I've just played through the campaign and I'm obliged to write a meaningful review now.

First I'll tell a little about the game.
The best way to describe this is a Total War-Warcraft-Heroes of Might and Magic mix, where you can't control towns, but only buy troops from them and carry out quests. Something very similar is perhaps Praetorians.
Every troop (units are broken into troops, you can't control soldiers individually) gains its own experience and can be upgraded in a town when it reaches every 3 levels.
Monster dens are scattered around every map (the campaign is broken into maps) specificially for grinding experience, money and items, which can be equipped on units.
The most powerful units are perhaps battle mages - you can control them individually, they have multiple useful spells to cast and they fire destructive area-damaging spells like they're semi-automatic artillery or something. Though it takes long to grind XP to upgrade them to the maximum level.
The player's main character is presented as a spirit flying in the air in front of the camera. He can't participate in the battle directly. He gains XP along with the player's army and just hurls spells.
Here are controls for the camera:
WASD or arrow keys or move the cursor to the edge of the screen - to move the camera.
Hold ctrl+WASD or arrow keys - rotate the view. This actually gives the impression of first-person view.
You can pause with Space, and you can't move the camera while paused, but you can still rotate.
Right-clicking on a troop instantly brings the camera to it, even when paused.

I noticed that the mana does not play any role. It's never spent when I cast spells. Nothing ever happens when mana becomes 0. I'm allowed to cast spells which cost more mana than I have at max. So leveling the mana skill is a waste of XP.

Units sometimes get stuck on cornerns of the terrain. It doesn't happen too often, it can be fixed by manually moving the unit to the other side. But it is damn annoying.

Music suddenly interrupts all the time and only resumes playing when a battle starts. There's a volume slider in game options, but no checkbox to switch music on/off so that you could restart it.

You will not be able to play this game on normal speed, because in that case it is too boring. The speed can be regulated with (+) and (-) keys on the number pad of the keyboard. I couldn't find this option anywhere in the game settings or explained anywhere, so I'm writing it.

Not a single crash has occured. Brilliant.

Now, the actual review.
First off, the tutorial doesn't cover 90% of gameplay, you have to figure it out on your own. Difficulty of that depends on how many RTS games you've played.

The kind of mage you choose before the start of the campaign only affects the starting skills and spells you get. And the avatar icon, yes. Everything else is the same.

The campaign is extremely, punishingly difficult at the beginning and becomes too easy starting somewhere from the middle of it. Saving often is adviced, because suddenly you might lose a battle mage, which is too valuable. Using multiple save files is adviced, because sometimes you can get unexpectedly cornered by overwhelming enemy troops, who were just passing by and you happened to make company with them.

The quests are completely uninspired: go there, talk to that person (you can't even choose replies in dialogue), bring that item over there, escort a slow-ass wagon from point A to point B. And completely nothing happens while you escort a thing or go from A to B. Nothing. At all. And the wagon is sloooooow.... Seriously, most part of the game is walking around the map. You can tell your army to move somewhere and go away from the keyboard for 3-4 minutes. On maximum game speed.

The voice acting is really good, although that wolf howl is a pain for the ears, and some voices (goblin's) are not so great.

The cutscenes are something like in Warcraft 3, except really poorly done (I mean it, year 2003 is in no way an excuse for this) - you can tell it even by how the camera is flying around. Very often it's showing a single place and flying around it for 40 seconds, and nothing happens. Absolutely nothing happens. The characters are just standing, playing their completely out-of-place idle animations, and the camera is rolling around and ugh... No words can explain this.

The graphics don't seem to be designed to look good, even for 2003, except for a few models and unit and special effects animations. The faces of the elves are especially ugly, but maybe they're supposed to be? The map models are incredibly plain - just textured ground (thanks God, not plain ground - it contains hills, bumps and stuff). Occasional trees and rocks and buildings, but in limited quantities. It does manage to set the mood, though.

