As one of the old devs -- thanks for the laughs! RoL was a lot more nail-biting than AOE3. We only managed to balance the Cuotl in the last 2 weeks before we went gold. The song in the credits was from a local band 'Growlers of Resurrections' (if I remember right). Lots of good memories. ua-cam.com/video/mn63Bmc2tIA/v-deo.html *edit to add*: Since lots of folks have asked about how to break into game development, the last comment in this thread should help -- ua-cam.com/video/PCSWwL-f1WQ/v-deo.html&lc=Ugxt3NcokUrecYdKeTp4AaABAg.9sC1z-OqLm9A0DSjiMwWmd Appreciate all the nice comments!
Hey, this is probably going to get buried in the comments section, but thank you for this video. I discovered Rise of Legends through your video and came to like it a lot. I had this work colleague whom I befriended and he was a huge gamer. I mentioned this game to him and he talked with so much passion about Rise of Legends, as it was his favorite game. He loved how full of life everything seemed to him at the time and how cool the steampunk art was. Last night he unfortunately passed away, and I came back to your video, as it was what brought us together, to re-watch and remember him. So truly, thank you Sseth. I will be forever thankful for your video. Edit: Spelling
For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, (1 Corinthians 15:1-4 RSV)
As a Latin American who got this game by buying bootleg copies as we often did during those times. This game was so significant during my childhood and I still remember it fondly, specially the magnificent soundtrack. Thank you, Sseth.
Not even joking, I bought a copy of this game on a bootleg grey market in brazil, along with an impossibly original copy of SC Brood Wars back in 2007 or something.
@@xNealus As a Latin America who lived in that time period. People pirated games from russian sites and burned them into DVDs for sale back in the day where the internet was slow af and downloading games took ages.
Always wish I'd got to work on this one (worked on the titles before/after ROL: Rise of Nations and AOE3: Asian Dynasties). Very important facts to know: * "Timonium" is the town where the developer worked. * There was a life-sized sticker of Giacomo on the company fridge. He held a donut. A dialog bubble said "buy more donuts". * One of the balance testers was fond of singing about Giacomo to the tune of Cocomo (by the Beach Boys).
oh? at the end of the games credits they have a band singing all sorts of songs about giacomo and the entire game's storyline. i wonder if that was them then XD
Pastapunk should definitely be a popular thing. Not really steampunk, but Renaissance-era futurism with Da Vinci-esque technology. Think Florence and Venice with flying machines
@@jhonnoilcringeincarnato8593 The Caveman 2 Cosmos mod for Civ4 has "Clockpunk" alternative timeline tech as one of its **many** features, which is basically this.
As an Italian, you have no idea how happy this content made me . I also vouch that every reference to italian culture made by Sseth in this video is perfectly accurate and totally part of our story
@repentandbelieveinJesusChrist8 Repent to the Flying Spaghetti Monster, "For the Flying Spaghetti Monster is good and his noodly appendeges endure forever, his faithful collander continues through all generations." Random book about Pasta 420:69
I have a ton of respect for the pasta company for having the will to sponsor SsethTzeentach. They fully knew what they were getting themselves into and I hope it works out well for them on the business side of things.
This game was done so dirty. Legitimately an amazing game, really fun, imaginative and well thought out. Broke my heart that its not sold anywhere anymore. I still have my DVD version and a cherish it. Did not expect to see it featured ever again, thank you Sseth.
Think I've still got my copy somewhere as well, decided to download it again a couple years back but it refused to let me play without updating and I'm pretty sure the servers are long gone.
The one thing I remember most vividly about this game is that breaking the glass buildings was so satisfying because it was like throwing rocks at giant windows.
One of the BEST features of this game thats very hidden via a button on your keyboard you never press is that you can freely speed up or slow down time. Its SO GOOD in the campaign to skip boring parts of in general when playing PvE! SO many games sadly dont have this feature anymore, its the best QoL and saves so much time during boring phases
Noticed when Giacomo fires his mech gun he slam his fist onto the fire button. He controls with levers, but the fire button is one he punches. Helps with steampunk feel.
Yeah, Rise of Legends is very differention from RoN, it has little in common except the developer (and a tiny RoN headline), and the game went completely under the radar. Its actually a super fun RTS though, one of those really cool and creative strategy games that flooded the market in 2005 to 2008. You know, directly after which the RTS genre mostly died because that was too much quality and innovation at once.^^ Would recommend the game to any RTS-fan though, if you like Singleplayer campaigns.
Never in a thousand years would I have imagined Sseth reviewing and endorsing a childhood favorite so obscure that it can't even be bought anymore. The absolute mad lad has made my day. ♥
The unit designs in this game have yet to be matched in my opinion. It was a fever dream of steam punk, glass golems, and mechanical wonders. The epitome of a fantasy world.
@@GamerM1235 yeah like this eskimo-nordic fusion faction that uses great beasts for everything. Even now 15+ yeaes later i feel like this game's setting was a lost opportunity for something unique
Yeah, the imagination that went into the faction designs and mechanics was so original. I know we've seen steampunk before, but they did it so well here. Then there are the space Aztecs and the mystical Arabic glass wizards. No elves, no dwarves, no orcs, just something completely unique
21:05 Don't forget the part where you get to drive her to the hospital and avoid pedestrians or getting stopped by the police for going too fast, I've loved that part.
