Spellcross: The Last Battle I Retro Reviews
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- Опубліковано 25 лип 2024
- A retrospective review of Cauldron's 1997 turn-based fantasy wargame, pitting Earth's military forces against orcs and elves. Looks at how X-COM and SSI's wargames influenced its development, how the Czech and English versions differ, why it was ignored at the time, and whether it's worth playing today. Sorry about my voice in parts, my whole building has been quarantined and it's hard to record properly :( I'll be taking a break from videos for a few months, but should be back in Autumn with Baldur's Gate II. Timestamps below:
00:00 Opening
01:22 Overview and History
13:15 Gameplay Mechanics
23:27 Gameplay Analysis
49:50 Art and Sound
1:03:23 Story Overview (Minor/Mild Spoilers)
1:08:41 Story Analysis (Minor Spoilers)
1:22:28 Outro - Ігри
The gold standard of obscure videogame coverage - I've really come to look forward to your videos. It's so damn rare for a channel to present _genuinely_ new or hard to find information these days, so your content is always a pleasant surprise.
Yeah, once I've done my BG2 video I'd like to (eventually) cover games like Silver, Hexplore, Soulbringer, Pools of Radiance 2000 and such :D
@@MrEdders123 Can't wait for the BG2 video. All your videos are amazing and well narrated
@@MrEdders123 @MrEdders123 Thank you for your work and efforts in creating Content of such deep Background on Games that deserve to be known and played. This one, because of it's Heritage reminded me of "Polanie" a.k.a. "Victory" a.k.a. "Slavs" a.k.a. "Knights and Cows", which could be an very interesting Topic to explore in the Future :)
This is an amazing video. Wouldn't have expected such a deep dive on such an obscure forgotten title but I love it.
Thanks a lot, that's what I try to aim for :)
Thanks for showing the Doom Spellcross Wad I made, I feel like I'm an alone fan sharing Spellcross, flaws and all. But the DOOM-Spellcross project is uniquely created, I really just loved the monsters and they fitted well for custom ideas in DOOM (shame the sprites don't look right in the video, my instructions were uncleared)
Hi Paul! Yeah I didn't install it properly - not really familiar with the random map generator stuff for Doom, I just found one of the versions that worked out of the box and booted it up to show off the mod. Sorry about that. :)
Thank for the mod, it was actually the first I heard of Spellcross. Very fitting for DOOM indeed - even more these days that the lore is expanded with more mythological creatures besides demons.
lol i love how small the internet can be sometimes
Never heard of this one but I really love the setting. Baller video once again, my dude. Thank You!
Cheers & stay frosty out there. Keep up the good work, as always. Best obscure game review channel on YT, hands down.
Cauldron was such a revelation in Slovakia in the 90s. Quadrax was a pretty good puzzle game, then followed by Spellcross with excellent production values for the time and location. I remember enjoying the game though I probably wouldn't like it nowadays for the same reasons you didn't.
In any case there was no game coming either from Czech republic or from Slovakia that had looked as polished as Spellcross at the time. It had opened the door for later titles to be funded and released like Operation Flashpoint, Original War or Mafia.
As a Czech, I have to appreciate the brutal honesty of the video. From my background, I was already too used to "Yes, it's a grinding and boring, but it's our grinding and boring, so it's great." :-D
The game is Slovak though :)
Close enough to be "ours".
Dubbing and language used are Czech.
@1:12:14
Your description of both fantasy and the fantasy hero was spot on.
Thanks Tedd
An excellent overview, analysis and review of this old classic. Thank you!
Hope you get much more attention, views and subs in the future.
Brand new subscriber. Just scrubbed through all your vids. You have a very insightful and well organized style. I enjoy how you go deeper than just the game at face value including the history, different versions, the companies involved, and even future endeavors these devs / games undertake / inspire.
Anyways, great stuff. Keep it up Mr. Edders!
Thanks!
This game world's fusion of high fantasy and modern warfare could make for an interesting Battlefield-styled FPS, or even a survival game if you were to play as a civilian in a warzone
I really enjoy learning about really obscure games I've never heard of! Excellent work and presentation!
I've never heard of this game until now, but I definitely would have been interested in this.
Also glad to see you're going to do a Baldur's Gate 2 review.
Thank you for bringing this game to my attention with such a well made video! Great work!
1.) In the first mission, on the way to the bottom of the map in the forest, there is an enclosure. After shooting the fence, there is a lvl 4 commando in it, which will stay permanently.
2.) Counterattacks work in the style that if the enemy sees you before you see him when you move, he has a good chance of attacking you. Same in reverse. This is why it is absolutely pointless to traverse the map with any unit other than a hammer, or later a UDES tank.
3.) So the second point implies a strategy. Always dig in on some hill (beware, fear must be watched. If it is low, just move back and forth). With the hammer, later with UDES (he has no line of sight, but has huge armor) you always go exploring. You should see the enemies earlier with the hammer, that way they won't attack you. You get closer to them so they can see you. At this point, most of the time (most of the time... then you have to otherwise) the units in question behind the hammer will start moving and you will lead them to your buried units on the hill.
Then you move on to the next hill and advance just as far.
