Fantasy General 2 Review

Fantasy General is a turn-based fantasy strategy game that came out way back in 1996. You might not have heard of it. I hadn’t until I realized I owned it due to a GoG giveaway from long ago. I’m told it was and still is pretty damn good.

In 2005, an open-source project called Battle for Wesnoth took up the mantle for go-to fantasy turn-based strategy for anyone with that particular itch to scratch. Finally, we’ve received the true sequel to Fantasy General, aptly named Fantasy General 2 (FG2), but does it live up to its namesake?

The Things That Come Bundled

FG2 currently takes up about 3GB of space and comes with its own launcher where you can easily access the game manual, a level editor, start the game, “enjoy” a few ads and check for other game-related content, including the latest patch notes. The patch notes being relevant as the game is continuously being worked on, which is nice to see.

The Level Editor, a tool deployed with a recent patch, allows you to create your own maps to play on and including the creation of quests and other events that flavor up the gameplay. Unfortunately, my first few experiences with the launcher and the editor were not too convincing, with an advertisement breaking (which I cannot really complain too much about) in the launcher, and an editor where I felt like I was stumbling around in the dark, as the map was not displaying its terrain. This is something they are aware of and are currently working to fix. My second attempt was significantly more successful, with both the editor and launcher working as intended.

I have a few qualms with these, however. For instance, if you have a separate launcher for your game, I would have expected the ability to set the graphics options before starting the game. The irritating “tick” noise that you hear when mousing over the buttons in the launcher was particularly painful. However, I like that buying the game does not give you just the game, but also future support and additional tools to improve the gameplay experience and I hope the issues with these will be fixed soon.

A Captivating Story

As you start the game, you are immediately greeted by a video that recaps the first game and introduces you to the story of the sequel. It is a good introduction to the mythos for anyone who has not played the first game but also serves to set the mood and atmosphere that the player would find themselves in. It is pretty, has bellowing music, is well-written and well-spoken, and serves to draw you in well. It makes you want to jump in and start cleaving your opponents with some sweet axe action.

Unfortunately, it oversells the game a little, as the fancy graphics never make a reappearance and the voiceover work is only used sparingly afterward. In fact, the opening movie offers more excitement than anything in the game itself, story-wise. Normally, this would be a bad thing, but this is a game about strategy and tactics and about thinking through your every move, seizing opportunities while not giving them to the opponent. Active “excitement” is not its primary purpose.

The game itself looks and sounds impressive, the art is fantastic and the music, while a little repetitive, captures the feeling of the game well, with only a sudden lack of voiceover being noticeable through the dialogue that you encounter throughout the game.

My first instinct was to jump into a random scenario. This did not seem to work too well, with the setup for a scenario working fluidly, but it was followed by a ten-minute loading screen, after which I decided to try the Campaign instead. The Campaign seems to be the primary intended gameplay experience as it continues the tale laid down by the introduction, with you taking up a glorious quest of helping your family and your people. It is a lengthy tale of conquest, betrayal, revenge, and the story of a brother and sister doing what they believe is righteous. Thankfully, it’s a tale that you can explore over countless hours of gameplay without being bored by it.

While the choices you make do not seem to have major consequences, each step you take to advance your story is enjoyable overall. The minor consequences add enough flavor to make you think about the potential implications of your choices. They feel appropriate for the setting, easing the player into friendly role-play. Combined with the superb art and music, the Campaign is a genuine pleasure.

Strategy Between Battles

To engage your opponents on the battlefield, you first need troops. This is the main focus of the strategic aspect of FG2, while the rest of the game focuses on battlefield tactics. You are given a limited Supply limit, which is used to acquire new units, with most units requiring one Supply for upkeep, but Trolls and Heroes needing two. This limits your army size and forces me to plan ahead. If you have more gold to spend after filling up your army, you can hire Mercenaries, troops that will join you for a single mission and leave thereafter.

Do not worry, nobody will complain if they just happen to end up dead during that mission to save some of your regular soldiers. You can choose units of different classes, such as Ranged Artillery, Infantry, etc. as well as different races, such as Lizards and the aforementioned Trolls. This gives your army a lot of complexity and variety. Over the course of a campaign, you will inevitably lose and gain units, keeping you wary of what your army can do and where its limitations lie. Some missions split your army, so knowing who works well together is a good thing to keep in mind, too.

Each unit has an upgrade tree, which, given enough resources, can turn your meager little guy with a slingshot to a mighty long-range dude with a magical slingshot. You can turn your Shieldmaidens into magnificent Stag Riders that do fast hit-and-run attacks and work well as reconnaissance units. Resources come in three different flavors, with Weapons being the easiest to obtain, and Liquid Mana the rarest. You will almost never have too many resources, so choosing who you upgrade becomes another strategic decision.

Hero units have their own upgrade tree that is unlocked by leveling up. While all units gain some bonuses by gaining experience, Heroes can use their experience to learn new skills. This allows you to guide some Heroes to use support roles, giving buffs to friendly units around them and debuffs to any hostile ones, or battle roles, which allows them to soak up ungodly amounts of punishment before succumbing to the sweet release of death if it ever comes.