@@tiriltheblack492 Rise of Nations didn't go under the radar, it sold way beyond expectations for an RTS game not made by Blizzard or Ensemble Studios.
I imagine guys from GOG tried to make it available in their store but it is often loooong and laborious process. And often they get ignored by companies. Especially by American companies for some reason.
@@kamilszadkowski8864 Average video game publisher: "Oh you'd like to use our IP for something? Bring back a cherished old game, make us more money? Nah, we're not interested. _Psssst, that's code for, 'we want more money'!_ Lots more. Like, all of the money, plus 30% more. Don't tell me that's impossible, we need the line on the graph to go up so our shareholders will be happy and not sell their shares. What were we talking about? Oh yeah, get out of my office, it's line-snorting time."
Dutchy here, I still expect you to pay up for Rhodesia. Please forward this to your president, he's probably corrupt enough to pay us without having to tax all of you.
"This shit looked photorealistic when I saw it for the first time. I was thinking damn I wonder how crazy video games will be in the future" Thank goodness I'm not the only one impressed by destruction physics of buildings which still hold up to this day only to be disappointed but the reality that... they did it better 20 years ago.
As an Italian Brazilian i'm proud that both my nationalities would provide (by selling a pirated version) you with such a great and accurate experience.
this bootleg game store is completely a true story. As someone living in one of those countries, the way he told the story makes me believe that is 100% legit
@@f.b.l.9813 I had a bootleg russian GTA: SA copy. Besides some model changes like the Mustang replaced by a Corsair, it had the NFS:U2 soundtrack which was amazing haha
I got a bootleg Starcraft + Broodwar but with all the units replaced with Gundams. The game crashed every time an archon gets made and locked one of the campaign missions
This game is a masterpiece for its time. The lore and mechanics are shockingly good. Played it to hell. Still my favourite game to this day. Sad it never got the fame it deserves. Hope for a remake some time
A remake would be dope. I do love this game but what Sseth neglected to mention is that it failed due to some pretty bad balancing and performance issues. Everything in this game looks like it animates at 10 fps. A remaster would fix all of that, I doubt it will ever happen.
@@AlozarLorandul Yeah, this game is one of those that would actually benefit from a remake in a more stable engine. Given the unique aesthetic and look, higher fidelity assets wouldn't hurt either.
As an Italian, I want to point out this game is completely canon and a faithful recreation of the Assedio delle Gambe di Lenora. Grazie all'onorevole Setto Zentacci for bringing superior Italian culture abroad.
Man, when this came out I couldn't believe how disappointed I was. Rise of Nations was top tier amazing and this one had virtually none of the things I liked about it. Glad you enjoyed it!
If only the game didn't have some horrible balancing and performance issues, and they didn't try to link it to rise of nations. It's a great idea for a game but it has some critical flaws, which is unfortunate. Saying this as a person who owns multiple copies on disc.
If Sseth ever wrote an autobiography, it would be one of a single digit list of sources to ever contain the knowledge of whatever bootleg products that Sseth coincidentally owned existed to begin with. A modern Marion Stokes.
SO happy to see someone covering this ancient and hidden gem of a game. My story for obtaining my copy as a child was similar to yours, and the unique design of the 3 factions is something I will always admire.
My dad pirated this and burned it to a CD when I was a kid. Still one of my favorite RTS games. The AI actually knows how to propose alliances in the skirmish mode. It's really cool to negotiate with them and have dynamic games where you don't really know who is gonna be an a-hole to you and who wants to be your buddy. Some will actually try to convince you to ally them.
Timonium is named for the town in Maryland where Big Huge Games used to be. Same with some of the campaign maps; Padonia was the street some of the devs lived at iirc.
Update on the Pasta situation, I have registered a fake business and should be receiving 30 dollars worth of yummy authentic Gnocchi in about a week (as long as my Translate app worked appropriately)! Will keep you guys posted. Forza Fratelli d'Italia!
Ok I don't know if anyone will see this But apparently this game was going to be bigger at the end of the day with a 4th race and larger world map Though with the ideas they had, it feels like there could have been 6 races The cut races were the Kahan, Mongolians who had cities on massive Beasts of burden, Skald were Finnish with some Nordic and Slavic touches that lived in Ice Cities, and a final race of Beastial Giants called the Kragar which didn't get as far in concept as the others
I hope this gets more people into Rise of Legends, its such a little-known classic and it's never gotten even a re-release on steam despite all the talent and work that went into it
I'm not an RTS autist but it's so cool seeing the cutscenes be a mix of modeled characters and pre-rendered backgrounds. Performance optimization is truly a lost art
Now that you said it, obsession with RTS (or strategy games in general) should totally be considered an autism symptom. There's no way in hell a neurotypical person can enjoy this type of "games" voluntarily
@@NoperareMostly because of "hardcore gamers" too hopped up on the smell of their own urine bottles whining any and every time graphics look worse than whatever the current expectation is.
