Fantasy Wars (PC) review "When it comes to difficulty in videogames, my feelings often appear contradictory. I frequently grow impatient or bored with oppressively difficult action titles like Contra, but when I play games that actually require me to think, I revel in the challenge. I suppose it’s a matter of interest and ability. I enjoy strategy because I know I’m smart and so seek to prove that against anyone daring enough to try me. That’s why I’m so addicted to Fantasy Wars. It leaves very little room ..."

When it comes to difficulty in videogames, my feelings often appear contradictory. I frequently grow impatient or bored with oppressively difficult action titles like Contra, but when I play games that actually require me to think, I revel in the challenge. I suppose it’s a matter of interest and ability. I enjoy strategy because I know I’m smart and so seek to prove that against anyone daring enough to try me. That’s why I’m so addicted to Fantasy Wars. It leaves very little room for error. One mistake can lead to devastating consequences.

Things start out easily enough. Mercenary commander Derrick Pfeil has been ordered to defend human lands from a sudden and seemingly organized orc invasion. The forces under his control aren’t very sturdy, but there isn’t a whole lot to stand in his way, either. With only a few orc and goblin troops holed up in the handful of scattered towns, Pfeil’s army can cross through the level and rout the enemy from those settlements relatively quickly.

But that first mission is just an illusion to keep the player from running before getting a handle on the game’s mechanics. Every scenario thereafter escalates in intensity until you find yourself analyzing every move you make and comparing them with those of the computer. It may be true that you can upgrade units between missions, turning measly peasants into stronger fighters like cavalry-resistant halberdiers, or changing simple bowmen into superior huntsman. But the orcs also incorporate upgrades into their armies, and they have numbers on their side. For every one of your troops, they’ll have three. Whether they serve only as a distraction to absorb an archer’s supporting attack or actually stand blow-for-blow with Derrick himself, you’ll always be outnumbered.

Soon you’ll be facing hardy trolls that can regenerate their wounds. Their thick hides ensure that even your strongest troops like swordsmen or knights won’t do much damage. Instead you’ll have to rely on your heroes and modified ballistae that cause them greater harm. You’ll face pterodactyl-riding goblins that can only be shot down with arrows, magic, or aerially engaged by your own flyers. They’ll send frenzied berserks capable of slaying your strongest heroes with just a few swats. So, while you may enjoy the seeming invulnerability of your heavily armored foot knights or the invisibility of your improved scouts, know that the enemy will match you stride for stride.

By the time you’ve got a firm understanding of all the features, your only advantages lie in troop experience and your ability to strategize. Units gain experience every time they attack, receive damage or activate an ability. Accumulate enough points and soldiers not only gain stat bonuses, but also new skills. These can do anything from increasing defense against archers to enhancing their ability to move across rough terrain.

However, there are limits attached that require you to consider which perks you choose. Basic units have a maximum level of five (heroes ten), and because you can only pick one bonus per level, you really need to think about your options. This is especially true if a skill you want only appears once. Do you teach your hero mage a powerful new spell or do you give him the ability to walk across water without penalty? Do you sharpen your ranger’s ability to kill in forests or do you arm him with poisoned blades to kill off any enemy wounded, thus dramatically decreasing their ability to recover?

This is just the tip of the iceberg. To win, you must exploit every advantage granted to you. If you don’t, you risk losing your best men, or even the mission altogether. Properly utilizing terrain will help tremendously. Getting your horsemen stuck in woods or rivers is never good because they not only move at a quarter of their regular speed, but they also take a significant blow to their attack and defense just for standing there. It’s a situation that can lead to a lot of trouble, like during one mission where I had to lead a group of knights out of their besieged camp. Goblins, adept at fighting in the underbrush, mercilessly chased and struck at them until my warriors reached open ground where they could outrun their pursuers. By then, many knights had been wounded or slain.

Use the environment against the enemy, however, and you’ll knock out their strongest units with remarkable ease. Water is everyone’s worst enemy, exacting larger movement and combat penalties than any other traversable surface. The only way to pass over water safely without the necessary skill is to cross a bridge. But these are few and usually located around major cities and forts, meaning you’ll have to fight hard just to get to the other side. Unless you’re clever. Placing your stronger forces along the shoreline and luring your opponent into coming after you often leads to orc-flavored bloodbaths. Once I slew a healthy stack of war trolls with one ballista bolt in this manner.

This trick doesn’t always work, however, especially when you’re laying siege to a thoroughly fortified city where they prefer to dig in rather than chase after you. In that case, your only hope lies in hitting the entrenched forces hard enough so they retreat, allowing you to pick up the respectable defense bonus and finish them off. This is more easily done if you strike them so hard that they break: a condition that automatically makes them flee, significantly reduces their combat effectiveness, and can only be healed through resting.

But don’t think you’re safe from the worst the game has to throw out you just because you’ve mastered a few handy tricks; you need a thorough understanding of everything around you to gain the upper hand. That means more than just accounting for terrain, unit experience and siege tactics. It also accounts for every possible facet of maneuvering an army, including time limits!

At the start of every mission, you’re given a set number of turns in which to complete the main objective. The faster your time, the better reward you’ll receive afterwards. Take too long to finish, and you’ll have to restart. This extra element adds even more stress on an already-difficult task. Ideally your army should move as one unit, but that's not always possible when some troops move much faster than others. The need for urgency (especially if you’re a perfectionist) also means you can’t always slow down for others to catch up. As a result, you might struggle to properly defend your lines. If your bowmen and war machines are too far back, they can’t kill anything up front. Furthermore, if these precious units are left unprotected, enemy scouts and infantry will waste no time in flanking and destroying them.

Adding to the challenge, you’re frequently tasked with multiple objectives. Splitting your forces is the quickest way to capture several towns at once, but it’s also risky. Leave too many soldiers with one group and the other may find itself in trouble. Like if you forget to bring enough archers or eagles, only for several pterodactyls and zeppelin bombers to suddenly attack you at once.

Stick with the game long enough to get through the human campaign and even more trials await you as you take control of the very beasts you’ve been fighting. Encouraged by a delusional hexer, Orc chief Ugraum decides to unite the clans in an attempt to conquer human lands. His story overlaps Derrick’s in several places, filling in holes left blatantly open in the previous campaign. But that’s not the key attraction here. Now that you’re playing as the enemy, you’ll have to reverse everything you learned as the humans in order to succeed. And because it’s the second campaign, the missions are even more mentally taxing. You’ll find that to win, you need be as cunning and manipulative as the goblins themselves. Poison and stealth will be your greatest allies. Fully camouflaged, goblin shock troops, hyena scouts and even war machines can sit in safety, waiting to ambush armor-clad paladins as they try to attack your more conspicuous units.

After this, there’s a third and final campaign involving an elf-dwarf alliance, but I don’t want to give too much else away. Just know that some of its missions are so tough that even I couldn’t beat them with a gold rating, regardless of difficulty setting.

If you still can’t tell just how intricate and complicated Fantasy Wars can be, then I strongly urge you to try it out for yourself. If you’re like me, you’ll eagerly anticipate the chance to prove yourself against one of the most challenging strategy games on the market.

Community review by wolfqueen001 (July 21, 2010) A bio for this contributor is currently unavailable, but check back soon to see if that changes. If you are the author of this review, you can update your bio from the Settings page.