E3 2001 Hands-onDisciples II: Dark Prophecy

During our visit to Strategy First today, we had the chance to see the latest build of its turn-based strategy game, Disciples II: Dark Prophecy. The latest playable version is quite similar to the version that was demonstrated to GameSpot this past March, and overall, the game's visuals and gameplay are shaping up for the expected June release. Most remarkable are probably the hand-painted interface and character portrait art, which are done by artist Patrick Lambert. At an 800x600 resolution on wide-screen displays, Disciples II looks quite artistic. Especially noticeable are the animated water graphics, including bubbly white waterfalls. Other nice touches include the ornate details in character portraits and in the paper doll inventory system.

Disciples II Lead Designer Danny Belanger also showed the game's turn-based combat. After setting up a party based on the empire playable race, we tried a brief mission in a full-screen battle window. The characters look very big but detailed onscreen, which makes the combat more interesting to watch. You can even zoom in on your party in Disciples II, but the characters are big enough that you don't need to zoom to see the combat sequences. Some final battle animations weren't implemented in this build, but the spell effects we saw looked quite pretty. At one point, one of our mages succumbed to an enemy witch spell and was transformed into a ugly, weaker monster-type creature, but it broke the spell eventually, resumed spellcasting at its turn, and destroyed some of the enemy party units.

On the overland map, Belanger demonstrated some more gameplay features. Creatures wander on the map, and you can also cast large-scale spells that affect your units across the land. This spellcasting (using the empire race we played) is represented visually by a large, transparent angel-like character that emerges from the city and unfolds its arms as the spell (for example, winds of restoration) radiates outward. Equipping characters and adding spells during any combat sequence has seamless transitions, which can make gameplay more immersive. In addition, the 3D character models look especially impressive in this build without dominating the other fine environmental details.

For more coverage on Disciples II, please visit our gamespace to see screenshots and artwork, as well as our designer diary, which features Pro Sotos.