasure chests, other settlements and cities. There are also neutral monsters – they can move and even attack your citadel, so you must build defensive towers there.
From "Eadora" the authors took a system of random events that put the player before a certain moral choice. For example, they may tell you that peasants have found a treasure. And then you need to decide what to do: take everything for yourself or share it with the people. Or two neighboring cities will ask to resolve their dispute. Or residents of a settlement open on the map will ask you to help them cope with the epidemic: ignore it, spend a lot of money to solve the problem completely, or get by with a small amount for local events? Depending on your choice, your reputation in the world and the attitude of your neighbors towards you changes. And this, in turn, affects the ability to recruit new heroes and receive other help from neighboring cities.
Dungeon Heroes
You probably already thought that battles in Heroes of a Broken Land pass as in Warlock, Age of Wonders And "Eadore". However, this is not the case. The authors combined a typical turn-based fantasy strategy with… a first-person dungeon crawler. A party of heroes does not consist of archers, swordsmen, paladins or war bears, but of 4 – 6 heroes of different classes – this could be a mage, warrior, thief and priest. And their main task is to clear multi-level dungeons: either at the request of neighbors, or at their own request.
The game, of course, looks old-fashioned, but it sounds extremely pleasant and unusual: the battles here take place to sad classical music.
And in the catacombs everything is like in Wizardry or, for example, in ancient Eye of the Beholder: with a view from the eyes we move through the cells, press levers, open doors, look for chests, deactivate traps (if there is a thief) and fight in turn-based mode with different creatures. Each fighter in the party uses his own equipment, skills and spells. Everyone gains experience and new levels, which allows them to “pump up” their characteristics and sometimes even learn new skills.
All dungeons differ in the level of danger and the number of monsters. Only by clearing them completely will you receive a truly worthwhile reward – a lot of experience, gold, useful equipment and an increase in fame. Uniqueness Heroes of a Broken Land is that some catacombs can only be passed if there are several parties of heroes. They enter the dungeon from different sides and help each other open doors by activating levers at different ends of the map. That is why it is so important here to improve your reputation and attract new fighters.
Missing details
Such a cross-genre cocktail looks interesting both in words and in deeds. But there is one problem: having assembled their game from the fragments of others, the authors Heroes of a Broken Land, by and large, we didn’t work deeply enough on any of the gameplay elements. Powerful magicians are here, unlike the same Age of Wonders, do not use global spells and do not develop in any way. There are far fewer interesting places on the global map than on any other Heroes of Might & Magic, — everything essentially comes down to finding and clearing new dungeons. There are no heroes of other factions – only neutral monsters.
The catacombs themselves turned out to be too monotonous: the developers don’t even try to break up wandering along the same corridors with some puzzles and interesting situations. At best, we will be asked to find a button in blurry textures that opens a secret door, or go through a portal that throws the party into a new dark corridor.
By building stables, you will increase the speed of the party’s movement across the map and even open up fast travel between your cities.
On the other hand, let’s not be too harsh on a small independent studio. The authors did a lot within their capabilities: they implemented a unique combination of turn-based strategy and “dungeon” RPG with a first-person view and came up with an unusual feature with multi-party passage of some locations. The game, of course, lacks depth and detail, but it’s still a blast Heroes of a Broken Land difficult.
Pros: an interesting combination of strategy and role-playing game with a first-person view; pleasant musical accompaniment.
Cons: monotonous dungeons; the game lacks depth.
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