To compliment your Hero roles and troop strengths, you might find items during your adventures that any Hero or unit can equip that can give various bonuses to their existing abilities, enable new abilities or extend the units’ longevity. Some items can be consumed for quick boosts on the battlefield, turning the tide of battle in unpredictable ways. All in all, the strategy does feel significant, albeit less deep than most of our beloved 4X games. It is just deep enough to keep the game entertaining, to force the player to keep exploring what they can do given the ever-expanding toolset.

Battles Where Casualties Matter

Age of Wonders III had an interesting aesthetic. Smaller troops, like your Swordsmen, would be depicted as a group of units. The more damage that the unit would take, the more animated figures that would fall down and die. When people complained that a single swordsman still inflicted the same damage as six and it made no visual sense, the game offered an option to turn the “Kill Figures” off. Fantasy General 2 offers an alternative. Your units consist of multiple troops, and as the unit takes damage, the troops get wounded or killed. Only healthy troops inflict maximum damage, so now the number of troops in a hex represents the unit’s damage capabilities, too. So keeping them in tip-top shape becomes even more important. By having your troops rest up, the wounds get healed but take heed that the dead do not come back. Once they’re gone, they’re really gone.

You can replace your casualties in Settlements or after a successful scenario, but this costs money. Furthermore, the new troops won’t be battle-hardened, possibly lowering the experience of the entire unit. If all the troops of a unit are wounded or killed, the unit is lost. Makes sense, right?

This mechanic lends itself to the battle system really well. Battle lines are naturally formed, being able to move wounded units behind your lines so that they can fight another day, being able to move fresh new troops to the front quickly to avoid gaps in your line matters, and flanking your opponents to stop them from retreating their wounded all matters. More often than not I find myself in trench warfare, where both sides have massive battle lines and keep battering each other, but neither really moves. This can cause a lot of tension because each map has a finite amount of “Region Wealth”, a reward you get for winning.

Every turn you take, that Wealth ticks down, eventually leaving you with a long arduous battle and nothing to show for it. You can raid Settlements to get some immediate rewards, but doing that makes the Wealth decrease a little bit faster. As your potential rewards dry up, getting locked in your imaginary trench can be a bother. Until there is a single moment, a sudden breakthrough, that releases all the tension you have been bottling up for the past dozen or so turns. Then the battlefield becomes more open, and removing your opponent’s units becomes a game of tactical whack-a-mole.

A system like this is in great danger of becoming dangerously repetitive, but with each map having a myriad of terrains with different bonuses and enemies to fight with different units, it doesn’t plunge to those depths. Speaking of which…

Catch You On The Replay?

As I mentioned before, the main focus of Fantasy General 2 is the Campaign. In general terms, they’re specific scenarios that are played through in a specific order. Normally, this would mean you play it through once and never look back at it again. But in this case, the campaign is surprisingly impressive, with small branches and dialogue options, and it invites you to play it again and again. In fact, at the time of this writing, I am more than halfway through the campaign (I may have peeked at some spoilers) and I would not mind replaying the campaign already.

It is really well thought out with plenty of Easter eggs, characters with actual personalities, adventures that move you through different regions of wildly different terrain, all the while requiring the use of different tactics and army compositions. You have so many options that you actually want to try out different combinations to explore if there is a trick to break through a specific enemy’s lines quicker or more efficiently.

This is not because any scenarios feel overly long or dragged out, but rather because being faster gives greater rewards, meaning more options for future scenarios. Although the game itself is pretty straightforward, it is wrapped in a package that keeps it interesting over hours and hours. With the added benefit of a Content Editor, and promised procedurally created scenarios in the future, this game offers a significant amount of entertainment and replayability.

Conclusion

Owned by Gravity has done a great job of creating a sequel to a classic I never really knew. Yes, it has issues and bugs that are very noticeable, but they mostly affect the user interface and are minor enough to ignore in lieu of the working and enjoyable game mechanics.

For anyone who wants to take Fantasy General 2 out for a spin, know this: I would not call it an exceptional game. However, it has a quality that few games do these days and has that “one more turn” feeling that keeps you going hours into the night. That feeling you get when you plan to play for an hour, then next time you check the time it has been four hours since then. It is positively addicting. It still needs a little polish, but even in its current state, I would recommend it to anyone with an itch for turn-based strategy and tactics.

TL;DR: Fantasy General 2 is a story-focused turn-based fantasy strategy game with great art and sound design that invokes that “one more turn” feeling. It still has issues, but fixes are promised and have been steady. It’s not the classic that its predecessor was, but it’s still a great game in its own right and one that I can recommend.

You Might Like This Game If:

• You love Battle for Wesnoth, Advanced Strategic Command, Fantasy General, or maybe even the old Heroes of Might and Magic games and their combat
• You love story-driven strategy games
• You grew up wishing to be a Viking-like war hero who befriends Centaurs (what a very specific wish, by the way)

You Might NOT Like This Game If:

• You are looking for something with a lot of strategic depth
• You are looking for five-minute entertainment
• You are easily irritated by bugs

Our Review Policy

Kaur played for 40 hours on a Dell laptop with Intel i7-7700HQ, Geforce 1050Ti and 16GB RAM. A key was provided for the purpose of this review by Slitherine.

Kaur Quark

One of our newest authors here at eXplorminate! Did we mention that we’re always looking for more people that can contribute around these parts? If you’re interested, be sure to email us at eXplorminate@gmail.com