@@cosmicmuse2195I literally saw a Reddit post complaining about the texture in Death Stranding Director's Cut looking to low-res... For a bunch of decor items no one would even see normally.
Every part of this one is a masterpiece. I can't get over that he's actually called the Doge, or that Sseth got a pasta sponsor. That damn near broke me
I'm russian, and that's why I'm not surprised why Sseth found only a russian version of Rise of Legends. Let's say that RTS is still extremely popular genre in post-soviet gaming community. We are big fans of strategy games.
Well, yea-yeah, and we also did not have legal publishers, and the pirates were suing other pirates because they pirated pirate "releases". Buka, for ex went bankrupt
Fun fact: even if you knew Russian, the text in the installer wizard window would still have been nonsense to you. That is because the code page chosen for non-Unicode text was wrong (likely Western European instead of Cyrillic), so it showed wrong letters (mostly diacritics). This is a frequent problem for non-Unicode applications of the past.
I cannot describe the joy I have in seeing you cover this. For years I was borrowing character names from this game for various profiles and such cause I assumed this game would never see a large audience ever again and I always thought this universe was too cool to forget. My surprise when one of my fav youtubers also has fond childhood memories of playing this game is immeasurable.
My god... 2006 release. This game looks stunning for that time. Kinda reminding me of ParaWorld, dinosaur-themed RTS, the game I hold dear in my heart despite it having its own flaws. Would love to see it covered in Sseth-style video. EDIT: Now that I look at this, maybe this is what Iron Harvest devs were trying to achieve.
I also miss ParaWorld. And the early 2000s were bonkers. Remember that Devil May Cry 4 came out in 2008. Now the game had its issues, but the graphics _still_ look gorgeous to this day. Really all that seems to have changed in the last 10+ years is more shaders and lighting shenanigans or something. Also 4k textures cause everything to take up an order of magnitude more space.
This video was a nostalgic gem for me, got this game as a kid after spending countless hours in rise of nations and those cutscenes were like a blast from the past.
As far as I can see, Rise of Legends has the best steampunk human faction in video games. The way the Mianans are pitted against magical desert people and Aztec alien overlords was also expertly done, but it would be awesome to see the game remastered for larger scale and better gameplay/cinematic visuals.
One of the BEST features of this game thats very hidden via a button on your keyboard you never press is that you can freely speed up or slow down time. Its SO GOOD in the campaign to skip boring parts of in general when playing PvE! SO many games sadly dont have this feature anymore, its the best QoL and saves so much time during boring phases
Me and my friends used to play this game all the time! It was just insanely fun multiplayer, legitimately replaced Starcraft as my favorite RTS. This and SIns of a Solar Empire were really something special.
In Argentina we have a ton of bootlegs and piracy running about, but I have to respect how far the bootleg dudes went on Brazil. Most of them naturally evolved into great Mod developers.
Holy shit you don't understand how much you've made my day. I remember playing Italian Simulator back in 2008. Now, I didn't speak any English whatsoever back then and neither did I have the time and energy to learn it. Fast-forward less then a decade, I eventually did it. When I kept getting flashbacks of games I used to play as a kid, I decided to search for this exact game, the problem was that I never saw the cover or the game-title of it since my dad was the one opening the game for me and setting the skirmish matches against the AI. All I remembered was the floating sand city and the goofy looking units defending it. It's been 12 whole years of me trying to find this God forsaken game and out of nowhere it pops up in my UA-cam feed. The algorithm is finally healing itself.
The mega units it's what I loved of this game. Specially the land leviathan, I still remember it's name for how fricking awesome that unit is. Like that spider from wild west movie.
Found my old CD box for this game a while back, bought an external CD reader to play it again, hearing the ingame music after so many years was an insane nostalgia hit. The OST's for Rise of Nations and Rise of Legends are some of the best out there hands down.
It's great bc the composer, Duane Decker (if I remember correctly) uploaded the tracks to UA-cam and still responds to comments to this day! It was great to hear the work he did on it and how he was able to use an orchestra for ROL. Also got some background on why the credit music is just joke music
The combination of the turn-based campaign map, being able to spawn in with units from the map, and various other elements of the RTS made me realize: This game is basically the precursor to what Divinity: Dragon Commander was trying to be.
A LOT of rts games of the time had campaigns like this (either as Main campaign or side/Bonus campaign) : Rise of nations, Dawn of War Dark Crusade and Soulstorm, Universe at War, Star Wars Empire at War and probably a bunch of others.
@@chaosmonkey1595 The Dawn of War campaigns are probably the closest analogue. Rise of Nations _did_ have modes with a world map, but that one wasn't quite as involved. Empire at War is actually real-time, and the campaign map is actually the main meat of the game
I totally forgot that game's name, and I have been trying to find it for a long time Freed, thank you for cosmically positioning yourself in the right time and place to answer my question.
