Here's a bullet point style review to talk about the good things and bad things of Disciples: Liberation.

DISCIPLES 2 - This is NOT a follow up to Disciples 2. Yes, that's disappointing because many of us adored that game. HOWEVER, this is still a good entry into the Disciples catalog, even if it doesn't mimic the second game. If you can put that to the side, you might like what you find here.

GRAPHICS - This game is gorgeous. Every environment was clearly crafted with care. Tons of beautiful little details in the environments. The models of each unit look great - you can really zoom in on them and appreciate how well done they are. Likewise, zooming in and watching the animations of combat is really satisfying as well.

SOUND/VOICE ACTING - The original theme is great. This game doesn't have a ton of tracks, but what's here is well done. I did wish there was some variation in combat music because it got pretty old after a while. Sound quality overall was excellent, lots of satisfying audio through combat, spells and environment ambience. The voice actors here were all clearly very talented. Some of the direction of that voice acting was occasionally strange (e.g. a well established and clever demon sounded like a little old lady which I thought was odd) but despite that, the voice acting is quality. Ejamar was a particular favorite, his random maniacal cackles were a delight every time and the way the voice actor delivered every line was just *chef's kiss*

DIALOGUE - Dialogue was mostly great. However, one of my biggest issues with this game is the side dialogue among your party members. You might enter a new area or pass by a notable landmark and your party will have something to say about it. These conversations are NOT voice acted, but shown through text. That text pops up in the lower left hand corner of the screen and is small enough to be easily missed. By the time I'd notice my character was having a conversation, I'd have missed part of it and there was no way to repeat it. It's just flavor, but if they went to the trouble to put it in the game, I wish they'd make it harder to miss.

DIFFICULTY - I've seen this particular complaint pop up a lot in negative reviews and a lot of people think the game is too easy. I am guessing that likely these reviews were made while in the first act of the game because frankly the first act is fairly easy. It does get more difficult. By the third act of the game, I lost a lot of units in battles.

STORY/LORE - The lore is RICH. There's a lot here, it's interesting! The problem is that there's an awful lot of it and there's no lorebook. There needs to be something to reference, because it was easy to get lost in it a bit. A lorebook would have served this game well.
The story of this game felt disjointed. Between the first 25% of the game and the last 10%, I was fairly confused about what my real purpose was from a story standpoint. I do think they tied it together in the end so that it was much more cohesive, I just feel something was missed here with the storytelling. And time is VERY vague. At some point in the game I realized that what I had been playing was meant to represent years passing. And I didn't get that sense AT ALL from the storytelling. I have read that subsequent playthroughs will offer more story.

GAMEPLAY/REPETITION - Gameplay feels good. If you've ever played any of the Might and Magic games or other Disciples titles, you'll know what to expect. Combat flows well and I like that between battles you traverse the map and gather resources, etc. It's a solid gameplay loop.
The problem comes in with the main complaint I keep reading - the repetition of the battles. There are far too many trash mobs/battles in this game. My playthrough landed me at about 77 hrs of played time and that was using the conquer function whenever I could (when it worked, more on that later). Frankly, that's too long for a game of this nature in my opinion. Even moreso because this game was designed to be played more than once. Without spoilers, this game was 100% intended to be a multiple playthrough game. And though I mostly enjoyed my time with this game, after 77 hrs I don't really feel like playing it again. I've read that subsequent playthroughs are a lot faster though can't verify that myself. Looking at how many people beat the game on Steam (the end game achievement currently sitting at a mere 15% of players), it looks like a lot of people might agree that this is too long. I think eliminating more of the random battles might be a good way to cut down on some of the time on this.
The other complaint I've seen is that there aren't many units in this game and on that I disagree. There are four factions, each of them with four tiers of units and each tier with multiple units. There are plenty of different units to battle or use. There are more than 50 units in this game though, so truly the variety is a non issue.