4.) At the beginning you build only 4 commandos and 4 mortar infantry + one hammer. This infantry will remain until you have mobile (air) infantry, at which point you will rebuild them all. As for new units in other maps. There is no point in buying infantry transports or anti-air units. It's a waste of infantry. Save space and money for tanks, ideally hold out for m1 abrams. Those at the end rebuild to 2 udes and the rest destructors. Add some artillery to that, then sell that off and replace with MLAS. Then later on another radar. You can also buy a couple of helicopters.
5.) Play on the hardest difficulty (But it is a fact that this attribute was changed differently by the developers depending on the patch), you get the most experience.
6.) Thanks to point 5, you should do at least a few times that at the end of each big map, you keep the small maps occupied. The more experienced units of your opponent are used for this. So you exp. faster. And that's it. You exp. Not only is it faster here, but also, the enemies are automatically looking for you and not camping anywhere.
With this guide, you won't need support units (sell them. They're weak without exp).
And the whole game can be finished without losing a single unit.
One of the best games for me. And the only game I've played several times.
Best atmosferic story.
Have a nice day
from the Czech Republic, hello.
:D
I have seen a couple of times "MLAS".
It is MLRS - multiple launch rocket system.
The font issue I guess.
MLAS sounds hilarious xD
Love the honesty, always the most in depth and well done reviews
Thanks! I kinda came from the perspective of someone who doesn't play wargames much though - probably could've given a more well-rounded evaluation of the gameplay if I were a Panzer General player or something similar.
Well, that was 1.5h of completely new information for me.
Played Ufo in the 90s but never even heard of this, thank you!
How does this only have 500~ views? Such great deep dives on older obscure titles.
Only 500 people played it in English-speaking countries :P
Moreover, why does his channel only have 4K subs?
Never heard of this game, interesting game for sure. Enjoy the break, stoked for the Baldur's Gate 2 video!
I was lucky enough to have four brothers who all had gaming pcs at one time or another since I was a kid. So much of your channel is wonderfully nostalgic.
Yeah I have fond memories of wiping my brother's saves :D
Oh yeah, time to strap in.
Came for Myth: The Fallen Lords. Stayed cause you make amazing videos.
@Bubbler Gaming Same here.
Yep
Good luck with the new job location, hope the move goes smoothly. Your videos are always enjoyable to watch, so i will be looking forward to your return.
It's much closer to the center of the city, so I should be able to get better coffee for the channel :D
@@MrEdders123 So it's a positive move all around, that's good.
I think this is one of rare cases where I'm glad I missed this title back in the day. The game premise is good but what I imagine is quickly let down by the reality. I do hope that Spellcross hasn't spoilt other turn based games for you. I always had a soft spot for Fallen Haven. And yes Battle Isle: The Andosia War was a very odd duck.
I was thinking of doing AW one day, the TB/RT thing is really confusing though. I think I actually bought it back in...99? 2000? - and quit after 5m. I only noticed it because of the boobs on the cover. Something like Incubation might be on the cards though, if only for the German rap song in the credits.
@@MrEdders123 I'd love to hear that rap. I believe I also purchased AW at that time for less than a fiver I remember. I should have been more suspicious. I remember the missions to complete it TB were looong. Keep up the good work.
Quite the opposite. I enjoyed Spellcross and it made me like turn based games like Civ.
"The game premise is good but what I imagine is quickly let down by the reality."
Why ever would you think THAT? It remains a decent game today as long as you can get it running properly. And when it was released, it was a GREAT game. I spent a lot of time trying to get through the campaign. Even using the cheats, it's not easy even on the easier difficulty level.
And the "feel" of the game was superb. Similar to the original Diablo game. More than once while having a battle near swampy ground did i get tricked into looking for mosquito's that didn't exist due to the sound effects of the game.
The ambient sound effects were some of the best you could find in a game at the time. The drums of the orch camp. The sirens of the cityscape...
And the storyline is welldone and elaborate.
There's good reason why there's lots of requests over at GOG for this game.
@@DIREWOLFx75 tbh the strategy of the game would drive me nuts, getting aliens vs predator extinction vibes which i beat the campaigns on ps2 back in the day or halo wars. Panzer corps is much more dynamic and shows a really excellent way of using veterancy and scouting in game, rather than blobbing units in a deathball and trying to avoid ambushes.
This was fantastic. Really interesting. Thanks 👌
What an interesting concept. Never heard of this game.
Thank you for your videos. They are so great!
Thanks m& 😁
I was looking for a Spellcross video - as I am playing it right now! I LOVE turn-based, as to me RTSs are not strategy games, but "twitch" games.
Another one I never heard of
Google keeps telling me it's called "Spellforce" :D
@@MrEdders123 Spellforce games are great too
This channel is criminally underrated
This was best review of a game I ever saw! Really great job. Indeed the game is super hard, and boring, but the setting of modern warfare vs fantasy is really epic for me. I've never finished the game, and probably never will, but started playing it again. Anyway, thanks for the video! I really appreciated it.