One of my favorite RTS games growing up. I remember being blown away at how good the game looked (for the time) and how awesome the battles were. I spent many hours in multiplayer vs the AI on the hardest difficulties and having ginormous map wide land battle games that lasted 30+ minutes. I had an original 4 disk copy of the game but I lost it, then one day I decided to look around and ordered a copy of the game off Ebay. This is one of those things I never want to lose/forget as I get older. I really miss RTS like these.
Many years ago I accidentially pirated RoL instead of RoN which everybody hyped at the time. I'm glad I did, It was a truly unique and great game. Cool factions and interesting story. Only the campaign (especially 3) could get a bit annoying when you were stuck going back and forth over the same territory against 3 AI heroes.
Yes, RISE OF LEGENDS! One of my favorite games ever. All 3 factions feel unique and destinguished between each other, no analogues for them in other games, base building is unstandard either, campaign is plain amazing. Works like shit nowadays, but damn, the game is awesome!
This is still one of my favorite RTS games and it just has so many good features of the genre, it deserves a remaster so badly. Shout out to those of us that lost one of the discs so we couldn't traditionally reinstall it.
God I remember playing this game as a kid. I had so many fond memories, but I've lost the discs and have been unable to play it for years, just watching some videos with less than a thousand views with the cutscenes or some guy with a gamestop xbox live microphone doing a lets play. Thank you Sseth for reintroducing me to this masterpiece.
Savescumming that Cuotl mission where you have to escort cargo ships and defend them from enemy fighters was so worth it back when I played through the campaign myself, when you manage to get all shipments safely to your base, you get the Cuotl super unit. Main strat for beating it is to immediately rush to air production and beating the enemy's fighter spam with your own.
One of the BEST features of this game thats very hidden via a button on your keyboard you never press is that you can freely speed up or slow down time. Its SO GOOD in the campaign to skip boring parts of in general when playing PvE! SO many games sadly dont have this feature anymore, its the best QoL and saves so much time during boring phases
@@rippachopper9607 City Of Vengeance. You know that one unit he loved more than any other in the game? This is it's older brother who started lifting weights and never stopped, with some lasers slapped on for extra spite, an anti-city beam attack, and the ability to pause for a brief moment to FULLY HEAL (assuming your research level is high enough).
@@nottelling6598 City of Vengeance is on some different type of bullshit, I'm pretty sure it has crush despite being a air unit and a ranged attack with the same damage output of a Leviathan that is mostly melee.
Seth's description of the bootleg store is so spot-on. I have fond memories of walking through the bootleg bazaars, buying lots of games for less than 50 reais. That would be no more than ten dollars today.
My favorite store also sold subbed animes. For those without good internet, it was wonderful. Stuff like Chrno Crusade, Elfen Lied, Fafner, RahXephon... Me and my brother had to pool our money and negotiate who bought which games and which animes.
I can't believe you did a review on this. When I was 12 I asked my parents for Rise of Nations, and for Christmas they got me Rise of Legends thinking it was the same game. I still have that 16 year old disc in its box and its truly a treasure of mine. Not surprised its abandon ware. XD
Fun fact: While "Timonium" sounds like made up fantasy mineral, its actually the name of the town that the developers were located in. Thank you for highlighting this wonderful game Sseth. It means a lot.
that they named it after the home of their office is true, but that it's a glowing blue rock with magic plot powers and serving as the primary resource is also absolutely a Tiberium reference. It can be both.
Come membro della gilda degli spaghetti, apprezzo molto questo video chiaramente basato sulla storia Italiana. Grazie fratello Sseth 🤌 ma prima di andare vi lascio una perla di saggezza detta da un grande Leader. "Spaghetti are straight untill they get wet" Berlusconi.
Fantastic game, wish they would make a remake/sequel. The depth and variety in each faction as well as the strong themes and asymmetric play styles always made the game feel dynamic and fresh to me.
You dont get how much i appreciate this. My dad installed this game on our pc when i was 6-7 years old and it is probably my favorite RTS because of that. That you are reviewing it and its quality will no longer go unnoticed almost makes me tear up.
My favorite bit in the game is an alin unit, a desert manta ray that a dude flies into combat, I love it cause the maps usually have non hostile critters in them and one of them is a tiny version of the aforementioned desert manta ray.
The moment he showed the image of a "bootleg videogame store" in latin america i imediately knew he was talking about a store in Brasil. And considering the price, you got scammed. Specialy in Rio.
And after months of pain and sadness I finally get another sseth video to immediately save me from my suffering. Divine light restored, humanity regained, neckbeard shaved, weight training resumed.
I'm baffled how many of the old and obscure games you've reviewed by now that my cousin and i have played back in the day. Rise of Legends? The Nations? What’s next? Spellforce? Act of War??? :'D The video is as always incredibly entertaining. Much Love! Great game! EDIT: Holy shit! I am not only one who saw the Stargate parallel.
Injust really want to shout out Sseth's impecable ad timing, this man places his ads in the most perfect spots every time and I KNOW it goes unnoticed, but i just want you to know that I see what you are doing, and I appreciate it.
I love this game. The setting it captivating, the story is engaging, and the gameplay is solid. I feel terrible for anyone who’s never had a chance to play it.
