Lords of Magic

Lords of Magic

Developer(s) Impressions Games
Publisher(s) Sierra Entertainment
Composer(s) Keith Zizza
Platform(s) Windows 95, Windows 98
Release date(s)
  • NA November 30, 1997
  • EU 1997
Genre(s) Turn-based strategy, high fantasy
Mode(s) Single-player
multiplayer
Distribution CD-ROM, Download

Lords of Magic is a turn-based strategy PC game designed for Windows 95/98 by Sierra Entertainment. The game was intended to combine elements of Heroes of Might and Magic II and Lords of the Realm II. The special edition also contains the Legends of Urak quest pack, a set of five individual quests that revolve around stories unrelated to the main plot of the game.

Gameplay

The world is filled with wandering monsters and fixed buildings filled with monsters. Lords of Magic is notably different from other strategy games in that it has only one map, with each faith starting at a different location. This led to a somewhat repetitive nature, counteracted somewhat by a supplied map editor.

Lords are the avatar character used by the player. They are like champions, but colored differently and have higher stats. When a lord dies, the faith is removed from play, unless the player has obtained an "heir". Heirs are obtained by befriending another faith, then liberating their great temple before they have, in which case the faith becomes yours and their lord in turn becomes the heir.

There are eight different factions: life, death, order, chaos, air, earth, fire, and water. Each faction represents their element with their own set of units, heroes and spells. The Heroes of the game consist of three different types which offer unique game play and tactics. They are Warrior, Thief and Mage. The Warrior acts as a Tank and leads armies into battle. The Thief works best alone being able to steal money and spy. The Thief can even kidnap other heroes, ransoming them for money and artifacts. The Mage is very weak with low hit points, but can use spells which can change the entire battle in your favor, summoning great monsters or raining down fire and lightning from behind the lines. There are over 160 different spells and they are different for each faction. These spells are divided into four types - "offensive", "defensive", "overland" and "general knowledge". There are over 90 different artifacts as well to discover.

The game includes a single-player mode and limited multiplayer features on LAN and the Internet as well.

Story

The game takes place in the land of Urak. The people of this world worship one of eight religions. Each religion has an opposite in the circle of life and the people of those faiths are bitter enemies. The atmosphere of the game is high fantasy, loosely inspired by the works of Tolkien, as well as Dungeons and Dragons. Balkoth, the lord of Death, has embarked on a campaign to destroy all other faiths in honor of the dark god Golgoth. The other lords scramble to expand their ranks to defend themselves against this dark threat but also to once and for all destroy their lifelong nemesis.

Development

Lords of Magic was developed by Impressions Games for PC and released by Sierra Entertainment in November 1997.

Legends of Urak expansion

The content in the Legends of Urak expansion (included in the "Special Edition" of the game) revolves around various fables and stories. Earth, Fire, and Death each have a unique quest while Order has two quests.

The Earth quest is based on the epic poem Beowulf but involves many original battles and adventures Beowulf partakes in. The Fire quest revolves around a fire sorceress named Crispin who seeks out and slays a colossal ice drake in order to return the flow of lava to the fire capital. The Death adventure focuses on the necromancer's ability to raise the dead and employ them in battle. The adventure ends either by defeating a lich in battle and retrieving his staff for the death lord, or by keeping the staff, taking control of the death capitol and defeating the eldren queen. The first Order adventure is loosely based on the legends of Merlin and King Arthur and ends with the retrieval of the Holy Grail and death of Mordred. The second Order adventure is only activated by clicking in the center of the circle of life in the quests menu and has a unique lord named Sigfried who transforms as the game progresses. He saves the valkyrie Brunhilde and defeats Attila the Hun.

Legacy

To run on most modern operating systems adjust the screen resolution to 800 X 600. Current known highest playable resolution is 1360 X 768.

After the end of the official support with patch 3.01 for the special edition, the game's community tried to take over the support and created own fan patches to address remaining issues and enhance compatibility.[1]

Reception

The game was met with mixed reviews. GameSpot gave the game a rating of 6.3 out of 10.[2] The special edition was met with much better reception, with GameSpot giving it a 7.0.[3]

External links

Information

References

  1. ↑ Kwong, Peter Y. (2007-12-11). "Lords of Magic: Special Edition 3.02 Unofficial Patch Modification Build 0014.3". iinet.net.au. Retrieved 2014-10-16. The Lords of Magic: Special Edition 3.02 Unofficial Patch Modification aims to fix the issues that remain within version 3.01 of Lords of Magic: Special Edition.
  2. ↑ Ryan, Michael E. (1997-12-30). "Lords of Magic Review". gamespot.com. Retrieved 2012-05-19.
  3. ↑ Ryan, Michael E. (1999-01-28). "Lords of Magic: Special Edition Review". gamespot.com. Retrieved 2012-05-19.