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Disciples: Liberation - "a new beginning" for the series

S.H.O.D.A.N.

Learned
Joined
Dec 16, 2020
Messages
389
What the actual fuck happened to the art style of this franchise?

Like, how many CalArt graduates do you have to hire to end up with something this generic.
 

Lacrymas

Arcane
Joined
Sep 23, 2015
Messages
17,948
Pathfinder: Wrath
It looks fine, I guess, I'll wait for first impressions and then buy it for a dorra.
 

Blake00

Learned
Joined
Oct 1, 2020
Messages
271
Location
Australia
Cheers for posting all those vids. Opinion hasn't changed.. it looks good.. I'll probably get it (in a sale).. but it is just NOT Disciples. Should be called King's Bounty Liberation lol.
 

Blake00

Learned
Joined
Oct 1, 2020
Messages
271
Location
Australia

Also note how Kalypso Media repeatedly say in those articles that they wanted to modernize and streamline the Disciples experience. Umm yeah unfortunately they've literally turned it into a completely different game and now wonder why everyone's upset lol.

On their youtube channel they're ignoring the hundreds of negative comments and only replying to the 2 or 3 nice ones thanking them for their support. Good luck ignoring all the fans when the bad steam reviews start pouring in lol.

.
 

cyborgboy95

News Cyborg
Joined
Aug 24, 2019
Messages
2,735
I still wish the artsytle is more in line with previous Disciple games, but... *gasp* could it be that this game may actually end up being good?:bounce:

https://www.heypoorplayer.com/2021/08/19/disciples-liberation-is-one-of-the-best-strategy-games-youll-play-this-year/
DISCIPLES: LIBERATION IS ONE OF THE BEST STRATEGY GAMES YOU’LL PLAY THIS YEAR

Talk about a liberating experience!




I’m going to let you in on a little secret when it comes to writing reviews and previews for video games—it gets easier with time. Of course, I know that everyone’s different, so your mileage may vary with that statement. Just like with most things, the more you write, the easier writing becomes (at least in some regards). But why the heck am I even telling you this? Well, it’s because that, while it might get easier with time, you’re always going to have stuff that gets in your way from time to time. And, when it came to writing my preview for Disciples: Liberation, it was none other than Disciples Liberation itself that got in my way—but I’ll tell you right here and now that that’s anything but bad.

Enjoying a game so much that I don’t want to stop playing it so I can write about it is probably the highest compliment that I can personally give out—and it’s one that I’ll absolutely hand over to Disciples: Liberation. Despite not being the biggest strategy aficionado around (I like them, though, don’t get me wrong), and knowing next to nothing about the Disciples franchise as a whole before going in (although that’s not entirely the case anymore!), Disciples: Liberation still managed to dig its hooks into my heart very quickly. And if that’s not the mark of a great game, I couldn’t tell you what is.

Uniting a Broken Land



Choose your words wisely!



Like many RPGs, Disciples: Liberation is a very story-driven experience. The story itself follows Avyanna, who, after accidentally ripping a hole through space and winding up in the mystical but very much abandoned city of Yllian, decides to embark on a journey in hopes of liberating the entire nation of Nevendaar from its oppressors. All-in-all it’s a nice, high-fantasy with a solid premise. But that’s not what I’d like to focus on.

While Disciples: Liberation has a good narrative going, it’s really the many characters that Avyanna runs into—as well as Avyanna herself—that makes the story what it is. The bulk of this game’s story very much revolves around the player’s choices, and this most definitely includes the actual progression of the story itself. Nearly every conversation requires some kind of player input, which is great for immersion, and, best of all, it really feels like your choices matter—which is something that you certainly can’t say for a lot of other games out there. Disciples: Liberation also does an excellent job of balancing out Avyanna’s character. While it’s up to the player to decide how the story should go, it does so without sacrificing Avyanna’s personality. Regardless of what you choose, Avyanna almost always seems to have some kind of logical justification for it (although this is never done to the point that it makes her feel wishy-washy), and it bridges the gap between the player’s version of the MC and the game’s version of the MC incredibly well.

Oh, the Places You’ll Go

This sure is, uh… pretty?



Disciples: Liberation may be a strategy RPG, but it’s got something that many others within the same genre don’t—exploration. Rather than simply navigating through each area via a few clicks on the world map, players are actually able to ride around on their trusty steed while uncovering what each place has in store for them in the process. Granted, exploration is far from complex—maps are generally small and still have a focus on battling and completing quests. However, the fact that you’re able to do anything at all is, strange though it may sound, incredibly refreshing. It’s also nice to be able to manually run away from opponents on the map when you’re low on health, you know?

Regardless of how many places Avyanna’s travels take her, they all begin and end in the same location: Yllian. Acting as the player’s home base (both literally and metaphorically), Yllian is essentially a one-stop-shop for… well, everything. By progressing the story, completing various quests, and capturing gathering points, players are able to accumulate resources and blueprints, which may then be turned into a number of different facilities—allowing you to create and train new units, upgrade weapons and armor, and more—and can even teach Avyanna new magic. While upgrading certain parts of Yllian can feel a little slow at times, the rewards are always worth it in the end, and the fact that you can return to Yllian at almost any time means that you won’t have to worry about waiting for a long time before getting to make use of all of the useful stuff that you’ve gathered while out adventuring.