I desperately hoped that this game would get the attention it deserved. I also hope Microsoft takes note that the community is still alive, and decides to rerelease the game on Steam. This was easily one of my most-favorite childhood classics. I squealed in joy when I saw my notifications. Thank you, Sseth.
It actually surprised me how bad the game aged, still has save issues and mostly driver issues with graphic cards, old RON runs solid even with a new PC. Microsoft doesn't even acknowledge the title enough to launch a steam edition, which would be an easy cash grab.
I can not thank you enough for covering this game. I absolutely loved it when it came out and love it just as much now that I can play it again. No one ever believed me about this game either
same, I still have a cd copy, still with original box, floating around my house somewhere that I first played on a shitty laptop probably over a decade ago. I played with my brother more recently by making disc images and mounting them so we could do multiplayer it's still one of my favorite RTS games
This game was SO GOOD when I played it as a kid. I loved the story, the soundtrack, and the plto twists. I remember I was genuinely so surprised when the Doge died at the end of campaign 2. In my limited experience I first thought it was gonna be one big baddie per campaign, which surprised me for the first time when he escaped and destroyed Giacomo's hometown (that was so cool), and I was certain then that it was gonna be the Doge at the end of campaign 3, and yet it again it wasn't... It was so great, I have only good memories. To this day, I have Lenora's theme (lenora_long_amb.wav lol) in my music library and it pops in from time to time. The Giacomo's glass "upgrade" was also so cool to my edgy preteen eyes. I even made characters in my wanna-be writing like him. And when he sacrificed himself at the end, I felt like that's what true heroes should do. I can't really explain it properly, cause by narrative standards, the story isn't really that great, but it also isn't bad at all, and the twists were really well executed. The sacrifice was unexpected, but satisfying, although I remember being real sad for Giacomo not ending up with Lenora despite his sacrifice. Looking at it with a more mature mindset, I feel like this was probably the best end he could hope for, cause he was so driven by vengeance that who knows what he would do once he ran out of the obviously evil enemies. I feel so stupid for thiking like this 😅 I would say that, however unexpected, this game proved to be pretty influential in my formative years. I feel like I know what I'm gonna play when I get home after work lol And, of course, I had a huge kid crush on Lenora before I even knew what a crush was.
Now this is forgotten and underrated. It deserved an rpg as well in this setting, great music, great style, rts still felt a bit jank in places but it was overall a good game. Seriously the soundtrack is incredibly good, puts tons of modern games to shame. It screams ADVENTURE! I cant believe Sseth didnt put the goofy "Giacomo" hidden song that I think appears in the credits of the game. But all our memories are in the Lenora's theme right here in youtube.
![Обзор на Rise of Legends [SsethTzeentach RUS VO]](/img/n.gif)
As one of the old devs -- thanks for the laughs! RoL was a lot more nail-biting than AOE3. We only managed to balance the Cuotl in the last 2 weeks before we went gold. The song in the credits was from a local band 'Growlers of Resurrections' (if I remember right). Lots of good memories. ua-cam.com/video/mn63Bmc2tIA/v-deo.html
*edit to add*: Since lots of folks have asked about how to break into game development, the last comment in this thread should help -- ua-cam.com/video/PCSWwL-f1WQ/v-deo.html&lc=Ugxt3NcokUrecYdKeTp4AaABAg.9sC1z-OqLm9A0DSjiMwWmd Appreciate all the nice comments!
Thank you for making this, it is still in my top three favorite rts of all time. So creative and so fun at the same time!
Make some more games, I petition, you get old devs and take over the They are billions IP, and hire me for unit designs and gameplay
You sir made one of the most original games ever. Hats off to you.
where do i download this?
Is the beggining of the song going on in Giacomo's head when he's walking through the maddening mists?
The fact that a pasta company actually contacted you for a sponsorship is killing me, that shit is hilarious.
Public announcement to Italian people, pls buy their black spaghetti type pasta, one might call it niggetti. Buy it for no particular reason.
Im dying over the fact that it's B2B
hey, let me reverse engineering your thought there. I think it is intelligent as fuck, now I know that brand name and I will buy it if I see it.
Great guys probably
I am holding out hope that they knew exactly what they were doing.
The most historicly accurate telling of the Venecian-Italian-Aztec war I have ever seen is in this game. My favorite period in history.
More like Venetian-Persian-Aztec. The Alin are clearly inspired by the Arabian Nights fantasy.
@@ArawnOfAnnwn They're definitely Sicilian or Calabrian. Southern Italy might as well be Northern Egypt.
History books pre WW1 are so fake this may as well be true lol
ok
@@ArawnOfAnnwnthat’s why we call a certain region in southern Italy, Calabria Saudita
Hey, this is probably going to get buried in the comments section, but thank you for this video. I discovered Rise of Legends through your video and came to like it a lot. I had this work colleague whom I befriended and he was a huge gamer. I mentioned this game to him and he talked with so much passion about Rise of Legends, as it was his favorite game. He loved how full of life everything seemed to him at the time and how cool the steampunk art was. Last night he unfortunately passed away, and I came back to your video, as it was what brought us together, to re-watch and remember him. So truly, thank you Sseth. I will be forever thankful for your video.