Awesome video, you even showed my comments under Edmon's video :D He also somehow convinced me to play the game again. I have no idea how you found this game, assuming you are British. For some reason I really liked to play this game in 2000 (I was like 15), but also in those time I had not much choice what games to play, back in the day I played ripped version, so cinematics, not even sounds. Your criticism of the game is legit, good that I had the patience to play it, but having modern military against fantasy races was very intriguing to me. I remember I picked this game because I like the buildings on the pictures, also I was into tanks too. Good job at finding the history of the development for this game, as it is bit more difficult for such obscure games. Bringing back memories. Now I am at 6th level, I took a pause, but I will try to continue.
I hope even if you are taking a break, you will revisit comments meanwhile :)
The game was lightly advertized in the UK by SCI - most gaming mags got demos around the time of release. I don't believe it had any kind of actual advertizing campaign though - I couldn't find a single English langauge ad and comments from the devs seem to back this up. My understanding is that most of western Europe got the British version of the game (with localized text but no new voice acting), whereas Poland, Romania and Czech/Slovakia got the original (it may have been re-released in Poland with the SCI version though).
Přišlo to náhle a nečekaně… Většina států je v jednom plameni.
This game was such a hidden gem
I love this game, finished it like 4-5 times, it deals a good amount of tension actually, it is very engaging to play, especially that mission against the Undead on the second map. Highly recommended for everyone, play it past 10pm.
until you figured out that the way to go about that one was to enter the battlefield with a single unit, spot the undead, retreat back to the strategic map, research undead, research flamethrowers, return with flamethrower troops and hand their asses to them nice and baked lol
Thanks for your amazing video. Easily one of the best and well-thought reviews I've ever had a chance to watch.
I'm from Poland and I grew up with this game. Spellcross playable demo, from a cover disc included to CD-Action August 1998 issue, left an incredible impression on both me and my dad, even more than playable demo of Starcraft from the same CD. Maybe it's due to a fact that at the time it was one of very rare games fully and professionally translated to Polish, even in cutscenes. In the review in the same issue, Spellcross got a review score of 7/10. In December 1998 Spellcross became the first ever original copy of retail PC game in our household. Ever since the 90s, I keep replaying Spellcross every couple of years, my dad does the same.
I found your unbiased perspective refreshing, pointing up obvious weaknesses that I fully agree with. I always knew the game is flawed in both tactical and strategical aspects, gameplay wise it felt much weaker than UFO/X-COM, but somehow, I was never frustrated by those drawbacks. I just simply accepted the game as is, with all its shortcomings. So, there's a kind of emotional connection to this title that allows me to ignore its flaws. I imagine there's a lot of other players that feel the same, so it shouldn't come as a surprise that some Spellcross fans get defensive when challenged.
I agree about actual gameplay being simplistic and monotone. In fact, nothing changes between my different playthroughs and every time it's played almost the same way. Playthroughs differ only in the order of missions, even the unit roster stays mostly the same. On high level, my strategy has nothing to adapt to, because the blob tactic is the one and only problem solver. On the other hand, I realized that choosing and prioritizing attacks of entrenched units is like a little puzzle game, in which units with the lowest range and highest distance to target get to attack first - there's something relaxing about it. At this stage I just grind through my playthroughs on autopilot, "dethblobbing" my way through just to be rewarded with some text, cutscenes and ambience.
That said I really enjoy this game premise and atmosphere. Speculative fiction is completely deprived of that "Contemporary military facing hostile magical forces" theme and it was never fully exploited in popular media. Spellcross scratches that itch. In addition to that, game presents that apocalyptic lore quite well. Prose in that game isn't that special, but it's really rewarding, puts you in a front seat in desperate and long campaign against medieval fantasy forces of the unknown. It's a shame there's only so much of it. On the other hand, the ending in my opinion was disappointing and underwhelming. After a campaign that long, there's ought to be a more powerful resolve.
One thing I have to mention, is around 1:12:01 mark. Your opinion about the usage of modern military in speculative fiction setting, it feels like nitpicking and may be just a matter of your personal preference. I, for example, greatly enjoyed scenes with modern military in films such as 1980 The Final Countdown, 1996 Independence Day or 2005 War of the Worlds. What about Stargate franchise? So maybe that discomfort has something to do with fantasy instead of sci-fi setting? By the way maybe it's a good idea to investigate why exactly film adaptation of "Rome, Sweet Rome" (a short story from Reddit about modern military battling Roman legions) was shelved.
Finally, I can agree with almost everything said in that review, and I even learned some interesting things. However, it doesn't really affect how I feel about the game. Alas, Spellcross might be a poor game, but after spending nearly 25 years with it I can safely say it will be a game I'll always be fond of, for the same way people love their blind and disabled pets.
Here you go. Thanks again and have a good one!
Thanks for the writeup! Spellcross is indeed fairly unknown in English-speaking countries (with some notable exceptions), even in the UK where it was officially published. The vast majority of the sources I found whilst researching it were Czech, Slovakian, Polish, Romanian etc. Thank God for DeepL translate lol
A comment for the algorithm gods. May they bless you with more views.
Top-notch retrospective review m8, I rate it 8/8. I was very interested in this obscure gaem both because of its setting & TB tactical combat style when I first heard about it but there weren't any vidya about it anywhere near this quality. Also lol at the TVrace western publishers of the time: "are ther sniper on roof here like in the Televitz?"...
P.S. WHERE DA SOULBLIGHTER AT???