Gnashing Teeth, Clashing Blades



Hoo-boy, is that ever satisfying!



Exploration and base-building may take up some of your time, but when it comes down to it, the real focus of Disciples: Liberation is on its combat. Not one to abandon the strategy-based roots of the series, fighting in this game is turn-based with a heavy emphasis on strategy. Winning isn’t just about using the strongest attacks that you have (although that does help out, to be fair); things like unit placement and the timing of certain attacks play just as big of a role. And this, combined with the fact that everyone who isn’t Avyanna can die permanently, means that you really need to have your wits about you when you fight.

I can’t help but feel like this game puts just the right amount of danger into combat. Not letting Avyanna permanently die means that you can use your main character without worrying too much, which I greatly appreciate, but having permadeath slapped onto everyone else—including named characters—really helps to ensure that you come up with appropriate strategies during every turn. The game’s designed to ensure that you can’t really “brute force” your way through battles, no matter how small they might be, and I really enjoyed having to think about things as much as I did. The only thing that got a little old was how every battle essentially used the same field (albeit with minor edits here and there), but I get that it can’t be as grandiose with level designs as the more traditional tactics games can.

Riding Toward a Beautiful Dawn

Disciples: Liberation has shaped up amazingly based on what I’ve seen and experienced, and there really isn’t anything bad that I can say so far. The storycrafting, the base-building, the light exploration mechanics, the combat—it’s all been incredibly fun and surprisingly addictive. It’s a little sad that we won’t be getting the full experience until October, but, so long as the end product doesn’t change much, it will be more than worth the wait.
 
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Meepo

Educated
Joined
Sep 21, 2013
Messages
7
streamline the Disciples experience

What does that even mean? Iirc original Disciples had player's 2x3 units vs enemy's 2x3 units. No movement, one action per unit, simple and effective. Judging from the videos, they made it LESS "streamlined and accessible" if anything.
It's like marketing people feel pathological need to say paricular words.
 

Storyfag

Perfidious Pole
Patron
Joined
Feb 17, 2011
Messages
15,897
Location
Stealth Orbital Nuke Control Centre
streamline the Disciples experience

What does that even mean? Iirc original Disciples had player's 2x3 units vs enemy's 2x3 units. No movement, one action per unit, simple and effective. Judging from the videos, they made it LESS "streamlined and accessible" if anything.
It's like marketing people feel pathological need to say paricular words.

What did you expect? They're m*rketing people.
 

Blake00

Learned
Joined
Oct 1, 2020
Messages
271
Location
Australia
.
review said:
knowing next to nothing about the Disciples franchise as a whole before going in

Yup, I think it's safe to say the highest scoring reviews of the game will come from people saying they don't know jack about the series lol. Because let's face it, almost every fan of the series who actually knows what the old games were like is offended by their attempt to copy King's Bounty and slap the Disciples name on it for a cash grab. Almost as frustrating as watching Ubisoft spew out cash grab Chinese mobile games from the rotting corpse of the brilliant Heroes of Might & Magic franchise they butchered.

I still wish the artsytle is more in line with previous Disciple games, but... *gasp* could it be that this game may actually end up being good?
https://www.heypoorplayer.com/2021/...the-best-strategy-games-youll-play-this-year/

But all that being said yes because they've ripped off a good formula from another series it probably will be quite a good game that I won't be able to resist buying at some point. The guy doing that reviews looks young so hey.. if it's a success with younger console fans who know nothing of the series then I guess that's good for the franchise, it'll make money, and maybe we'll get more Disciples games in the future.. however they'll probably be more KB copies though sadly. But ya never know.. the raging fans might get a message through to do something different again next time.

.
 
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Unwanted
Dumbfuck
Joined
Oct 29, 2020
Messages
999
Location
Free Market Paradise
streamline the Disciples experience
What does that even mean? Iirc original Disciples had player's 2x3 units vs enemy's 2x3 units. No movement, one action per unit, simple and effective. Judging from the videos, they made it LESS "streamlined and accessible" if anything.
It's like marketing people feel pathological need to say paricular words.
It's not just simple but also respects the player's time. Time is money and you don't want to spend it watching units slowly walk from one cell to another across the screen if you can help it. Sure you can make it instant but Disciples solved that problem while not making animations painful to sit through. Brief attacks and unit placement still matters. Most of the time it actually matters more than on a hex grid. How retarded are the devs making this reboot?
 

Archibald

Arcane
Joined
Aug 26, 2010
Messages
7,869
They are not retarded, they are just making different game and slapping Disciples name on it. Being somehow "faithful" to the originals was never a goal. Highly likely that they never even played D2 or D1.
 

Lacrymas

Arcane
Joined
Sep 23, 2015
Messages
17,948
Pathfinder: Wrath
This might be blasphemy, but I never found the Disciples games very engaging. I don't get them, it's like Heroes, but the only thing you do in battle is choose who to attack. I have D2 installed right now and will give it a go once again when I feel like it, but yeah, I don't know in what frame of mind I should be in order to get it.
 