Edit: Spelling
really sorry to hear that man, thanks for sharing
RIP king
Hope you are better, sorry for your loss
We don't bury comments like these in the merchants' guild.
EDIT: I too am very sorry for your loss
Hey hey people, hugs here ♥️💪
Every time sseth showcases a game he personally loves the world takes another step back from the brink.
Insert a comma kind cat person
Longer edging.
heavenly rapture gets pushed back a day with every upload
@@ultimaxkom8728 Currently edging the end of the world. idk I'll probably be gooning soon. Might delete later.
For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, (1 Corinthians 15:1-4 RSV)
As a Latin American who got this game by buying bootleg copies as we often did during those times. This game was so significant during my childhood and I still remember it fondly, specially the magnificent soundtrack. Thank you, Sseth.
Same here. Shti was amazing.
Not even joking, I bought a copy of this game on a bootleg grey market in brazil, along with an impossibly original copy of SC Brood Wars back in 2007 or something.
Why would it be sold in Russian in Latin America? Or is that a fictional part?
Russians were the OG's in pirating PC games back then, found a lot of these in bootleg markets on my country, Paraguay
@@xNealus As a Latin America who lived in that time period. People pirated games from russian sites and burned them into DVDs for sale back in the day where the internet was slow af and downloading games took ages.
As a proud italian i approve this content all is 100% accurate and i can assure no one wants to be labeled as a siciliano
Is Sicilian like vegan or something? They always let me know...
@@michaelmcteague7471 no is a person cursed with being born in Sicilia
@@gianpierogianpoli5358 such a fate should be burdened to no child
I was Born in Avellino 💀
@@michaelmcteague7471Worth it for the arancini.
As an Italian I just want to say this game is not a steampunk fantasy scenario, it's an accurate portrayal of 1970s Italy.
Yes and they're mistaking the Calabrese for Aztecs
Hanno fatto la strategia della tensione leggendo i fascicoli secretati che spiegano il supporto alieno nella formazione di lotta continua
Bella ciao
Vero
@@Jack-rj4kd Rigatoni risotto carpaccio pizza fiorentina oregano parmigiana gnocchi cappuccino👌
Always wish I'd got to work on this one (worked on the titles before/after ROL: Rise of Nations and AOE3: Asian Dynasties). Very important facts to know:
* "Timonium" is the town where the developer worked.
* There was a life-sized sticker of Giacomo on the company fridge. He held a donut. A dialog bubble said "buy more donuts".
* One of the balance testers was fond of singing about Giacomo to the tune of Cocomo (by the Beach Boys).
I wish I could like your comment a hundred times over, just so Sseth would see it.
oh? at the end of the games credits they have a band singing all sorts of songs about giacomo and the entire game's storyline. i wonder if that was them then XD
there's "my uncle from Nintendo" and then there's this kind of comment
Way down in Giacomo!🎵
LMFAO
The phrases "there is no humans, only italians" and " this game is pasta-punk" had me laughing so hard
Pastapunk should definitely be a popular thing. Not really steampunk, but Renaissance-era futurism with Da Vinci-esque technology. Think Florence and Venice with flying machines
I spit out my coffee. I should know by now to never drink liquids while watching his videos.
@@Watchmanskeyit MUST become a real thing
@@jhonnoilcringeincarnato8593 The Caveman 2 Cosmos mod for Civ4 has "Clockpunk" alternative timeline tech as one of its **many** features, which is basically this.
I spat out my espresso. Mama Mia!
As an Italian, you have no idea how happy this content made me . I also vouch that every reference to italian culture made by Sseth in this video is perfectly accurate and totally part of our story
idk man i audibly cringed at snapping the pasta XD NO italian, feral or not would such a thing
Italy lore
@@MrLightlike78 Fun fact: treason
@repentandbelieveinJesusChrist8 repent deez nuts
@repentandbelieveinJesusChrist8 Repent to the Flying Spaghetti Monster,
"For the Flying Spaghetti Monster is good and his noodly appendeges endure forever, his faithful collander continues through all generations."
Random book about Pasta 420:69
I have a ton of respect for the pasta company for having the will to sponsor SsethTzeentach. They fully knew what they were getting themselves into and I hope it works out well for them on the business side of things.
the best part is that it's a b2b pasta company
like they literally dont even sell pasta to end consumers
the bleeding edge of online marketing
@@harperna3938these absolute Chads are playing marketing 5D chess
I just realized it's because they think Sseth's audience is a literal Merchant's Guild.
_Clicks the 'Purchase Pasta' button_
Explosions.
This game was done so dirty. Legitimately an amazing game, really fun, imaginative and well thought out. Broke my heart that its not sold anywhere anymore. I still have my DVD version and a cherish it. Did not expect to see it featured ever again, thank you Sseth.
It's the kind of game that make you wonder if it was a fever dream because you can't seem to find anything about its existence again.
@@TheOrian34Once in a life time experince
Think I've still got my copy somewhere as well, decided to download it again a couple years back but it refused to let me play without updating and I'm pretty sure the servers are long gone.