Assuming all goes to plan, Soulblighter will be either right after BG2 or one video later. I was gonna wait until November but I'm not sure how long it will take to cover the big mods, so I'll probably start it right after BG2.
Oh wow, I have been interested in this game since it got a short review on TMF's video game show (Dutch Mtv variant) but never saw it in stores and I even think there is another game of the same title but completely different content to muddy the waters.
Have tried looking it up to no avail on several occassions so thank you for this deep dive!
What attracted 14-year old me at the time was the turn-based fantasy vs modern scenario but I guess I dodged a bullet there.
I'm sure the EU-comic "666" I had read just then portrayed a similar scenario: Hell invades earth, the deamons mostly have medieval weaponry but they are legion.
Didn't have enough warhammer stuff to table-top game the last stand scene of that comic so figured a video game could do.
Still miffed I never found a copy, but considering your review it might be for the better.
Ooh, another obscure Turn-based tactics game of that era was Shadow Watch. Totally different beast (the comic-book graphics are really cool) but quite fun as far as I remember.
yeah I played a demo of Shadow Watch when I was younger, had an interesting art style. I think it's on GoG actually.
My husband played Chaser while I played their Gene Troopers.
First game being a finished, but a bit strange mish-mashed b-category FPS. Probably something which I will enjoy myself one day. The latter is sadly, very unfinished mess. By the apperance, Gene Troopers were planned as some sort of RPG-FPS like experience with different missions on different planets you choose to visit with different companions and side quests and different endings, akin to mass effect. However, looks like game development sort of ended in late alpha or mid beta and all assets which they had they squished together into generic 00s b-category FPS title, and even it was very unfinished, despite being playable game.
And about windows 9x emulation, for both DOS and win9x I find it more easy to set up machines in low level emulation, like PCem or 86box, which is more convinient than use dosbox in some cases.
Interesting to see where they started, once again thanks for your videos.
I never played Gene Troopers, though I vaguely recall playing a demo of Chaser and buying Battle Isle 4 after enjoying Incubation (the half-TB, half-RT system turned me off though). I might cover the 2004 version of Conan one day, not sure.
The gameplay merely accurately represents realities of fighting in the C-E European theatre
The closest I've seen to this is a colony sim called "judgment apocalypse survival sim" where basically you run a camp of survivors during a demonic apocalypse, for as much as I love the game the two prominent features the game has, the colony management and combat, are both very surface level, the real fun part for me was the premise and flexibility with your survivors' character builds
That's interesting, I'll have to have a look at some footage for future reference
I remember playing a demo of this when I was a kid, on a LEVEL demo CD. Liked it a lot, but was 8 in an eastern european country; buying games was about as hard as buying drugs. Heh, feels like I might have dodged a bullet. :D shame, the idea seemed pretty cool and I liked the graphics as a kid.
I think all the LEVEL back issues are up on Archive - at least I vaguely remember browsing them for b-roll footage or something.
Never heard about this game. Fun review.
Thank you Mr. Edders for introducing me to this very interesting Slovakian game. I can't say that I've heard of it even though I am from Central Europe and based on the fact that I madly loved UFO: Enemy Unknown back in the day. For me, it just might be the best PC game of all time just on the merit of how much ahead of its time it was when it was released in 1994.
The premise was and is still quite interesting even with the expected suspension of disbelief. When I think of alternative history scenarios in video games where our normal world is invaded by fantasy elements, I automatically think of Lionheart: Legacy of the Crusader. When this game was announced I was so hyped, just on the concept alone. I love alternative history and this was such a great concept for a CRPG (for example, the factions had the same tech level, as opposed to the premise of Spellcross, old enemies now working together (Richard the Lionheart and Saladin) etc.). I was hoping for something truly original and captivating, but sadly the game was a big disappointment for me at the time, a fact made even worse by having Black Isle Studios as the publisher. Back in those times, Black Isle was everything.
Spellcross reminds me of GATE (Geto: Jieitai Kano Chi nite, Kaku Tatakaeri) which was even referenced in your video if I'm not mistaken. Therefore, the concept of a modern army against a fantasy melee/ranged might seem a bit much, but if the less tech-savy side has magic then it could be well-balanced and quite enjoyable.
Another amazing video, I especially loved the story/lore section. Your narration made it so thrilling and enticing, nicely done. The video would be worth watching on that alone.
Yeah GATE was the first thing that popped up when I was searching for similar scenarios (I was worried the footage would be copyright striked though, anime companies apparently do that a lot with their trailer footage!). For me it kinda gave me a new appreciation for UFO due to seeing where I think they made the wrong decisions (though this could be due to Panzer General influences/appealing to wargaming audience).
A true gem of a find, i randomly saw it in the store and thought it looked interesting. I managed to make it run on my previous, W7 system, so sooner or later i'll probably have to get it running on this W11 machine as well. Really sad that it didn't get proper distribution. Here in Sweden it was decently available for a while, but in retrospect, probably dropped sooner than it should have been.
Thanks for the comment! Do you recall which version was in Sweden? I'm assuming it was the UK version with English VA, which seems to be the versions France/Germany got unless they imported the Czechia/Poland one.
@@MrEdders123 As far as i can tell it was the UK version yes. Definitely English VA and all text in English, but when i got the modding program for it i did have to change a setting or something as it apparently had trouble seeing it as purely the UK version.