ROMANCE/COMPANIONS - I love romance storylines in my games. So when I saw this would include romance, I was so excited. I absolutely love getting to know my companions in games. Uncovering who they are and what their history is. Romance aside, this has good character building. Every companion here was interesting and fun to learn about. I've said it before, Ejamar was fantastic. I see a lot of love for him in the community and for good reason. Also Illmeren really grew on me. I think at first she seemed quite stereotypical but I love where her character development took her.
Specifically the romance? Very underwhelming. It really boils down to 1 scene. There's a little tribute at the end of the game for your romance but aside from 1 significant moment in the game the romance is barely present. In fact, after meeting the romance option I took and immediately expressing "interest" to this character, the next time I spoke with my companions it was hinted at quite strongly that he was interested in another companion. And then romance never came up again until later in the game when you have a nice scene alone with your companion of choice. And that scene was good, really well done, brings you some more insight into that character. And when it's over, it's like it never happened. Your companion never addresses you like you have a special relationship or anything. That was disappointing. In this way, the romance felt very tacked on.

BUGS/CONQUER FUNCTION - I encountered very few bugs in this game. I had a bug 1 time where I was stuck on the victory screen. I also had a bug a few times where the top unit turn order bar was out of sync with who was actually having a turn. It happened maybe 3 times and ultimately had no bearing on my gameplay. The one BIG problem I encountered I don't think was a bug, but rather a function of it's design and that's the conquer ability.
In the game, there is a button to "conquer" a fight without doing the actual fight. The idea behind it is when you were well out of the level of that group of enemies, you could just defeat them instead of doing the fight. I love this idea, because as mentioned above, there are too many trash mobs in this game. The problem is that by the 3rd act, the conquer function only seemed to work effectively about 25% of the time. Plenty of times I should have been able to skip a non story related battle and it just wouldn't let me. I went back to an older map to look for something I missed and had to battle groups of enemies that were 25+ levels lower than me! Why? I think this function should be more consistent. It's a great idea and I love it's inclusion in the game.

TLDR - Disciples Liberation can be a fun, well done entry into the genre. It's not Disciples 2 Redux, but what's here is solid enough to stand on it's own. It runs too long and battles can be a bit tedious, especially towards the end of the game. Despite that, it's still one I'd recommend for gamers who like the turn based battle games and interesting companion characters.

I want to preface this review with a small interlude. Disciples as we knew it (fans of the first and second game will know what I mean) is never coming back. If you are looking to buy this game to get that fix, don't. This game comes no where near as charming or initiative as those first two. I'm sad to say this because Disciples was one of those games I found years ago on the early interweb through one of those gaming subscription services. It blew my mind because I had never played a game like this, and still to this day have not found anything that comes close to it. Ever since Kalypso got their hands on the series, they've twisted and bastardized what was originally charming. Even their third entry into the series was just them taking the idea and reforming it.

That all being said, if you look past the nostalgia this game isn't half bad. I'm not too crazy about it but I can see others maybe enjoying it if it's thier first time playing a disciples game.

First thing you should understand - this is not the sequel of the original “Disciples” series. It is not even a strategy - it is a RPG with turn-based battles and some strategic elements. The closest analog would be the “King’s Bounty” series.

I am not familiar with the original “Disciples” series, but I assume this game shares its lore and world history with it. But that’s all.

Here we travel around an open world, interact with its inhabitants, complete quests and so on. But unlike the most such games, while fighting enemies the hero does not do it himself, but instead he commands a small army, which jumps out of the pocket. So the main gameplay aspect is a tacticals turn-based battle. And it has been done well enough.

Game has a nice combat system, where each unit has regular attack, special attack with cooldown and passive ability. There is also a rear line, where we can put a unit to gain some passive effect over the entire squad. All these features produce a good variety of tactics and combat schemas, making the battles quite interesting.

However, there are some absurdities in unit properties: skeletons and ghosts can bleed and can be poisoned. How it can be possible, while such creatures do not have a bloodstream? Some imp-archer constantly yells “I will bathe in fire”, but has no resistance to it and burns like everyone else. And so on.

During the gameplay we will fight the giant bosses, which requires special tactics. This provides additional diversity for the battles.

However, only Avyanna can cast spells. You will not face any equal challenge: an army led by a hero with a spellbook and the same abilities.

The game has a good variety of units, coming from 4 different factions. During the game we have to pick sides in the world events, improving relationships with some factions, but losing it with the others. So it is hard to remain friendly with everyone, which limits the available units list per each playthrough. Thus the game provides a good re-playing potential.

