Disciples II was a great turn-based strategy title in the fantasy canon and a worthy successor to the original Disciples. These games have inherited the title once held by the Heroes of Might and Magic series that has successively failed to impress with each of their last two iterations. The Disciples series filled the gap masterfully with gorgeous art, a deep and stirring storyline, and a dark, gothic slant to the whole presentation, from the somber music to the varied but muted color palette to the destructive set of spells your heroes can cast.

Thus, it was good news to fans of the genre when the two Disciples “expansion packs” were released, Disciples II: Guardians of the Light and Disciples II: Servants of the Dark. I put this in quotations as the two titles are stand-alone products, each including the original Disciples II game, campaigns, and multiplayer maps as well as two new campaigns with new music tracks, heroes, graphics backgrounds and effects, skirmish maps, and other extras. In an interesting move, Strategy First chose to separate the two games rather than release them as one large “gold-box” edition. This has the positive effect of getting the full game and one-half the “sequel” for a budget price, but if you want to play both the new Light and Dark campaigns, you’ll have to purchase both products.

The storyline continues where the original left off and is compellingly told through excellent and well-spaced movie introductions and text dialogues. The over-arching tale is told from four points of view, two races playable in each expansion. In the Light expansion, you can play through the human’s Empire campaign and the Mountain Clans of the dwarves, trying to reunite and revitalize their peoples after the calamitous events of the original game nearly destroyed both races. In the Dark expansion, you will play the role of the Undead and the Demon hordes who seek to continue their destruction. All four campaigns will include interactions with the mysterious Elves, whose purposes are largely unknown…

The gameplay is similar to the original, with you taking the role of a racial hero with tasks to complete to further the story. During your turn, you can expand your capital, which will improve your selection of available spells and troops. You can also hire a variety of heroes to explore the countryside, capturing loot, towns, and resources to increase your strength. Some hero types can take control of the very ground in your name, increasing the magic power at your command, while the thief hero can spy on enemies, poison them to decrease their troop strength, and other nefarious deeds. Many neutral enemy camps, caves, crypts, and ruins are scattered throughout the maps, offering further opportunities to build your experience and wealth. Both your hero-leaders and their various party members can be upgraded with a variety of powers and abilities as they gain experience.

Combat is handled in turn-based fashion with each side attacking and/or casting spells based on each individual party member’s speed rating. Since units differ in their attack speed, ability to hit targets at range, and their destructive (or healing) powers, balancing your forces is essential to success. The computer AI is generally quite good. You can now capture your enemy’s capital (though you’d best be darned powerful before attempting this), and characters can reach incredibly high levels. In fact, you can’t play the expansion without at least a level 10 leader. While you can either import them from your original game or use an included level 10 pre-generated leader, the import/export leader functions are poor and unnecessarily difficult.

Significant improvements were made to the user interface, the most important being the addition of an “instant” battle resolution button; when your forces are obviously superior, you can skip the tedium of beating down your pitiful opponent with a single click, resolving the battle automatically, and move on to bigger and better targets. Or are they better? One complaint I had was that the loot items were often mismatched with their guardians – at one point, we walloped a giant blue dragon (an appropriately difficult battle), only to be awarded a single non-magical silver ring worth 20 gold pieces (that’s a Big Mac in today’s economy, folks). Items I would have liked to see implemented in the UI are a quest log summary, a quicksave/quickload feature, and a gamma adjustment. SFI, please keep this in mind when you start work on Disciples III…

The trademark art is back and better than ever. Though all in 2D, the characteristic style is impeccably applied throughout all parts of the game and never disappoints. I wish these guys would design (and illustrate?) all my favorite fantasy lit titles. Spell effects support Direct3D and are well-done also. Multiple resolutions are supported to further expand the scenes in all their glory, and larger game maps (up to 144x144) are now supported as well. Your battle units improve dramatically in the splendor of their appearance and the drama of their attacks as they are upgraded, and heroes’ attacks are particularly appealing. The only improvement I could have suggested was a better death animation – each destroyed character turns to a little pile of bones in a whirlwind. Wouldn’t it have been amazing to see your enemy crumple over, burned alive by your spells, or arms flailing wildly as he searches for his head, just severed from his body by your hero’s mighty sword swipe? The music and effects definitely get the job done. None were particularly outstanding in either a good or bad sense, and while the music tracks fit the mood perfectly, they probably won’t end up gracing your MP3 player as separate audio files either. Solid performance all-around.

The focus of these games is definitely the single-player campaigns, which are fantastically long – your value on the dollar in terms of hours of gameplay will not likely be higher with any other title. Each mission (and there are many in each campaign, both the original and all the new racial expansions) can take many hours to complete. For those that want more, there is a game editor and random map generator to further extend replayability, as well as the multiplayer skirmish mode. The latter, while well-done, doesn’t appeal as much to me in long turn-based titles such as this one simply because of the non-simultaneous nature of the gameplay. If you have time to kill, this mode and the chat functions are quite adequate to the task.

Again, if you enjoy turn-based fantasy games, you can’t miss with either one (or both) of these titles. They are extremely polished, bug-free, graphically and lyrically compelling, and give an outstanding amount of enjoyment for an incredibly low price. For $20, you’ll be hard-pressed to find any similar title in the genre you’d like more. Both fans of the original and newcomers alike have a lot here to entice them to become Disciples.

Disciples II: Guardians of the Light Final Grade: 88%
Disciples II: Servants of the Dark Final Grade: 88%

Disciples II Expansions Official Website

System Requirements:

• Windows 95/98/2000/XP
• Pentium II 233 Mhz
• 32 Mb RAM
• 200 MB hard disk space
• DirectX 7.1
• 16-bit sound card
• CD-ROM drive quad speed
• 8 MB RAM Video Card