So, it's possible it's some hybrid of some sort, publishers have been known to do "Nordic" versions before. Often they're just a British or US version with some tiny fixes to run better on systems using Nordic keyboard settings, but sometimes it's more different.
For example, with XCOM3-Apocalypse, i spent a few days helping D'Jordos making sure his editor for the game worked with my version of the game, because it differed from both UK, US and German releases which IIRC were the primary versions.
Mostly he just had to move every option a few bytes forward or something like that, but there were a few cases where things were more troublesome and took a while to pin down.
@@DIREWOLFx75 Thanks for the info, it can be helpful when people are looking up old games and trying to figure out which versions are available etc. I'd like to do a video on Apoc as it's my favourite XCOM...have to do the first two though :(
@@MrEdders123 If Apoc is a fav game, try getting the Jordos editor for it, it's called Apoc'd.
You can edit lots of fun things with it.
I like making my side more "suitably" powerful and then notably increase the amount of aliens in all tactical fights.
Even if that tends to make it extremely hard to raid the CoS for things to sell.
Loved spellcross. Campaign was very challenging :-)
But I admit, enemy unkown was really much better
First time I'm hearing about this game. Very interesting listen though.
No. NOOOoo, how am i going to survive without my monthly injection of MrEdders obscure game bonanza every month. :D I'll be eagerly awaiting for your return my dude!
I'm looking forward to it too, cheers!
I had honestly never heard of this game before, despite having a pretty vast knowledge of PC gaming history and this being very much my kind of game. So I was very disappointed to hear a lot of negative feedback about it. From the overview and introduction of the game you game, I was nearly salivating at the thought of getting my hands on this game, it just sounded so amazing!
A few things I want to say though:
First of all, I don't agree with your remarks on the game's graphical presentation. Based on what I've seen this game looks pretty damn great. The sprites are really good, the game has a very crisp presentation, the UI is remarkably legible for a game from this era and I even like the art direction for the lame 3D models. I absolutely understand your remarks about the lack of variety, but what's here does look good in my opinion, especially for a DOS game from 1997 and from such a small-budget production. Furthermore, for the most part the problem with the scale of the units is not a big deal for me, especially in this kind of game. I'm not saying it wouldn't have liked some of those large models like in Final Liberation, but that's more of a gameplay thing. All in all, I think it holds up better than most games released that year, especially early 3D games. Even the FMV sequences don't look THAT bad honestly.
Second, I think it's a little unfair that you frequently compared the game to X-COM. I understand why you're doing it, because it's a game that everyone is familiar with, so it serves as a good basis to make your points. However, since X-COM is pretty much widely accepted to be one of the greatest PC games of all time, there simply aren't a whole lot of comparisons you can make to that game where X-COM isn't going to come out on top. And in most categories you're comparing it to (environmental interaction, squad-level tactics, atmosphere and campaign progression), very few games from both that era and contemporary games come *close* to matching the original X-COM's greatness. These are all categories where X-COM really is in a league of its own (IMO). I can think of very few games that would come out on top in similar comparisons to X-COM.
Also, X-COM really is quite different from this game, since it focuses on squad-level missions, whereas Spellcross seems more like an operation-level game. So naturally your perspective is going to be different, and combat is going to play out very differently. (That doesn't make your criticism any less accurate, it's just that I think the comparison can be a little unfair)
Other than that, this is a fantastic video. I love watching in-depth discussions on games like this, especially one I've never even heard about. I'm definitely looking forward to watching more of your work.
Thanks for your comments! Yeah I only vaguely remember the game from a demo I played as a kid (and I'm not even sure it was the same game now...), it wasn't even formally published in most places outside Europe.
I do admit my review is a bit "incomplete" since I'm not a wargaming guy, so I focused on how the game was perceived by (Anglophone) reviewers at the time, i.e. X-COM, and some of the features obviously being derived from that. That's also why I included the Ed(?) and SomethingAwful review comments, since they're more the target audience. In retrospect I should've spent more time comparing to Panzer General to help round things out.
In my defence I did get a lot of "thanks for the review, glad I never played it" messages
😝
Hello from the Czech Republic. I like this game very much even with the flaws. I have played the whole game many times on the hardest difficulty (the Czech version has 3 difficulty levels) Your review is great and I agree with everything you said. As I write this comment, I'm also writing a new movie heavily influenced by (based on) Spellcross + there will be bits from the "Red Alert" series, "KKnD" series, "Earth 21x0" series, Gorky 17 and more. The story is completely rewritten, Other Side will be very complex and different from the game and the movie is set in the 2030s. Also, it won't be as long as the game :)
Is there a website for your project?
The project does not have a website. It is still in the early stages of development. I have a lot of material for the film but I don't want to publish it yet, it's just concepts. But now I posted a very short video on my UA-cam channel if you want to watch. The story isn't finished yet but it's well on its way. If everything goes well, the movie should be finished in 4-5 years.@@MrEdders123
It’s really too bad that this game is in licensing hell, and the chances of a sequel/remake are very very low. Hopefully it comes to GoG with mod support at some point. If it had modding tools then people would be able to implement those various possible improvements you mentioned. A dark campaign with unique units would have been really cool. The way I imagine that happening is being a meat grinder where you’re forces are sent in suicidal attacks against human encampments/cities.