Also there is a “game+” mode with a twist. I do not want to make a spoiler - you’ll see it when you get there.

There is no automatic healing after the battle. We’ll need to find a healing spring in order to replenish the unit's health. This leaves us running circles around the map: fight with the enemy - go back to healing spring, return to fight the next enemy - go back to healing spring and so on. Also there is no way to heal the squad at the home town.

The game takes too much time to apply the unit's passive effects during battles. Hit a succubus and wait a few seconds while she casts a backfire effect on the unit, hit her again and wait for another few seconds… Such things are better to speed up.

The game does not contain cut-scenes or cinematics (actually it has 3 or 4, but I would not count them). The entire story is presented via text descriptions and partially voiced dialogs, in which we can see only the characters’ faces. Such game appearance is very disappointing, as it does not channel emotions and drama behind the story events. It looks like an interactive book - not a video game. If we were talking about a strategy game with some story campaign presented in this way - it would be fine. But this is a story-telling RPG!

The game already has character models with enough detailisation used for the tactical battles. These could be easily reused in cut scenes, which should not be necessary implemented in very high detail mode. Just remember the “Spellforce” series for example. Of course, someone may say this is a “classic” or an “old school” approach. But I think this is simply “end of the budget”.

One more thing related to the story-telling: it contains a lot of sexual encounters. At some point it seems Avyanna sleeps with everyone she meets, including demons and undead... Perhaps this is how authors define the term “dark fantasy”. Nevertheless, without any cut-scenes or other visuals for it, all these sexual stories look rather stupid then lustful.

Story itself has a lot of holes in it. For example: we find the home town, which is an “abandoned ancient city” in a livable state with some buildings producing modern units in “ready to go” mode. There is no rebuilding, no seek for the builders or workers - nothing. There is no formal requirement for the castle advancement, just - “you need to advance the story”. How does, for example, the emperor’s death relate to our town building? It could be justified better, like we need a specific schematics, a special resource or artifact, but…

Same thing appears for the Avyanna character class. She starts the game as a “mercenary” and can pick another class only after a particular story event. For an RPG it looks stupid: she should be searching for a mentor or something to master a new profession.

Graphic is basic. Can’t say it is bad, can’t say it is good or realistic. For the game, which main feature is tactical battles shown from the height, it is acceptable. There are some glitches like collisions in clothing (elven robe in particular).

Music and sound is unremarkable, but suits the gameplay well enough. However, the sound sometimes freezes right in the middle of the dialogue phrases. It looks like a disk swap. Although It may be just my local machine’s problem.

Overall it is 6/10. If you like turn-based battles, you will probably enjoy this game. But its other aspects appear unfinished, which is a pity. I think the game could appear much better without much extra effort.

For the record, Disciples: Liberation is not King's Bounty 2.
However it is what King's Bounty 2 should have been, judging from many of the comments (incl. my own) on both forums.

That being said, Disciples: Liberation is a good game, and a hybrid of both styles in fact which seem to blend nicely.
Although there's one thing hardcore players (i'm not that hardcore, but i am an old-schooler) might notice early on, which is how simplified things actually are.
I'm not pointing that out as "negative" criticism guys, it was no doubt decided to appeal console players alike so to me that makes perfect sense. Yet, by mentioning simplified i'm looking at combat mechanics, skill trees, questing and options given to reach or complete certain goals. (there's plenty to do, icluding crafting, building, exploring, expanding and improving)
It's all pretty straight forward, and doesn't involve complex strategies or never seems to give the player bad outcome whatever choices he or she makes (even though it was advertised as "choices matter"). You'll get the gist a few hours in..
Continuing upon that idea brings us the skill tree, which has seen a post béta rework which is fine tbh (the main protagonist will be OP soon enough without the changes anyway).
However, and again this is where i'd recall myself saying the game is a bit simplified when you look into the "3" available skill trees. That's right, you can freely choose from those 'three skill trees' albeit the player will still have to decide which one to master. So you can either stick to one or mix it up depending on your preferred playstyle.
There's no downside to this as well, if you don't feel comfortable spending points on skills you no longer have need of, the game provides an easy way out. (sometimes Less is Moar) Right, Alfred Pennyworth?
For a 'fist full of coin' you can use a 'handy' redo option which will set the skill trees back towards the beginning, allowing you to re-distribute the points as you see fit. (simplified - choices matter?) Mhm..
Now quickly looking over to the graphics and music department i can say this much, the devs did a decent job on that. Although the limited camera options often bother me. There's no 360° camera rotation available as of yet, and i expect it will not get implemented over time which is actually a small piece of criticism here.
Anyways, now that's all been said i am quite happy having purchased Disciples: Liberation and i'll gladly recommend it to anyone who likes those classic Disciples & King's Bounty games (in a modern day twist mind you).

