Age of Wonders starts itself off seemingly with yet another tale of the fiendish besieging the well-mannered. After the end of the rather sparsely animated cutscene, the game presents the player with the choice of scheming and plotting the demise of enemies from the darkness or regaining lost glories and dignity from underneath the light.
Of course, this is yet another convention of a strategy game grounded in magical/medieval fantasy, but as the player plays through the game's single-player campaign, it will be difficult for he/she not to realize the nuances that were woven into it - if he/she can get past the rather uneven presentation of the game, of course.
The first aspect of the game that the player encounters is of course the graphics. The menus and user interfaces of this game are for the most part regular-looking, but a keener-eyed player will notice that they all have a peculiar style that emphasizes the fact that the player is playing a game with a magical fantasy theme - and certainly not another sci-fi game that was permeating the Strategy Game genre during this time. The hardware-accelerated cursor was certainly an obvious reminder of that.
But of course, the in-game graphics are a different matter altogether. They can be best described as a mixed sack of freshly harvested nuts; some are bad and should be discarded, some are a delight to chew, yet none of the bad ones had yet to befoul the good ones and conversely, the good ones just can't make the bad ones alright. The especially goofy, poorly detailed and barely animated unit models are a huge detraction from the otherwise enchanting feel of the designs for the terrains, buildings and other static edifices used to furnish the game.
Tactical combat mode in particular highlights this odd disparity in the efforts of graphical design invested in this game. Units clip through stone abodes, units that are supposed to phase, climb and/or jump over walls have exactly the same animation when tackling said obstacles (often unceremoniously clipping through them, blinking in-and-out of existence all the way), respective animations for creatures harming or being harmed remain the same regardless of the method of harm being used, et cetera. There are no shortage to such discrepancies that remind the player of the cobbled-together quality of the graphics in this game.
Still, these relatively poor segments of graphics serve to shift the attention of the player to the much better ones, namely the particle effects (at least this reviewer thinks that they are). It is oddly pleasant for the game to have dazzlingly good looking sparkles, bursts of light and puffs of fairy dust, so much so that one would - at one time or another - try to count each and every speck. Perhaps the game relies too much on these, but they certainly provided the visual flair needed to emphasize the game's main theme.
The same analogy involving said agricultural/forestry products also applies to the audio aspect of the game. Age of Wonders have some of the most hideously inadequate voice-acting ever heard in games of its time; most units' responses are comprised of illegible grunts, snarls, growls, swoons (yes, swoons) and all sorts of moans and groans. Many of these do not properly reflect the nature of the unit that they belong to, e.g. Water Elementals making the same noises as Giant Frogs.
Fortunately, the noises that the units in the game makes can be turned off, leaving only the inspiring music to listen to. There are certainly many tracks in the game, all of which can actually be loaded and played independently of the game, much to the benefit of the player when he/she is not playing games.
The aural/visual aspects of the game aside, the gameplay holds most of the nuances mentioned earlier. The tutorials familiarizes the player with the fundamentals of the game: the turn-based design of the game, the juggling of the resources in the game (which are the ever ubiquitous gold and mana in fantasy strategy games), the simple and efficient method of moving parties of units around the map (fans of Heroes of Might & Magic will be right at home here), the mechanics of casting spells (some spells require so much mana and spell-points that they can take many turns to cast) and many other things too numerous to mention here. Even so, the tutorial still does a good job of making sure the player understands every small thing in the game.
(As a side note, it is worth pointing out that the maps in the single-player campaign have plenty of signs that provides tips and hints to the player, along with some decent but otherwise forgettable pokes at other fantasy strategy games.)
As implied earlier, the story is not as simple as one would think it is. Much of the game's designs were subtly sewn into the story. The player starts by selecting the side that he/she wants to join, and then his/her player character's race, starting attributes and skills - which is a regular feature of games with role-playing elements at the time. Afterward, the player character, along his/her heroic path of advancement, may choose different directions in certain junctions of the story that will influence the abilities, spells and magical prowess of his/her player character. In addition, his/her choices determines the race that he/she starts with in a mission, reflecting the player's decision on which race's agenda he/she has adopted.
By the end of the game, the player character (& any accompanying Heroes) may have many permutations of spells, abilities and other innate powers. Surprisingly enough, there is no "I-Win!" combination, as is evident by so many character build FAQs for player characters in this game on the Internet. This speaks much of the effort that the developers placed in balancing the gameplay - at least where Hero characters are concerned.
Similarly, there appears to be a pretty good balance between the many races' capabilities. Some of them appear to be better suited for certain levels of the maps (which are generally divided into underground and surface levels), but they are not too severely disadvantaged on other levels too. Every race's units have special traits and abilities that will be of great use when traversing the map and planning offensives against opposing settlements. Some do appear overpowered (such as the Human Air Galleon and most Dragons), but all of them have subtle weaknesses and strengths that can be taken advantage of, either on the battlefield or off it.
Settlements (which are generally in the form of cities here) themselves tend to be fixed in size. The differences between the cities of different races are not many, though, so the player may make use of the migration option to juggle relations with certain races as he/she sees fit. The game also has options for players who love to use 'scorched-earth' policies, which was certainly not a feature that one would see in fantasy strategy games of the time.
Speaking of relations, all units have morale statistics which are influenced by racial relations, party make-ups and the leadership capabilities of the party leader, among other factors. This is a homage to the morale system of Heroes of Might & Magic, but here it's taken to the next level of sophistication as high morale can actually offset negative factors, like lack of resources for the upkeep of units.
(All units need either gold or mana to be sustained. Otherwise, they either disappear or turn rogue. This is something that the player ought to keep in mind.)
Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the relative power between regular units and the rarer heroes. Very powerful heroes, especially when banded together into the same party, are often difficult to defeat by conventional units. In fact, the heroes can go through them like so much chaff to brush aside. This game design is especially emphasized (for better-or-worse) in the campaign, where to foster a sense of continuity of sorts, the player is given some number of points before every mission to spend on the transfer of heroes, items and/or regular units used in the previous mission to the one at hand. Considering the overwhelming power that heroes can be developed to have, it is often a no-brainer which the player will select.
The multiplayer for this game makes the best of the advantages offered by turn-based game systems - specifically offering a Play-By-Email option for people who cannot be glued to the PC all the time. A 'simultaneous-turn' option of sorts is also available to players who cannot wait for their turn, but players would have to be warned that this places a load on the CPU. The apparent unit imbalance caused by powerful Heroes is fortunately not present in multiplayer, as all Heroes generally start at Level 1. Yet, there appears to be no way to prevent shrewd players from developing a next to unstoppable Hero. (Nevertheless, if a player is able to develop a powerful Hero without opponents successfully stopping him/her from doing so, then their steam-rolling is all but deserved.)
To finalize this review, it can be said that despite the game having middling presentation, the unexpectedly sophisticated gameplay more than makes up for that. It is clear where the priorities of the developers are: the crux of every game, the gameplay. And for that, Triumph Studios, who has brought us this multi-faceted gem of a game, deserves a great toast.