It would be awesome if the original devs, and the most die hard fans were to get together and make a spiritual reimagining/sequel that’s Spellcross in everything but name. That would be cool. If they were to have research use those changes you mentioned, and made the creature’s biology similar to creatures in Warhammer where they shouldn’t exist and it puzzles the scientists then that would be interesting.
The only turn based tactical game I played was that bizarre Ubisoft/Nintendo crossover collab where it’s Mario and Rabbids (personally I wish it was Minions vs Rabbids because that would be hilariously bad). It was really fun. I’ll most likely get the new game when it goes on sale. Something absolutely hilarious about that game is when I got it, the game was part of one of those bundle deals at Walmart. The version I bought came with two games and was $30 USD, while the game on it’s own was $60. It was funny. I got two games for less than the price of one😂
That’s interesting just how badly they botched the game when localizing it.
I really like how bizarre the game’s premise is. The gritty realism mixed with fantasy is a very interesting idea (that “real” zombie military exercise is funny). It’s a shame it wasn’t executed better. I think that for story if they were to have a blend of procedural scenarios around the world map, mixed with hand crafted linear missions would work well to invest the players. What I mean by that is have the first few levels be linear and act as a tutorial, but after that’s done it opens up to a world map you can do in any order you like. Along the way there would be a few mini campaigns/side missions that help to flesh out the world, and introduce you to different strategies.
That is definitely interesting how modern warfare is viewed as essentially sacred, and shouldn’t be taken lightly. It definitely makes sense that Halo would be more popular among soldiers because the morality is very cut and dry, and that you aren’t fighting humans so they won’t feel uncomfortable reliving in a way real combat against other people (since Microsoft owns Activision maybe we’ll be able to see a few spinoff Halo games where you’re fighting against different human factions at an earlier point of the Halo timeline when it was the UNSC vs Rebels. You could have two campaigns as a way to show that neither side is entirely good, and there’s a lot of blood on both sides. They could even have some of the aliens have a minor presence in the story that you’d only occasionally encounter. There’s a lot of possibilities with that. Unfortunately it would most likely have the trappings of normal CoD games with all the problems that most Halo players don’t like. If done right it could be very good). Apparently a lot of former soldiers really liked that awful Battle for Los Angeles (or Battlefield Los Angeles. Doesn’t matter since the film and the tie in game are both awful) because they get to feel like the good guys, and they incorporated actual squad tactics/hand signs. What’s absolutely hilarious about that movie/game is in the lore those aliens were sent in as cannon fodder to fight a resource war for the higher ranking members of their society back home. The reason this is hilarious is because that garbage film was basically a propaganda piece where the bad guys are grunts dying in a pointless conflict to benefit the elites of their society. The irony and tone deafness is truly magical.
Great video! Your Myth video was the first one I saw (currently excited for the sequel video), and I’m glad I stayed around.
Still have my original disc ... the best Ufo clone mixed with Fantasy General to date ... but this game was easy if you ask me , if you know how OP the defense is ... when you start a map, you just spam the Wait Next Turn button to make all units Dig In ... get extra defense health points , when you max it ... then you Randomly shoot on the ground ... and wait and the Ai will go to you and attack you ... this worked on every map ... till the last one , when you had to go to the one specific spot to use the sword ...
Oh I didn't know they were "triggered" like that too, I thought it was only when scripted or sighted. Neat trick hehe.
Slovakia Bratislava 👍thank you for video 😋👏
Never saw this game ever and I used to read alot of PC Zone in 1997 I guess I must have missed this issue when this game came out. Although I remember the studio Cauldron loosely though that made a few RTS games that was popular in end of 90's due to Red Alert 2 being popular at the time
Yeah nobody cared about this stuff when you had stuff like Tib Sun, RA2 and such, especially with fully 3d RTS like Ground Control on the horizon.
I do think mainstream magazines gave wargames more coverage than than mainstream gaming sites today, though. Like I doubt anyone outside the community would notice something like Panzer General if it came out today.
@@MrEdders123 exactly. But it all about current trend as well. For example in mid 90's it was all about Street Fighter or Beat em up clones but in late 90's it was about Tomb Raider or RTS and then early 2000 was about Resident Evil and GTA etc
Interestingly Doom clones always been around since mid 90's and always been a bit "experimental" how the mechanic works where each new game change the mechanic like how Quake gave it a new engine, Duke Nukem set an interactive setting, Half Life gave a proper storyline ingame engine, Call of Duty 4 set friendly NPC AI. Also they were called 3D shooters when it came out I remember in PC Zone magazine.
@@hanchiman Yeah it's funny how genre definitions changed over the course of the 80s/90s and so on. In the late 80s I saw party-based CRPGs referred to as part of the "strategy genre", Tomb Raider called a "shooter" in the mid 90s, and so on. I still call fighting games "beat-em-up's" hehe
@@MrEdders123 Hehe I sometimes call FPS as "3D shooter"
What a truly fantastic video. Your delivery was nice, your writing was great. I really liked all the context and history you gave for the game’s development. Absolutely awesome.