Highly recommended score: 8.5/10

A fun ride more in the tradition of Kings Bounty than Disciples. Liberation has far superior overall quality than anything else Kalypso has published. Story elements and quest chains are well thought out and well presented with quality voice acting. The graphics are good and boss fights shake things up a little. You have a total of 9 companions who's skills and personality are varied. There are 4 vying factions and a 5th interloper. Base building is intuitive and not too restrictive adding a layer of tinkering. Your questing, at least initially, has to balance faction reputation for various reasons both in terms of story and unit management. Two play through's are pretty much mandatory. Although there are a few difficulty spikes, as long as you choose the order you fight enemies correctly, most people will find the game just a tad on the easy side - particularly in the second "liberation" play through where you can have all your companions on the field rather than the 2 you are restricted to in the first. Although difficulty was tweaked for this it just isn't enough for the game to cope with the crazy power of having a full force of heroes.

All in all Liberation is certainly worth the entry ticket but most would agree that it would have been a lot better given a very hard mode. This said, around 90 hours of enjoyment (for 2 plays) is nothing to be sniffed at. It's worth maybe 83% but you could easily add another 10% should they add a hard mode.

Disciples: Liberation is easy to recommend for fans of Heroes of Might & Magic or King's Bounty style gameplay. It's a bit simplistic, but otherwise a solid take on both the real-time RPG questing and exploration, as well as the turn-based combat with small armies of units. As for the base building part: there's only one so it's kinda there for flavor only.

The entire theme of the game is about living in the moment and worrying about consequences later, and by flipping my brain switch to a similar mode of "take the writing as it comes and don't think about it until later" it was indeed enjoyable! That mode is important, so make sure to RTFM - yes, the one for your brain - and find it so you can have some fun with the story too.

Almost every encounter in the game follows a rhythm of providing little information prior to you making a decision, only to provide both consequences and context afterwards. It goes so far with this that it seems to lampoon this kind of writing in other works and it flips around and becomes kinda good as long as you're in the right headspace. It also works very well for the main narrative, which is constantly revealing new layers and a deeper rabbit hole to keep jumping into. Choices don't really matter for anything but companion (party member) stories / faction approval though...

Still despite all the above, there is some Disciples in here and it's the setting. It's dark, especially towards the end. There's oceans of blood. Some existential horror. And quite a few nods to prior games towards the end. A Disciples fan may not like where this game takes it all as it gets rather extreme in ... resolving things, but it's certainly not fluffy bunny Dragon Age fantasy.

And better yet: no stupid Total War blood DLC! The base game provides. Get a few vampires together and you can coat the entire map in blood explosions! They even do tons of damage! Hurrah!

Sadly, there were some downsides to this 100+ hour game. The main one being that length actually, because it's heavily padded. If you pick this up, don't be like me and fight every battle. Just pick the Conquer option. Any battle you can Conquer (auto-win) is pure filler and a guaranteed win anyway. It'll probably save you like 50-60% of that play time and definitely make the game less of a slog towards the middle. Especially with the game's animations being so slow that 300% combat speed feels like it should be the normal 100%, and there really needs to be a 600% option.

Another downside is that the game uses Unity Engine. It's a relatively new version, so G-SYNC works and so do high core count CPUs, but it's still just not great when it comes to performance. This game seems simple to optimize, mostly just small combat arenas with a few 3D models doing animations, but the performance is quite bad. Granted, I do need a new GPU too, so YMMV. There also seems to be a small memory leak, so restarting sometimes will help performance if you play long sessions.

