Elemental: Reforged

Titans, magic and the desire to plunder the world's resources have contributed to its collapse. In the aftermath of catastrophe, civilisations are attempting to rebuild. You can choose to play as one of several factions, each with different bonuses, access to magic and other advantages. You can create a character representing the ancient, malevolent empires or the younger, newer kingdoms. In this world, it is the strongest who survive, and through city-building, conquest, exploration and war, you can become the one who decides the world's future. With so many competitors, the question is whether this can stand out.

Elemental Reforged is Stardock Entertainment's answer to the question of what would happen if you were to mix Civilization with role-playing games. This is not a unique blend; we already have fairly established game series such as Age of Wonders 4, Sorcerer King: Rivals, Spellforce Conquest of Eo and Master of Magic. There are, of course, even more if we look back in time. The question I asked myself was whether this offered anything new and interesting. The answer to that is both yes and no at the same time. This is because Elemental Reforged is a fusion of their previous titles, Elemental: War of Magic and Elemental: Fallen Enchantress, which in turn utilised the concepts found in this title.

The campaign features cutscenes and a more structured narrative.

Your story begins almost immediately by choosing whether you want to play the campaign, sandbox mode or one of the other game modes. There is also a tutorial mode to help new players get to grips with the concepts and how to play the game. I'll start by saying straight away that this is not an easy strategy game. That's because you have a vast array of options for customising, developing, shaping your civilisation and developing your hero characters. On the surface, it's a classic 4X game: you fight, gather resources, explore and expand. That core remains intact, but there are additional and interesting layers of gameplay elements. One example of this is how you can upgrade your troops.

When building your troops, you can swap weapons, armour, shields and much more. They function somewhat like a template you can alter, which in turn can make simpler troop types relevant later in the game. Your hero can be customised in the same way and becomes more powerful over time, just like in Heroes of Might and Magic, for example. Once you've fought or earned enough experience points, your character can be upgraded with new abilities. Combined with city-building, events in the campaign world, unique buildings to discover and missions to complete, there's quite a lot to do in the game. You're constantly kept busy with something, and I still think this is Stardock's best title in the Elemental series.

The worlds contain monsters and buildings you can interact with.

There are several differences compared to Fallen Enchantress and War of Magic. One example is how Champions work. They don't just appear as they did before; instead, if you become famous enough in the world, you can recruit characters. They have their own powerful abilities and can help you conquer the world. You also have a fairly advanced and interesting crafting system. When you're out in the world with your hero, conquering mines, completing quests and so on, you'll acquire recipes. Using these, you can then create items and other things you can use in battle.

I think the loop in this title, where you build up your cities, gather resources and manage crises and events, works well. It's thanks to the move to 64-bit that it doesn't break down in the same way as its predecessors. The very first Elemental: War of Magic had a tendency to crash and stop working. Master of Magic and Heroes of Might and Magic have always had a winning concept. A bit of trivia is that Stardock were asked by Atari to make a sequel to Master of Magic but turned it down, choosing instead to create something of their own based on the same DNA. This is what the Elemental series is today. Although I do miss a Master of Magic 2 today, it is the people behind series such as Elemental and Age of Wonders who, in various ways, are further developing the basic concept into something new and unique.

Du kan byta vapen och skräddarsy många saker.

If you've ever been looking for a 4X game steeped in fantasy, there are plenty of options. However, I think Elemental: Reforged offers a good enough mix of concepts and ideas we've seen before, with a few unique touches of its own. I'm particularly fond of the ability to customise almost everything down to the last detail. Many games of this type usually give you a foot soldier with pre-set equipment that is then never used. In this title, I found that I could continue to improve basic troop types and use them for quite a long time in my campaign. The more you played, the more weapons, armour and other items you unlocked to equip your troops.

The stories you can play outside of skirmish mode are based on the events of the previous games. They are named after their respective games and can now be played in addition to the standard mode. There's still quite a lot of content on offer, as you're presented with three major campaigns and a fully-fledged sandbox mode. I spend most of my time in the open-world mode as it allows you to create your own stories, characters, kingdoms and more. When you start the sandbox mode, you get to name your character, provide background information, choose a colour, weapon, abilities, what your kingdom should look like, which flag to use and much more. It can be customised in many ways, which I appreciate. One ability you can give your character is the ability to recruit spiders or create unique sets of armour. You have a limited number of points to use, but you can also choose negative abilities, which give you an extra point.