Considering how bad this game is, I was really intrigued by the story and I do wish you had gone into just a bit more detail, especially since the game sounds awful! I don’t really have the attention span to go watch a long play through just to learn what’s going on. Intriguing though! I can see how you made some discrete choices about what you would or would not share.
I just loved this video.
To be honest there's not much to the plot, the stuff I said is the basic outline. The LP I mentioned is the best source because you can just read the mission intro at the start of each page.
I've kinda forgotten what happens because a lot of the exposition is found in the research entries, which are hard to find in a folder of 30+ videos haha. It's honestly not very interesting - something like the universe originally being ruled by dark titans, then gods defeating the titans and scattering them over the various worlds. Some worlds (like Earth) forgot this, along with magic in general. When the bad wizards from the fantasy world attack earth, it's actually to use earth's magic and resources to help them fight the good wizards on a different fantasy world. But this causes earth's populace to start waking up to their own magic abilities, and because the bad wizards hate each other they start squabbling. Earth uses their technology/magic against them, and many of the orcs rebel against the dark wizards. Earth blows up the huge magic portals the bad wizards use to get reinforcements. The finale I'm kind of unclear on. I think the bad wizards bring their leader through the portal, (but not their god), who wants to wake up some dark titan living inside earth. Beating the dark titan requires a magic sword, but to get the magic sword you need a magic amulet(?). The amulet is guarded by a dragon (never actually seen, just talks in text updates), so there's a race between the Earth forces and the bad wizards to find the magic artifacts and get the sword. At the end, bad guys' leader wakes up the dark titan and Cpt. Alexander beats him with the magic sword. But then the good wizard teleports in and reveals that the magic sword actually feeds some other dark titan, or some dark god, or...something. I forgot lol.
By the end of the game the bad wizards have retreated, but earth is ravaged, and the alliance falls apart fighting over the remains of Earth. The good wizards are disgusted and leave. Earth is now populated by a lot of fantasy races who came through the portals, as well as mindless beasts or fairy tale creatures that woke up on earth, and these either become natural pests (like harpies) or end up joining different factions on earth (orc warbands). So now earth itself is a sort of techno-fantasy setting. Alexander retires but is also aware the dark titan or dark or whatever will awaken in exactly 100 years - assume this would've been what Spellcross 2 was about.
So, um, yeah that's my synopsis.
The concept for _SpellCross_ reminds me of Blizzard's earliest idea for WarCraft III (or was it for WC2? I forget which, it has been a while). Anyway, what I read was for the Orcs to invade our modern world and have stuff like, to paraphrase, "dragons fighting F-15s" which was a bit too out there for them and so scrapped the idea.
you should do some retro reviews on WH40K retro games. Chaos Gate for example. Even dow1 is retro :))
DoW1 is fairly well covered by other channels, but I might do Chaos Gate eventually. Will probably cover something like Space Crusade or Shadow of the Horned Rat first though.
Hi, I was wondering where the speech from the introduction is from, Is it from the game intro? I swear I've never heard it before and thanks for the great content!
If I recall correctly, it's from one of the chapter transitions, I think the one before the middle east levels (where you fight turncoats) though I could be misremembering. I don't think it's from the intro though.
@@MrEdders123 Hey Edders, thank you for the reply, I appreciate it and yes it's about that time in the game. where it tells you about the human traitors and whatnot?
I’d love to see more crossover genre games like this. This looks like a hoot!
Vampire the masquerade redemption review confirmed.
I actually replayed it only a couple of years back and RagnarRox did a recentish video, so that put me off doing it in the immediate future, but it's something I'd like to get round to eventually.
I kept seeing the game in videogame magazines around 2000. I never played it until now, but my biggest problem is the saving mechanism. Limited number of saves and only one save slot. I'm not a Dark Souls type of a video game player and do not want to spend time replaying significant portions of a game due to failure. If I cannot save at any point I want to, I lose interest. If I had all day all week long to play games I guess it would not bother me that much.
34:37 This totally goes for modern games like Battle Brothers and the XCOM reboots, as well. It's sad to see that game game developers have barely advanced their thinking since '97.
That image of what I'm guessing is the Czech box art blows the generic English art out of the water. looks like something off an 80's death metal album cover or perhaps makes me think of Ralph Bakshi's Wizards' film. Such a cool premise for a game, too bad it seems it was largely wasted.
I believe the smoking skelly art is from the Czech (or Slovak) boxart, whilst the attacking monsters art and post-apoc/skeleton bridge art was for the Polish release. The English boxart (red potato demon) is pretty lame, maybe they thought the occult/satanic vibe would make it seem cool.
@@MrEdders123 a bit late, but it is indeed Czech boxart (Czech here).
@@lukasvolsan3933 Thanks for clarifying :D
Great wideos! do you have Patreon or something?
No, I don't. Thanks for the offer though!
Turnbased tactics just become a chore with large armies like this game showed... grinding and camping turn by turn. Combat is purely gambling with RNG dice rolls without ways to outplay an opponent unlike in RTS which allows micro. Yet, RTS became niche genre now cause there are too casual whi need turns...
having played a ton of panzer general on dos, I feel like this game strategy would have been tedious to say the least. Its very interesting historical note in gaming history though and Im glad I know it now. You said chaser literally sent shivers down my spine, in a bad way.