The developers also clearly cut some corners with some of the implementation to get it out the door, like the game constantly checking backline units for actions (when they have none) before going to the next turn, wasting more time. As well as constant UI background noises... when the AI is doing moves! And the audio balance is horrific, with dialogue usually being about 60% the volume of everything else. And some of the ambient noise is just an annoying static noise effect.

This is mostly just nitpicking on an otherwise enjoyable experience. Don't expect a GOTY experience. Don't expect best-in-class HoMM gameplay. Don't expect magnificent writing that will drag you into some mindblowing experience. Do expect a fun over-the-top grimdark fantasy romp with solid gameplay. And post-patches in 2022: "conquer" anything and everything you can to avoid massive easy battle padding.

A re-imagined classic returns with immersive and extensive RPG elements, overarching storylines and new gameplay features. Turn-based combat is vastly enhanced, with greater depth and tactical options.

Disciples: Liberation

Having played the original Disciples franchise many years ago, I was curious about how this latest edition would hold up, especially with mixed reactions to the subsequent releases (e.g. Sacred Lands, Disciples II and III although I myself stopped playing after Disciples II).

The main campaign has you playing human mercenaries in a world with four competing factions: the Empire, Undead, Elves, and Demons, and your various encounters with them. There are numerous primary and secondary quests to fulfil, and your choices dictate the relationship levels with these factions. Structurally the game is turn-based, but you cannot save while in battle. You can however, save & reload while in the exploration map (not in dungeons).

+ Beautiful graphics - I am running a Ryzen 9 paired with a GTX 2060 (hardly cutting edge) and visually the game is stunning. A lot of effort and care have been put into creating very detailed environments

+ The soundtrack further adds to the immersive world of Disciples; the music is never so intrusive or annoying that you want to turn it off; voiceovers are well done and in-character

+ The RPG elements are plentiful; one might say that while tactical combat is the key to success, the structure and narratives in the game have become more compelling and engaging; there are multiple quests to complete

+ Tactical combat is deep; there is a "back line" and "front line" in the order of battle, forcing you to strategically place your troops and companions (who have both front line and back line abilities) accordingly. The variety of units, abilities and resultant front/back combinations is endless

+ In combat, there are movement and combat points and your unit/character can regain some health by doing neither. Your enemies can too, so this makes battles interesting

+ There is a "conquer" or auto resolve feature for dungeon encounters, reducing repetitive battles

+ Apart from troops and companions, buildings, weapons, shards and equipment can all be upgraded. There is a resource gathering component but it is not overwhelming. You can also hire mercenaries from the marketplace, and buy needed resources

+ Gameplay and battles can be addictive, a la CIV (just one more turn and I'll quit, I promise)

- There is a map at the (world) exploration level, but no auto-mapping in the dungeon level?

- I have not found a way to rotate the camera view in the dungeon level either

- Loot drops seem inconsistent with foes/bosses; e.g. after killing a dragon, I ended up with common leather armour from the treasure chest (say what?)

- It takes a fairly long time before you're able to upgrade your castle and buildings; some are based on your faction standings but others are based on your story progression and quest completion

- Your main character can equip many items but companions can only equip weapons and shards. With the multitude of items that you find, most of them have to be recycled as a result

• The "conquer" feature is controversial and is in the process of being refined. The devs have announced new difficulty levels, so this should be resolved
  
  
• The game has shifted focus from base building/facility upgrading to role-playing; some purists may not like this
  
  
• Gameplay is linear, and you cannot create a custom character. You can choose the order in which to explore faction territories, but that's about it. In that sense, it's not very RPG-like
  
  
• The storylines seem unnecessarily convoluted - there are main plots and faction sub-plots, and after a while, it's easy to lose track of the details

Disciples: Liberation (D:L) has come a long way from its original ancestor; this instalment feels and plays like an RPG, with far less emphasis on stronghold management, building upgrades, or capturing territory - indeed, a large amount of emphasis is placed on forging positive relationships with the factions, with the caveat that the latter will sometimes have competing interests and unwanted consequences with other factions.

