One of the few sequels that manage to be more than just an expansion.
User Rating: 8.1 | Etherlords II PC
The first Etherlords offerend a unique combination of games from Heroes of Might and Magic / Disciples and Magic the Gathering, the card game. Etherlords 2 does away with the Heroes of Might and Magic part: Multiple Hereos, turn-based on the world map, etc... etc... Instead, you'll now control one hero throughout the numerous missions with an adventure style of play. Battles, however, have remained much the same, though even more extensive with the addition of many new spells. In the adventure mode you'll travel around collecting resources through minerals lying on the ground, or by mines that will give you more resources over time. With these you can purchase more spells at shops throughout the world, which are actually fairly abundant. You'll also meet plenty of NPCs along your way that will set you along your main quest, as well as the addition of a few side quests that can result in some fairly powerful spells as rewards. You'll also find alot of enemies to battle as well, and Etherlords II does a great job of balancing them. You won't be constantly forced into challenging battle after challenging battle. There are still plenty of challenging enemies to face, for those of you who like challenges, there will just be a few less challenging enemies in between that provide a nice break for those of us who don't like constant challenging battles. The enemies are also fairly varied too. You'll have to change your strategy, and even spells in your 'deck', out pretty often, though most of the time you'll be able to get through without having to change your deck. It's wise to keep a few extra strategies regardless, since there's always a certain card or two an opponent can play that will completely obliterate your strategy. Luckily, you can do the same. There's no feeling greater than when you play just a few cards that completely crushing your opponents chance at victory The learning curve for this game depends on what you have played previously. If you've played Magic the Gathering battles will be fairly familiar and you shouldn't have much trouble learning the game at all. For everyone else, the battles take place in turns. Your heroes don't do much in the battle besides take damage, spells will do all of the work. During your turn you gain a certain amount of 'Ether', the resource needed to cast spells, which depend on the amount of Ether Channels you have. Every few turns, as well as depending on spells and abilities of your hero, you'll gain more Ether channels which allows you to cast your bigger and stronger spells. You have a selection between Sorcery, Enchantments, and Summon spells to cast and in Etherlords II, there's alot of them. Within those categories, there's also plenty of variety that allows you to make quite a few different strategies which can add alot of replayability to the game. You can add as many or as little of these as you want, though usually you'll want to have a few of each since some spells go extremely well together. In order to keep games from lasting too long, 'Ether Disturbance' will occur after a certain amount of turns. This just deals an increasing amount of damage to each hero at the end of their turn, which can also be adapted into your strategy. If you're looking for a unique strategy game to put alot of hours into, Etherlords II certainly delivers on that. If you enjoyed the first Etherlords, there's enough improvements to warrant buying this. All that and cheap too!