Would have played the fuck out of this.
I wonder if the Czech version is different
Much harder, some extra (and modified) missions, and more cutscenes & story
What I'm about to say is not a joke. This game is made for your mom. Hear me out.
I played this as a kid, and beat it. I have very fond memories of it, but looking back, I do have to acknowledge it's mostly nostalgia. Your gameplay analysis is spot on. This game is a mind-numbingly boring slogfest.
And that's exactly why despite having no interest in video gaming whatsoever, my mom absolutely loved it, and beat the campaign three times on every single difficulty level (Czech release, meaning 3 difficulty settings and a much longer campaign). She just loved mindlessly creeping the death blob ahead one square per turn for hours on end. Somehow this boring and repetitive style of gameplay was exactly what worked for her. Slow and safe. She had never ever played any other video games before, nor after.
I'm sure Cauldron did not intend this, but what they had made was quite simply the perfect Mom Game.
I must add I did love this game though. Sure the gameplay wasn't much once you had figured it out, but I think the process of doing so was entertaining on its own. For an 8 year old, the challenge of mastering the mechanics to work out the optimization formula was massive. And then there was the novelty of the story and visuals. I remember being hooked on wanting to see the next new monster, the next new tank, the next new cinematic. It was the 90s. You wanted to see all the cool stuff in the game, you had to beat it.
Finally, I think the language accessibility played a huge part. In the 90s, kids in Slovakia and Czechia would play games in English and not understand a lick of the story. In my own experience, playing Spellcross was the first time I cared about a story being told via a videogame, as I didn't speak any English back then. Probably the case for many of us.
I think that's true of the success of many formulas. I remember playing a lot of strategy games as a kid on the lowest difficulty, or just playing skirmish with an AI ally so I could just enjoy building stuff and playing around rather than worrying about losing.
oh yes I definitely still do that even today whenever I revisit an old RTS title. it's an oddly pleasant way of enjoying an otherwise challenging game.
cheers man, thank you for your work, it's super enjoyable
pathfinder wrath
Do you know if there’s ANY news about the original devs/passionate fans creating a sequel/spiritual successor to the game, or is there basically nothing? It’s too bad that the game hasn’t gotten a digital rerelease. I highly doubt I’d play the game since you’ve pointed out the game’s a miserable slog and it’s mostly just the setting that’s interesting. It’s really weird how they spent a good chunk of the game’s development padding out the human campaign with LONG missions are stupidly oversized maps. Too bad they didn’t instead put those resources towards making a dark campaign and mod support (such a shame we don’t live in the days when mod support is viewed as an essential feature anymore. That will keep any game alive). It’s also too bad they didn’t make part 2 electric boogaloo that continued the story and fixed a lot of the previous game’s issues. The series looks like it had a lot of promise. I think an rts would probably work better for having large squads and a wide array of different vehicles. Xcom type games work best with small squads. The music and visuals are really cool. Too bad nobody extracted the assets and put them into a better more flexible engine like what Daggerfall Unity did.
I don't, or at least at the time I made the video. There was a Czech modding scene for a bit but I don't think it lasted.
That’s too bad. Thanks anyways.
This review was definitely interesting. It’s too bad they didn’t fix various issues with the game and put resources towards mods and a Dark campaign. This setting has such an interesting premise. I really hope someone comes along and makes a game with a similar setting.
*10:35** Germany! Germany! :)*
"I did not like the game" - the 90-minute video. I bought the game on release and loved it. The reviewer mistakes this game for 2020's triple-A. Also uses ab absurdum nitpicks to discredit every aspect of the game. "The Doom's story makes no sense. The UFO's premise is stupid. Half-Life is anti-science," and other pointless complaints I could also use if I wanted to take a massive shit on popular franchises.
Thanks dawg
I really like the game and I really liked it when it came out as a kid, but listening to your talking points I can see why you would find the game unnecessarily grindy and repetetive. Maybe for cultural reasons I have a higher tolerance to this type of strategic grind and jank. Maybe I just really liked the story with Czech dub etc.
I dont know if that is the case in the English release but in the Czech release the unit type descriptions felt really grounded, like that you didn't have a generic tank unit but "Leo2A5" specifically which would be the top of the line in military technology at the time and the descriptions tried to fit it into the world of the game pretty well I think.
I see that the fact that they removed many of the real life references in the English version might really hamper this feeling of immersion. I remember for example that in one cutscene it is revealed that the pope is a really big deal in the Alliance because he has anti-magic properties so the Swiss guard is used as special forces that are able to assasinate wizards which I found as a really cool bit of lore.
I believe the units did have mostly-accurate labels in the English release, though my understanding is that there are legal barriers to a lot of military hardware names in fiction so I might be misremembering
Chaser is one of the most ridiculous games I have ever seen, so another game from the same dev should be interesting.
They could only pick one side to program for the player to use and they chose the boring human military..
As far as I remember it was outdated n many aspects already when it was released. It received ok reviews for decent execution but the game itself was quite boring especially compared to the similar titles of the era.
Still a pretty uncommon premise though :)
Westerners crypto racism seems neverchanging
Wow all that talking in the gameplay mechanics part and it turns out be be turn based crap.
Many such cases!