@@TheOrian34 I've watched countless top 10 RTS videos and whatnot, but none have ever mentioned this gem of a game!
Shoot, I didn't know it was rare
The one thing I remember most vividly about this game is that breaking the glass buildings was so satisfying because it was like throwing rocks at giant windows.
They've played us for absolute fools!
This isn't a fantasy setting, it's just a faithful retelling of the Years of Lead!!
Doge Silvio Burlesconi is there too, I appreciate their attempt at historical accuracy
One of the BEST features of this game thats very hidden via a button on your keyboard you never press is that you can freely speed up or slow down time. Its SO GOOD in the campaign to skip boring parts of in general when playing PvE! SO many games sadly dont have this feature anymore, its the best QoL and saves so much time during boring phases
Noticed when Giacomo fires his mech gun he slam his fist onto the fire button. He controls with levers, but the fire button is one he punches. Helps with steampunk feel.
Giacomo here to reassure everyone that Sseth’s head canon is indeed what actually happened
Thank god 🙏 you will be a dad, king.
This dude knows, he’s Giacomo
thank you giacomo (real) may your pasta harvest be plentiful and the local sicillian horde be destroyed 🙏
At least yer head wasn’t crushed between Lenora’s thighs…
right?
What head canon is that?
Loved Rise of Nations to bits but this went totally under the radar for me
First time watching clip as it premiers 🎉
i was expecting a rise of nations knock-off when i first saw the notification lol. i didn't realize they actually made a spin-off title.
You loved it too much, for now it's destroyed
Yeah, Rise of Legends is very differention from RoN, it has little in common except the developer (and a tiny RoN headline), and the game went completely under the radar.
Its actually a super fun RTS though, one of those really cool and creative strategy games that flooded the market in 2005 to 2008. You know, directly after which the RTS genre mostly died because that was too much quality and innovation at once.^^
Would recommend the game to any RTS-fan though, if you like Singleplayer campaigns.
It doesn't help that Rise of Nations has been available for years on Steam but Legends never got a re-release.
Never in a thousand years would I have imagined Sseth reviewing and endorsing a childhood favorite so obscure that it can't even be bought anymore. The absolute mad lad has made my day. ♥
Black & White is not obscure at all, but it can't be bought. Digital dark matter progresses.
@@souluss what do you mean with 'digital dark matter'? just games or media or software that becomes abandonware?
"never in a thousand years" when its the only sort of game he ever reviews
ok
Yeah, unfortunately, a game doesnt' relaly need to be obscure to be abandoned. It just needs to have no investor value 😕
The unit designs in this game have yet to be matched in my opinion. It was a fever dream of steam punk, glass golems, and mechanical wonders. The epitome of a fantasy world.
Wait til you here about the other cancelled factions
@@nigeltan676 There was what! Now I have to dive into the google rabbit hole.
@@GamerM1235 yeah like this eskimo-nordic fusion faction that uses great beasts for everything.
Even now 15+ yeaes later i feel like this game's setting was a lost opportunity for something unique
Yeah, the imagination that went into the faction designs and mechanics was so original. I know we've seen steampunk before, but they did it so well here. Then there are the space Aztecs and the mystical Arabic glass wizards. No elves, no dwarves, no orcs, just something completely unique
@@nigeltan676i still think about this sometimes.
The pasta company when they realize sseth doesn't do proper sponsorships: ''They played us like a damn noodle!''
Give it back! This isn't right, that was ours!
And Sseth was all like "Pasta La Vista, Bambino".
to be fair, it is good marketing maybe unintentional
Did you check their pasta selection? I had no idea there were so many kinds!
@@malcontender6319welcome to Italy, we have 100 different ways to eat pasta in a 100 different shapes and makes, al hail the strozzapreti
21:05 Don't forget the part where you get to drive her to the hospital and avoid pedestrians or getting stopped by the police for going too fast, I've loved that part.
Holy shit a deep cut, Sseth is truly gaming in the Clinton Years.
My favourite part is where she was rush to the birthing room and we get to see her pushing out that potato upclose
I too loves avoid missing the innocent pedestrian and the police car chase to the hospital.
@@spacepiratemyrna Think of the drama as she has to deal with cancer in her front-loaded anvils!
Just about to make this reply, God bless you!
Absolutely loved Rise of Legends, this and Rise of Nations were two games that dominated my childhood
And both got under the rader, i loved it both geez those memories
I still love to load rise of nations up. as a kid I loved playing it with my pops.
@@tiriltheblack492 Rise of Nations didn't go under the radar, it sold way beyond expectations for an RTS game not made by Blizzard or Ensemble Studios.
@@spinyslasher6586 Both sold way below what they should've considering they were amazing titles.
Can only hope he will review Armies of Exigo or Submarine Titans at some point, loved those 2 RTS'es.
10:20 The juxtaposition of the VA for "He drew us out Giacomo" with Giacomo's calm and intense profile is absolutely cinematic.
Honestly one of my favorite games
👍🏻
Good
👍
👍
Grate
Its a absolute crime that this isn't available on GOG, had so many memories playing this when I was a kid. Good to see it get a spotlight again.