The plot.. Um. I can't say I'm disappointed, because somehow it seems fitting for a fantasy-themed game, but let me explain. It is all fairy-tale cliche mostly. The missions are brutally straight-forward: we need to do something in order to achieve something, in the process we learn new information and get new tasks to do. The plot does get confusing in the middle and in the end, when seemingly random names of mages of the Guild of Mages are mentioned. Near the end it hardly makes sense even.
The only things that can be interesting about it is how new information about what's going on is revealed to the player (although it may appear kind of stupid..and random). The most exciting things are perhaps intermission cutscenes, they are really well done. They contain drawn black-and-white images, with amazing voice-over (sadly, without subtitles, but you probably won't need them). It looks beautiful.

The core combat mechanics, combined with RPG elements, spell-casting and rock-scissors-paper tactics, give an exciting mix. The game is not boring during battles and you may really want to slow the game speed down (unless you're grinding on monster mobs) and get to microing your ranged units away from melee attackers. The battles are the main part of the game, and it turned out although not perfectly, but still incredibly satisfying.

I recommend this game only to those who enjoy RTS, grinding and leveling, and who have enough patience to bear the plot, old graphics, generally slow pace and bugs.

Better than I expected. The tutorial is lacking a bit but at least it has one. I bet it was amazing at the time it was released. At the sale price of $.51 U.S. you can't go wrong. It even has cards. It runs well on my modern win10 system. If you like early RPG's you'll probably like it, if you don't then you don't lose much for trying it. WASD for the camera with hold R-mouse to rotate helps the camera be a little less wonky..

A combination of RTS and RPG genres. You assemble an army, complete quests, fight enemies to make the world a safer place and save it from annihilation. You have a wide variety of available troops from human, orc, elf and goblin races including close range fighters, long range troops, mages and even heavy artillery. Also possible to add demons to your army. As you fight enemies, you and your troops gain experience. Your troops get stronger with each level of experience and when a unit reaches level 3, you can upgrade them to a better unit, but demons can't be upgraded and have only one level. Upgrades can be done in any available town of the right race (human troops get updated in human towns etc.). Not all kind of towns will be available though, since you will travel to far away lands.

You aid your troops with spells, healing and empowering them, summoning Magical spirits to aid them. You also have a wide variety of damaging spells you can use on your enemies. Spells require mana to be cast, with no mana you can cast only the spells you put in quick access (F5-F9, F10 summons Magical spirit and can't be changed). After casting a spell from quick access, it takes a while to regenerate. When you gain experience, you can use it to learn new spells, learn new skills or upgrade your max mana, mana regeneration or maximum army size and more. When you reach a new level, a new set of spells gets available. There are three schools of magic available - Nature, Chaos (fire) and Energy. You can study them all or you can choose what spells you wan't, but spells have dependencies, that is, to learn a higher spell, you must first learn the necessary lower spells. The dependencies are indicated with vertical lines that connect spells.

The towns also can level up, to do so, they need resources - wood, stone, food and gold. The town has peasants who work in mines, sawmills and windmills and delivers the resources to town. With every new town level, new set of troops gets available.

The game itself proved to be fun and interesting. Just as I thought that it has became boring, it spiced things up, thus keeping me entertained. There are also some hidden surprises, like a chance to add a demon to your army. The game is old and it's noticeable via the graphics, but it runs smooth and it doesn't hurt the game play. I can't tell about the other languages, but at some parts English dialogs were terrible.

Overall I would recommend this game if you like RPG or RTS games, this game certainly delivers what it's supposed to.

half of my childhood right there <3

This is one of, like, three actual SRPG in existence (two of which are Battle Mages) — while you can’t exactly build stuff, you should help neutral towns to gather resources and level up to provide you with better units and wares. You have a character with its own progression, you have an army, you have buildings. While the squad combat isn’t the best for tactics\RTS genres, it’s not worse than in some popular games like Age of Empires and stuff. But unlike those you are a mage and you can sufficiently level up to be able to rain death from the sky.