Zboj Lamignat

Arcane
Joined
Feb 15, 2012
Messages
5,522
it's like Heroes
Well, that's the point. It's not like Heroes at all. People compare D2 to different strategy classics (usually HoMM) and then reach different, but usually weird, conclusions. The original (pre-3) Disciples is pretty much a combat rpg romp with fairly basic (but still interesting) party building and extremely rudimentary "strategic" layer tacked on.
 

Archibald

Arcane
Joined
Aug 26, 2010
Messages
7,869
Pretty much, you get most enjoyment out of it if you play it like a dungeon crawler with some base building elements.
 
Joined
Nov 23, 2017
Messages
4,010
The original Disciples is very Heroes of Might and Magic. It's Heroes built around single units as opposed to groups. It's like Heroes JRPG, Heroes crossed with Ogre Battle, Heroes if your combat system worked more like a blobber than a strategy war game. The combat isn't the same, and the town buildings functions differently since the game is built around single units, (although nowhere near as differently as it could have given that idea) but the game is also clearly a take on Heroes of Might and Magic. Disciples Sacred Lands is very much coming from a Heroes place and influence as opposed to other things it could have pulled from like Lords of the Realm 2 or X-COM.
 

Zboj Lamignat

Arcane
Joined
Feb 15, 2012
Messages
5,522
So it's "very HoMM", except for the part where it obviously isn't;) Let's face it: the "true" Disciples is literally 99% about combat. And the combat is not like HoMM. Like, at all. Single entity units, back and front row mechanics, to hit chance, heroes as combat units, units leveling up and evolving, casting combat spells outside of combat... the list goes on. It's a completely different thing.
 

lukaszek

the determinator
Patron
Joined
Jan 15, 2015
Messages
12,618
So it's "very HoMM", except for the part where it obviously isn't;) Let's face it: the "true" Disciples is literally 99% about combat. And the combat is not like HoMM. Like, at all. Single entity units, back and front row mechanics, to hit chance, heroes as combat units, units leveling up and evolving, casting combat spells outside of combat... the list goes on. It's a completely different thing.
deterministic hit chance with nondeterministic spread vs nondeterministic hit chance with deterministic dmg
Both utilize single units, in homm you upgrade by increasing count, in disciples by gathering xp.
back and front mechanics vs grid

Each mechanic obviously feels alike, I dont get why are you so upset about calling these games similar
 

Zboj Lamignat

Arcane
Joined
Feb 15, 2012
Messages
5,522
Wat. Stuff like speed stat-based movement on a grid versus back and front row with no movement is pretty far from "obviously feeling alike", just like all other mechanics. Those comparisons that people make all the time don't come from someone stopping and thinking "hmm, fairly classic strategic approach to units is super-similar to fairly classic combat-focused crpg approach to units, despite them not being super-similar or similar at all". They come from the fact that it's a tb fantasy game marketed as strategy and having heroes, which means HoMM, because what else.

Age of Wonders is another perfect example. Game obviously inspired by Master of Magic and Warlords, yet all you ever see is people saying it's a HoMM-clone, becaue it's a fantasy tb strategy with armies that can be led by heroes.
 

Reinhardt

Arcane
Joined
Sep 4, 2015
Messages
29,232
Disciples is a jrpg with two static parties fighting each other and gothic animu art, especially first game. It's not homm.
 

Parabalus

Arcane
Joined
Mar 23, 2015
Messages
17,432
So it's "very HoMM", except for the part where it obviously isn't;) Let's face it: the "true" Disciples is literally 99% about combat. And the combat is not like HoMM. Like, at all. Single entity units, back and front row mechanics, to hit chance, heroes as combat units, units leveling up and evolving, casting combat spells outside of combat... the list goes on. It's a completely different thing.

D2 combat is much more shallow than HoMM, but that's part of the charm.
 

Lacrymas

Arcane
Joined
Sep 23, 2015
Messages
17,948
Pathfinder: Wrath
HoMM is shallow too and that's why HoMM comes to mind and not Age of Wonders. AoW has more intricate combat and utilizes the maps better than HoMM.
 

lukaszek

the determinator
Patron
Joined
Jan 15, 2015
Messages
12,618
Wat. Stuff like speed stat-based movement on a grid versus back and front row with no movement is pretty far from "obviously feeling alike", just like all other mechanics. Those comparisons that people make all the time don't come from someone stopping and thinking "hmm, fairly classic strategic approach to units is super-similar to fairly classic combat-focused crpg approach to units, despite them not being super-similar or similar at all". They come from the fact that it's a tb fantasy game marketed as strategy and having heroes, which means HoMM, because what else.

Age of Wonders is another perfect example. Game obviously inspired by Master of Magic and Warlords, yet all you ever see is people saying it's a HoMM-clone, becaue it's a fantasy tb strategy with armies that can be led by heroes.
no one claims that disciples is homm clone. THey are...

(HiFiGIF.cc)_the-interview-james-franco-same-same-but-different-but-still-same-small.gif



where did homm series touch you?
 

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