Scratches a specific itch but sadly doesn't really grab me beyond that. The maps are gorgeous (at the expense of being a little hard to read, but thankfully there's a toggle to nametag every interactable), the combat pacing is great, I feel like I'm doing all the stuff I like doing in HoMM3, but for some reason it's just not grabbing me as much as I think it should. It might be the incredibly dull writing or the fact that the factions don't seem all that different mechanically. I'll keep poking at it though, I'd love it if the game fully clicked for me.

I have never experienced Heroes of Might and Magic. This is important because Songs of Conquest is talked about extremely often in the context of that series. The game by Lavapotion studio is a spiritual heir and a love letter. However, I won't write about it from this side. I was attracted by the gameplay despite the fact that these are not areas I usually go into. Yet this tactical turn-based game made me sit through quite a few hours and I fell in love with it. First of all, it is a lovely production. The setting makes the time spent with it much better. Everything sounds and looks wonderful. On the other hand, the gameplay is really well thought out, while understanding it is not difficult. It may require some time, but I felt encouraged to make better use of the mechanics offered to me. Moving forward, there's plenty of content. With custom map creation, community creation, random missions and four campaigns, many hours can be spent with Songs of Conquest. Only the latter element leaves a bit to be desired for me. Just as all four factions are interesting thanks to the differences between them, and the campaigns themselves use an interestingly non-chronological narrative, the overall plot fails to impress. The dialogues are simplistic and the characters are not memorable. On top of that, artificially increasing the difficulty even at the lowest level is a exaggeration. Ultimately, these missions are best used to familiarize the player with the factions. And, of course, they have great songs at the end. All in all, it's a work of love as well as passion, although it's unpolished in several places. I'm a bit curious about what the future might yet bring, but it's already a production worth checking out.

Songs of Conquest is absolutely fantastic. A real achievement and a high watermark in the genre. A game of the year contender. The first title by developers Lavapotion, Songs of Conquest is a real homerun for their first at-bat.

It's a revitalization of the Heroes of Might and Magic formula. It's not quite a reinvention, lots of the same gameplay mechanics are still here. But it is a marked improvement over the franchise that Ubisoft sank into the ground. Ultimately, I hope it isn't too sacrilegious to say, Songs of Conquest is the best HoMM game ever and certainly better than your nostalgia glasses remember HoMM.

Combat is varied, fast, deep. The hero units are engaging and feel unique. Map design is good. The art is fantastic, a gorgeous pixel art design. The music is also quite good. Just top to bottom a really, really fun time.

Hopefully now that the game has reached full release we'll get more content. Both from the devs and from the community. The only thing holding the game back from a perfect 5* rating for me is the lack of variety. It's almost a piddly complaint, really. There are five campaigns, each about ten hours long, that'll give you loads of content. Step into some randomly generated maps or multiplayer games and you'll get at least that much content again. We're talking an easy 100 hours of content shipped to you on day one.

But given the style of game Songs of Conquest is, 100 hours may just be enough to feel confident in your early mastery of the game. Games like this are the type people play for thousands of hours. Like Age of Wonders or HoMM or Civ or any other strategy game, one expects a gigantic amount of playtime from these sorts of titles. My fear is at the moment, Songs of Conquest just isn't varied enough to stretch that much play time out of without relying on a solid group of dedicated friends to play multiplayer with. You'll get very accustomed to the same enemy types and battle strategies. Again, it'll take you low triple digit playtime to hit this stage. But once you do you'll see the same sorts of stuff repeated a little too much. There won't be enough variety and spice to keep you engaged.

This could change though. This is easily a game that could be a perfect 5/5, 10/10, 1,000,000/1,000,000 when it's all said and done. Once more content arrives in the form of mods and patches and DLCs. It's already quite fantastic and I highly, highly recommend it to any strategy gamers out there.