Is D:L a "true" RPG? Not quite; it's kind of a hybrid since most of the CRPGs and isometric style classics have a combat-with-pause, while this game stays true to its turn-based battles. That said, the volume of role-playing elements and material have significantly increased.

Overall, I found the game enjoyable and addictive; combat is challenging; units are unique, with interesting skills; the environment is well-crafted and immersive. The dislikes listed above are minor and there have been no serious bugs I've encountered yet.

Even in its re-imagined form, Disciples: Liberation is certainly worth a look.

7.0/10.0

First I tried the demo and I was like :"gosh... the fights are so slow !" and "its me or there is something wrong with the sound?", it feelt like a piano was thrown from a building each time I clicked on something, and , these were my biggest complaints
and these complaints are obsolete now, since they got fixed ...so is the game any good?

Pros :

-As a fan of HoM&M games, I can only appreciate the mechanics of this game that are similar to Heroes in a lot of ways...but it's not a copy, the game has its own mechanics too

-As a french player, I have to put a positive review since this game is dubbed in french, and the dialogs are well writen, the humor feels "right",

-The graphics and the FX are good, nothing crazy but good

Cons :

The music and the game art direction are good but somewhat ... generic? or at least not remarkable, but High fantasy setting feels authentic and i'll never get tired of this type of universe

The game is too easy for someone that plays this kind of games a lot, there are no difficulty settings

I would like to see more rewards for risk-taking in this game like in the HoM&M games ,since I can't stop constantly comparing these games when i play

Anyway, this game is not perfect but I want to see more games like this,

Disciples: Liberation pulled me in with the Heroes of Might and Magic-esque battles and HoMM3-like castle, but I stayed for the story and the characters. Try the demo and see if you are hooked like I was. My main complaint with the game is that it becomes almost too thin at times.

I played through the game twice (normal and Liberation, the New Game+) and found the story to be very enjoyable, with interesting plot points and characters that interacted with each other. I have never played a Disciples game before, so I was thrown into the lore pretty much blind. It was interesting to explore the world, and I felt rewarded most of the time. The game world is advertised as dark, but there was always a bit of reality and hope tied in (depending on your choices). There were dark themes that were explored without being unncessarily overdone.

The battles were fun at first, but did become kind of dull after a while as I became much stronger than the opponents I was facing. The AI seems to lack planning, and can be easily beaten if you set up the battlefield correctly (The dev has since updated the game to be more in tune with you if you have completed all of the side quests). However, there were some balancing issues that came to mind during my two playthroughs: 1) the main character could get spells and the spellcasting classes quickly became 1-round 1-shot matches. 2) The companions felt very wildly balanced. The companions are based upon other units, and the units have tiers. Higher tiered units have better stats, but more importantly, higher tiered units have better abilities. Companions have better versions of those abilities. This means that some companions were just more useful than others.

In the end of the story, it kind of became noticeable that the choices you were making in the background didn't seem to matter, except if the person in question came up again. There was a particular side quest person I saved, and she appeared later in the game and that was a cool nod, but alternatively, I had saved a bunch of people and became a queen of a land and it didn't seem to change anything at all. On this vein, some of the companions really stick out, but some just fade into the background.

Lastly, there is a faction system, where when you complete quests for certain factions, you get reputation with them which changes what units of theirs you can recruit and their morale in your army. I noticed that some factions are really, really easy to please and others are not. Not for lack of trying, but because it seems the quests tend to be skewed.

Overall, I recommend the game if you like RPGs and strategic combat, but play it in sections. The maps are huge and take multiple hours to beat: mostly because combat can take 30 minutes, but also because you need to run from place to place to complete quests. I was hooked by the story, but I did find myself spending a lot of time in the combat wondering when it would be over.