Where you place your cities matters just as much as in any other 4X game you can think of.

Once you've made all your decisions, chosen your world and so on, you'll be placed on the map. The first thing you need to do is create a city and start building. I usually start by reinforcing my hero with new troops and making sure I have enough money. Of course, this depends entirely on what kind of hero you have and what you want to do in the campaign. Freedom is its strength, and the possibilities are endless. As you construct buildings, your city grows, and over time you'll need to build more cities. You can research new technologies and other advancements through discoveries spread across quite extensive technology trees. This shouldn't be underestimated; you really do need upgrades, new unit types, better buildings and more so that you can compete against your opponents. You can ally with them if you wish to destroy their cities or undertake specific missions towards the end of the game to win.

The battles themselves are reminiscent of Age of Wonders 4; you have your hero and your troop types. You move these across the grid and attack the enemy. Depending on what you have access to, battles can unfold in different ways. If you have access to magic, your hero can either damage enemies from a distance or weaken them. You can also improve your troops' abilities. Depending on how you've specialised your hero, you'll have different abilities and options. It essentially comes down to which class your character should have, and you can choose between roles such as assassin, warrior and mage. You'll also tailor your equipment accordingly. It's a bit of a shame, though, that the environments you fight in sometimes look a bit low-resolution. Especially considering how much of the game is actually combat.

You can design your own characters, each with their own abilities and appearances. You're given a few points at the start of the creation process to make certain choices. It's a bit like Stellaris and Galactic Civilization when you're creating a faction.

It's a nice mix, and I also think the graphics are starting to come together. In their previous games, the design hasn't always worked. It's a semi-hand-drawn style that I found hard to get used to. In this game, I think there's better contrast, it looks better, and both the user interface and other elements work well together. There are plenty of settings so you can customise the user interface and other aspects to your liking. The music is pleasant and fits well. It's your typical fantasy music that you'll probably switch off and replace with your own music after a while (for a change). This title won't leave you speechless, but there is a pleasant atmosphere thanks to the visuals and the soundscape.

The game isn't flawless; it has technical bugs, and things don't always work as they should. Stardock Entertainment is, of course, working on improving the experience even further through updates, but there are still some technical issues in the 1.0 version. The game is also stuck in a grid system and hasn't switched to hexagons or similar layouts like more modern 4X games have, which means it suffers from similar problems to games of the past. One example of this is city building, which becomes more complicated as you expand their size. The graphics are also relatively dated compared to the competition. Age of Wonders 4 is an example of a game that looks noticeably better.

The technology tree is vast, so you'll need to think carefully before making any choices in this menu. Just like in Civilization, you might not want to research everything, but rather specialise your civilisation.

The AI opponents sometimes struggle to put up a fight towards the end of your campaign. It's not just a matter of passivity; above all, you're simply more powerful if you play your cards right. This is an area I hope they're working on, as the game is primarily played by a single player and lacks a multiplayer mode. The ability to play against computer opponents whose decisions are strategic and tactical is important. I hope this is something the developers are working to improve. At present, I feel that your opponent struggles to hold its own over time as you grow more powerful. It also struggles to make smart decisions in tactical battles. It often happened to me that I could use flanking manoeuvres to defeat significantly stronger enemies. Sometimes, however, it can run you over if you've given it bonuses. There's no middle ground at the moment.

If you choose to take on Elemental: Reforged, you'll get a competent 4X game with slightly dated graphics and not the most knowledgeable of AI opponents. Thanks to the fact that you do so much else during the course of the game, it rarely gets boring. Although this title is the best in its series, I think certain competitors like Age of Wonders 4 offer sharper experiences today. Total War: Warhammer is also making inroads into a similar genre. That doesn't mean you'll be bored with this, though. If you're feeling a bit nostalgic for how turn-based strategy games like Civilization 3 and 4 played, this might be of interest. I love the ability to customise virtually everything in the game. There's always something to keep you occupied, which is a positive. You can truly create your own story, kingdom and backstory. As you play, you can make it your own in a way that many other competitors fail to do. If you like role-playing games and 4X titles, this is worth checking out.

Unfortunately, the combat can look a bit dated. This is mainly down to the textures and the low-polygon environments.

You can decide which specialisation your character should have when you reach level 2. Each one has its pros and cons.