Legends of Eisenwald (PC)

Emergence in Eisenwald

Unlike typical fantasy RPGs, there are no extraneous magical powers, no fireballs or lightning spells. In Eisenwald, you are exploring medieval superstitions and folklore. There are ghosts and hex spells, not ot mention bishops, witches, and heretics, but aside from Christian and pagan influences there is little “magic”. Prepare to fight with steel and heal with prayer.

The player screen opens in a swamp at the edge of small town. Almost immediately your party is besieged by a bandit group, armed to the teeth with pitchforks. After disposing of the bandit rabble, the player is called upon by the local leader in a stronghold bearing his name, Castle Seidlitz. Seidlitz recognizes the attacks as the work of a local bandit named Red Bestl. Like any noble citizen of the land, you want to bring the bandit to justice and cease his ruination of the countryside, but lo, you are plagued by injuries and you must seek healing. Seidlitz points your crew to a church nearby that can tend to your wounds – Organ music sounds as the church screen opens. You pay a pittance to have your small crew healed, then bow your head and leave.

The tutorial portion of this game continues with an explanation of how to assemble an army, how to equip and position your characters, and the eventual demise of Red Bestl. You also get a brief explanation of the castle’s siege and garrison systems before you are sent back home to begin the main story. I usually skip tutorials when I can, but this one was a huge help for me. Familiarity with the interface, quests, and battle system in this case is extremely important for players like myself, who are new to virtualized table-top RPGs.

The Art of Battle and Movement

Atmosphere

Traversing the game world is an immersive experience. The trees and mountains are beautifully crafted, especially as the sun rises or sets, and shadows cover the landscape. An especially nice facet of exploration was the inclusion of hidden paths. You might see a tower at the top of a mountain and have no way to get to it, but you decide to read your notes and discover that you have to walk to a certain spot to “uncover” the hidden path. Little additions like that are generally helpful in making players feel that there is more to the world than just what is on the surface.

Getting lost in the stories

Poor Direction: There is a journal/map function to help track your quests, but vital information was often omitted, and I found myself resorting to Google and the Steam forums at least a dozen times (Very helpful note, the CEO and several Aterdux employees are active on Steam and help players with their questions on the game’s forum). Another issue early on was with misnamed places. In one case I was told to “Go to Grauschild castle” – but there is no Grauschild castle – Castle Lotharholm is home to the Grauschild family. The laborious process of revisiting places over and over to reacquaint yourself becomes more than a nuisance, it becomes expensive. This brings me to a second quandary.

Money Management: I had an extremely difficult time acquainting myself with the economy. Not knowing whether you are hiring mercenaries or not, constantly needing to heal your troops, and enemies that seem to always be a step ahead of you can make for a frustrating introduction – especially if you’ve already blown your bank account. Initially, you are capped with five followers in your party, and you can hire additional mercenaries for a daily fee. For each castle you capture, your daily income increases and your follower count increases by one until you reach a maximum of twelve. The game clock ticks forward as you move about the map, so make sure you have enough gold to pay any mercenaries you’ve hired by the time you get to your destination, or they won’t fight. Two simple rules to monetary success are that you have to capture castles to grow both your army and make money, and that mercenaries (distinguished by a small icon in the top right of their profile) should only be used short-term, then dismissed.

Many people worry about language issues with foreign developers, but the English, aside from it being antiquated and occasional subject-verb agreement issues, was completely understandable. Any issues with reading the text ultimately depend on the player. It can become mentally exhausting trying to read and comprehend a game written in “Ye Olde Englisshe”.

Unit Types and Leveling

When all is said and done, however, the classes are not balanced. My army became heavily reliant on Knights and Paladins, with one Healer and two Bishops. The Archer/Crossbowmen were useful in taking out enemy support troops, but in the last chapters I found myself completely ignoring the soldiers and ranged classes, as neither were half as useful as my horse-mounted, heavy-damage-dealing tanks.

With the exception of your hero, you lose all your troops and loot at the onset of a new chapter. I wanted to be annoyed by this, but it forced me to try new troop combinations, and I ended up finding utility in support classes that I originally ignored. The resetting of troops also maintains the feeling of progress. You can’t ride into a new scenario doing as you please, and a by-product of this is that the player is pushed back into discovery mode. A very tactical design choice  on the part of the developers, in my opinion.