I am not a game reviewer and I am not good with words so I would normally just do a "pros and cons" list of what I liked and what I didn't but in this case I cant because the cons are so many it will seem like I didn't like the game.
Let's start on what the game does well. It is a unique game experience that I have not played before. I am not saying it is the first game to do this style, but it is the first I have played. Unfortunately apart from that the game is the definition of "above mediocrity". Nothing is mediocre or bad, but everything is just good enough. The music is nice, the combat is nice, the story is nice and yet nothing really excels at anything. You drop in the game with a decent tutorial mission and the suddenly the main plot gets forced worse than when my aunt margaret forced me to do cocaine off her belly button. You feel like you get dropped in ACT2 of something you didn't play. At the beggining I was like "this can't be it, there is no way". The main plot gets forced really bad and you always feel like there is another game you should have played before it to reach that point of the plot. After that the story gets better, because it flows more naturally, but still it is pretty forced. Before moving to gameplay I would like to say also that despite what the review ,that always gets forced to your screen worse than the plot of the game, says, your choices do not matter at all. The only thing that your choices affect is what units you get from what faction, and seeing as every faction is just a reskin of the other with the same abilities but different visuals, it doesnt matter what faction you have high standing with.
The game is repetitive in every possible way. There is one track of music that gets repeated at every battle, AND THERE ARE A LOT OF THEM. There are at total i think 4 kinds of spells and 2 kinds of marcial abilities, damage in a line, damage in a cone, damage in a circle, damage around, and single target damage. The only thing that changes no matter the faction, main character, or companions are the visuals and the effects. This circle is divine damage, while this circle is physical damage and does a 10% miss chanse, while this circle is primal damage and does burning. It is the same. The companions are all reskins of tier 2 and tier 3 units from each faction respectively and the battle "sites" are all open areas with little to no difference. You could have more that "oh this hexagon does fire damage to whoever stands on it, and this gives power to whoever goes there first" but no, there is nothing more. You could have height differences for range advantage, cover from ranged units etc, but everything is the same open grid and whenever you think there is cover, there really isn't.
The difficulty is irrelevant because it is litteraly just 0.25x at enemy stats in each level of difficulty, which is irrelevant because by mid game every enemy is a damage sponge. Despite this the game is really easy even on hard difficulty, I am currently playing. You always play first on a round cause enemies have low inniciative ,mostly, so you just use all your ranged units and kill everything important the enemies have. If you don't and the enemies play the round, the strategy is to quit the game and load a save before the battle, because you can't surrender or give up in battle for some reason. Also the experience of discovering items is completely void of joy. Everything is "+2 to constitution and dexterity". It is joyless and honestly lazy game design. The last thing I will say on the difficulty section is about the economy, because I do not know where else to put it. Basically there is an economy and there are resources for sure and you take these resources and do certain things. And these resources matter because you buy stuff you surely need and there are mines and iron mines and gold mines the provide resources.I am writing this review in order to gather resources because of the real time thing for some reason. So yeah good system.
They say the game time is around 80 hours, if the animations could be sped up more it would be 30. I started playing from the start on 300% animations and it still feels slow. If you start like this the 300% seems like normal movement. It is amazing how slow everything in battle is.
As you can see, I didn't want to leave a "pros-cons" review, because I have been analyzing in 3 paragraphs why the game is bad. But I do not think it is a bad game. Everything I have said is true, don't get me wrong, but I am not saying it is a bad game because of these things. It is just a above average game. It rise above mediocrity by one meter, but still it is not a bad experience. Currently I have lowered the difficulty to story mode, because I got bored of the battles and maybe I will change opinion later about the game, but I really think it is a decent game. Not an undiscovered masterpiece, but a decent game. I would give it a generous 7/10 for how unique it is, but I would not blame anyone who would give it a 5 to 7/10, because if this was my second game that was in that style, I would be less generous about my score.
In conclusion I would like to summarise saying a 2 things. The game is a decent experience with a lot of problems and a lot of repitition. Secondly I bought the game for 16 euros, for the deluxe edition, and not for the price these mentally insane people charge for this. If i had given 40-50 euros for this I would have commited sepuku and I would have given it a 5/10 for sure.
EDIT: another thing that just came to my mind about the game is that the developers past really shows. There was always something that was bugging me. Something the felt wrong, uncanny. I finally figured it out. This looks a lot like a mobile game. Simplified models, portraits, combat, maps. Everything you need to do is click where to move and click your 2 abilities. It is like it was designed having a mobile game in mind. Everything is good but feels a little off.