Review by: William Abner

I loved Disciples II.

It was just what the doctor ordered after 3DO destroyed the Heroes of Might and Magic franchise in 2002 with the ill fated 4th edition. It took the turn-based Fantasy/RPG/Strategy thing and twisted it enough to make it stand out. It was unique in both art direction and in design. The key difference being that you didn’t trample the countryside with a super stack of thousands of creatures; instead you had a small group of individual units and when you fought a battle no one moved; you had a front line for hand to hand units and a back row for spell casters, healers, and archers. It was gorgeous, quick, simple, and effective.

Disciples III: Renaissance takes that idea and chucks it out the window. It tries to be pretty much just like King’s Bounty and Heroes of Might and Magic V, and ends up being worse than both.

In III, combat is laid out on a battlefield grid that is just like what you see in other games of this ilk, only the field here is way too big. The old ‘stand still’ method from the old games has been abandoned and everyone can move – and they do so painfully slow unless you put combat animations on “crazy fast.” It takes forever to fight in this game. The quick and dirty pace of Disciples II is a thing of the past.

The grid is also peppered with places of power which offers bonuses for ranged, magic, and hand to hand combat. The AI doesn’t use these though (unless by accident) so it is basically a way to help you during a fight. I doubt that was the intent. The AI also has no idea how to use the game‘s new “cover” feature which is a way in which ranged units can move alongside melee fighters for some semblance of protection. The AI has a spellbook at its fingertips and only uses one spell against you over and over again. Simply put—the AI has no idea how to play its own game.

The combat graphics and animation are a surprising step down from the old game (Disciples II, specifically) which came out nearly eight years ago. In that game, with its static combat, you were treated with a combat animation every time a unit attacked. It wasn’t 3D but it looked like an oil painting coming to life to spread poison gas or shine a healing light over its friendly units. I recall being excited to see a newly upgraded unit’s combat animation because they were so impressive.