It’s an unique if not perfect game, with solid gameplay, good music and probably the best credits video i ever saw. It launches fine on Win10 out of the box. In-game resolution options are limited to 1600x1200, but by editing the .cfg file you can play in 2880x2160 windowed for native experience, or have 3840x2160 fullscreen but sacrifice GUI and cutscenes. The game itself renders correctly either way. Though this is a GUI-heavy genre, so unlike with FPS games i’d go for 4:3.

Small tip: start with green guy, you can learn all spells if you grind, but healing is much more pleasant early game.

Blast from the past

I played this when I was much younger and found it again. I am so glad I did as it was one of my favourite games. The game might be slow paced but it's great for learning in this older style strategy game!

10/10 will always play!!!

This game is good, but barely. Middle of the pack, really. Is a RTS with just a little RPG on it. As usual, there's a villian and you're the nice guy. The campaign is about 20 hours long to finish. There are several spells and different units. You are a wizard and you can select among 4 classes. So, there's some replayability is you care to play them all. The graphics are old, but in a charming old-fashioned way.

Now, there are some bugs. The music never worked right for me, it just disappears after one song everytime you start playing. Several dialogues are lost too, but at least you won't miss anything cause there are titles. The annoying bug is that units tend to get stuck anywhere. So you have to move your units back to the dumb soldier in order to release him from the invisible obstacle. Is not game breaking, but you need patience to endure that all the time.

Runs fine on Win 7.

Well, is usually pretty cheap and, if you don't get too annoyed by the bugs, is entertaining. The story is nothing special. Same old, same old. I guess I recommend the game, mostly because there are some original things that are not that bad, like the way to achieve experience and stuff. Also, can be pretty challenging at times. Only advice: Always try to finish the scenarios with the most troops you can, you never know what coud be waiting ahead.

In "Battle Mages," the events unfold in a fantasy world that combines elements from various popular fantasy genres of its time. The main character is a graduate of a mage academy tasked with saving the world from evil. His first mission is to guard the borders of his homeland from barbarians and other enemies. After successfully passing his final exam, the hero is sent to a distant province plagued by numerous disasters. Here, restless and disgruntled undead roam the mountains, orcs have launched military actions, peasants disappear without a trace in the forests, and the Black Sorcerer is up to his dark deeds.

The game skillfully blends several genres. It features combat system elements from Myth with units and formations, RPG elements with inventory, experience, and levels, as well as magical experiments in the style of Black & White.

The game world is divided into several locations between which the player can move, completing main and side quests.

The main feature of the game is that the hero commands units remotely from a tower, with his spirit hovering over the battlefield. Interaction with units follows the standard RTS scheme, and unit management is the core gameplay. New troops can be recruited in cities.

At the start of the game, you can choose the hero's specialization—either a warlord or one of three aspects of a mage. However, this choice doesn't make much difference since all abilities are available for development. Experience points can be invested in magic, strength, troop size, or passive abilities, and units can be leveled up as they gain experience. Leveling up is only possible in specialized locations: elves in elven cities, humans in human cities, and so on.

The game is quite challenging and requires strict resource management. Losing a unit can become a serious problem, as sometimes it might be impossible to replace them. The tragedy of a "Pyrrhic victory" will become a reality if you lose half your army and can't replenish it.

One of the main strategies against numerous enemies is to capture a magical energy source where units regenerate health under its influence. Several schools of magic offer five levels of spells, differing in power and cost. The magic system is implemented uniquely: you select a spell, wait for it to prepare, and then use it at the right moment. Targeting can be tricky, and there's a risk that the spell might miss the intended target. Sometimes, it's more advantageous to blind the enemy and pass unnoticed than to engage in a tough battle.

"Battle Mages" attracted me with its unconventional approach to gameplay, although it might not be as surprising today.

This is probably the first game I played on PC a looong long time ago. My favourite game then and holding a special place now. However, this version is a bit messy than what I have - units tend to stuck more and the music is bugged. 8/10