PC

  News 
  Reviews
  Previews
  Hardware
  Interviews
  All Features

Areas

  3DS
  Android
  iPad
  iPhone
  Mac
  PC
  PlayStation 3
  PlayStation 4
  Switch
  Vita
  Wii U
  Xbox 360
  Xbox One
  Media
  Archives
  Search
  Contests

 

Seven Kingdoms Conquest

Score: 70%
ESRB: Teen
Publisher: DreamCatcher Interactive
Developer: Enlight Software
Media: DVD/1
Players: 1 - 7
Genre: Real-Time Strategy

Graphics & Sound:

Seven Kingdoms Conquest isn't great looking, but it gets the job done. The poorly compressed CG cinema that opens the game won't give you a good feeling, though. You'll manage large armies and won't get much of a chance to zoom in on the action, but when you do, it's not too blocky and polygonal as some other strategy games tend to be. There are a good amount of different structures for each time period for the humans ranging from ancient Egyptian to medieval Europe. The demon structures are also interesting, albeit difficult to understand their purpose. But then that's probably where the designers were going with that.

This seems to be one of those single-song games again. It sounds like there is one continuous song playing throughout the level, though it does vary and it is quite lengthy. The format sounds a bit like a fantasy movie, with choir pieces and esoteric voices calling out and rising and falling levels of orchestrated emotion. Sometimes, however, the music picks up and makes it sound as if some huge battle is going on, when all you may be doing is waiting for your next farm to be built. I found it was better to turn it off after listening to a few loops of it.


Gameplay:

I had a hard time figuring out what Seven Kingdoms Conquest's angle is. Is it just humanity struggling against demons? Really, is that all? You'll get a bit of story introduction before every level that explains what is going on and why you're fighting, but sometimes the introductions seem a bit unrelated to your actual goals. Before one particular level, the narration describes demons that haunt the men's dreams and eat away at their sanity. In the actual level, however, it seems like your real enemy is your fellow man, and demons are more than happy to sit back and relax while you the two of you contribute to your own destruction. I considered the possibility that there is some sort of religious angle to this, i.e. demonic forces passively influence man to destroy itself, but it really didn't seem to be going in that direction. Also, the story only seems to be told through the introductions to each level. When you finish a level, you only get a victory picture, and no further story. This effectively means you don't have to play any of the game in order to learn about the story since you can select any level at the start of the game.

Story or no story, in Seven Kingdoms, you'll play as human forces or demon forces. As the subtitle of the game implies, this game is about conquest, as quick and dirty as you can get it done, as long as you conquer everything on the map. There are no set resources, save for villages or cities which cannot be moved. Anywhere around these set bases, you can build mines, barracks, farms, and other specialized structures. There is no need to micromanage worker classes in order to build or mine from resources. You will have to micromanage everything else about the game, however, so I wouldn't say it's simplistic.

In order to achieve your goals, you have several options. You can use diplomacy to persuade surrounding cities to join your cause. The downside to this route is that it is very expensive, and every attempt to take over a city costs you precious resources of gold or in the demon's case, blood. On the other hand, an all-out attack strategy is also risky because it takes so much attention to fight without losing too many expensive troops. You also have to make a strategic choice between using reputation (called fear for demons) points to promote and strengthen individual units or to summon strong and powerful hero units. One last thing you can utilize to turn the tides of battle to your favor is Demonstone Essence, which you can painstakingly summon from Demonstones which are sparsely scattered across maps. Using the essence grants you access to powerful spells and special units, even gods.

By the way, if you want to learn how to play through the game's tutorial, it seems that the human tutorial is impossible to finish. There is an impassible wall that blocks you from sending troops to the enemy side. Chances are a patch will eventually fix this issue though.

Outside of the Campaign mode, you have the Skirmish mode, which allows you to pick a map and a number of A.I. opponents and just play. The Map Editor mode doesn't offer too much customization as far as terrain, but it will indeed let you set up a custom map if you feel like playing with this option. Standard multiplayer modes make it here: you can set up a LAN game or play over the internet. A lobby is available for those that just want to get online and find someone to play.


Difficulty:

With no selectable difficulty level, the only options you have for lowering the difficulty in Seven Kingdoms Conquest are to turn off fog of war, unhide the map, and lower the game speed. Of course you could turn up the speed and turn everything on if you want the greatest challenge. It's a tough game, even with all the settings adjusted to your favor. The CPU seems to have eyes everywhere and never misses a beat when it comes to raising its army. It always seems to have plenty of money and plenty of resources to spare, and the fight seems a bit unfair.

Things seem a bit easier on the demon side, and one of the main reasons for this is the fact that you're usually only fighting against humans. On the human side, you're usually evenly matched against other humans, or outmatched by demons, or both. It does all depend on the campaign level you choose as well. Overall, demons seem to have an easier time raising a powerful army against humans.


Game Mechanics:

Seven Kingdoms Conquest plays fairly smoothly, though a little too quickly for my tastes. You select troops by dragging a square around them or adding them individually by holding shift while you select them. You can easily assign troops to different groups with different hotkeys assigned to control each group. You can assign paths with custom way points so that troops follow a specific path to their destination. You can do all this, but it felt like a lot of micromanagement. Your units only have limited A.I. and are basically always waiting for you to tell them how not to kill themselves. Yes, that's about every RTS out there, but it has to be said. I felt I had to "cheat" quite a bit by turning the game speed down in order to tell my troops how to fight their battles.

This game seems like a case of nothing new again, but it is a decent enough game for its genre. The learning curve is a bit steep, but it mainly seems due to the fact that the computer is just a multitasking, omnipotent fiend. Seven Kingdoms will most likely cause you some sleepless nights, but it was still just hard to get into. The story is pretty derivative as well, so I don't see anyone playing through just to see the ending. Definitely try this one before you buy it.


-Fights with Fire, GameVortex Communications
AKA Christin Deville

Minimum System Requirements:



OS: Windows 2000, XP or Vista, Processor: 1.5 GHz Pentium 4 CPU, Memory: 512 MB of RAM, Video: NVIDIA GeForce FX series, ATI Radeon 8500, or 3D cards of the same grade, DVD-ROM, Hard Disk Space: 1.0 GB of Free Space, Sound Card: DirectX 9.0 Compatible
 

Test System:



Windows XP, 3.20 GigaHertz Intel Pentium 4, 4 GB Ram, RADEON X850, Creative SB Audigy 2 ZS

Nintendo DS Best of Tests DS Nintendo Wii Worms: A Space Oddity

 
Game Vortex :: PSIllustrated