I imagine guys from GOG tried to make it available in their store but it is often loooong and laborious process. And often they get ignored by companies. Especially by American companies for some reason.
@@kamilszadkowski8864 Average video game publisher: "Oh you'd like to use our IP for something? Bring back a cherished old game, make us more money? Nah, we're not interested. _Psssst, that's code for, 'we want more money'!_ Lots more. Like, all of the money, plus 30% more. Don't tell me that's impossible, we need the line on the graph to go up so our shareholders will be happy and not sell their shares. What were we talking about? Oh yeah, get out of my office, it's line-snorting time."
@@hazukichanx408 The funny thing is that they might not have the source code any more due to how old it is.
Microsoft doesn't care. Please stay out of my ancient cd cases.
If only there was a grey market site that catalogs MY games that were ABANDONed by their rights holders. If only that WARE true...
As a Zimbabwean I love how often Sseth references my country,he probably references it more than Zimbabweans themselves
Today I learned how you call the inhabitants of Zimbabwe
Dutchy here, I still expect you to pay up for Rhodesia. Please forward this to your president, he's probably corrupt enough to pay us without having to tax all of you.
@@giovannicurotto5134 Zimbabeans(im sorry)
@@giovannicurotto5134 Actually you call them Zimbos. I'm not fucking kidding.
@@stojankovacic1524 Definitely don't call anyone from Zim that😂
"This shit looked photorealistic when I saw it for the first time. I was thinking damn I wonder how crazy video games will be in the future" Thank goodness I'm not the only one impressed by destruction physics of buildings which still hold up to this day only to be disappointed but the reality that... they did it better 20 years ago.
Look at trash like Iron... I even forgot the name of that trash woke Steampunk-RTS which was hyped a while ago. Looked worse than this.
@@Barbarossa97Iron Harvest? What's wrong with that game?
@@ramm.c.8555it felt pretty dull to play, they could make it better. And control was pretty bad
@@Barbarossa97 "woke" lol child or geezer
@@thescatologistcopromancer3936 both
As an Italian Brazilian i'm proud that both my nationalities would provide (by selling a pirated version) you with such a great and accurate experience.
Nunca imaginei achar outro br aqui
ok, 3
Cursed backstory for a character
@@Armando_S. Tem gente no mundo inteiro gozando do Ssethchi. Saludos desde Chile.
Girls: romantic 😍
Boys: shitpost 😍
this bootleg game store is completely a true story. As someone living in one of those countries, the way he told the story makes me believe that is 100% legit
bootleg stores got some interesting gems, like finding a copy of GTA SA with built in Superman and Dragonball mods
Sadly they're dying nowadays cause everyone and their mother knows the glory of torrents (Fitgirl ftw btw).
Those stores created 90% of gamers here in Brazil
@@f.b.l.9813 I had a bootleg russian GTA: SA copy. Besides some model changes like the Mustang replaced by a Corsair, it had the NFS:U2 soundtrack which was amazing haha
I got a bootleg Starcraft + Broodwar but with all the units replaced with Gundams. The game crashed every time an archon gets made and locked one of the campaign missions
I really miss the mid 2000's RTS era where infantry came in squads and big mech units could send the tiny troops flying across the screen.
You should try mods for Warhammer 40k Dawn of War 1 like Ultimate Apocalypse
Total War is still a thing
total war warhammer has some big units that splash little units around, if they fall far enough they're even insta-gibbed
@@shmekelfreckles8157true
@@shmekelfreckles8157the new total wars suck
This game is a masterpiece for its time. The lore and mechanics are shockingly good. Played it to hell. Still my favourite game to this day. Sad it never got the fame it deserves. Hope for a remake some time
A remake would be dope. I do love this game but what Sseth neglected to mention is that it failed due to some pretty bad balancing and performance issues. Everything in this game looks like it animates at 10 fps. A remaster would fix all of that, I doubt it will ever happen.
Besides [obviously] C&C,
rise of legends and the LotR RTS game were my absolute favorites as a kid
@@SoulxWeaver same and I would play a high quality remake of any of those
God, this game actually sounds so dope to play. I say not only make a remake, make more of these, we need more of them today!
@@AlozarLorandul Yeah, this game is one of those that would actually benefit from a remake in a more stable engine. Given the unique aesthetic and look, higher fidelity assets wouldn't hurt either.
As an Italian, I want to point out this game is completely canon and a faithful recreation of the Assedio delle Gambe di Lenora.
Grazie all'onorevole Setto Zentacci for bringing superior Italian culture abroad.
These fottuti anglo Saxons should remember that their third world countries only exist because of glorious italians and romans
é tutto storico. onesto.
@@ecardecardian7839 Stolen by the Vatican and locked up in their vault
Italian.
@@ecardecardian7839 the roman empire happened
Bless you Sseth for doing a better job at preserving "products of culture" than most companies
I'm Italian and I can confirm that we MUST play this game in school as part of the History class curriculum, and we get graded on it.
Grades range from 'A+' to 'Hanged for Treason'.
@@DailyCorvid Not bad, but I think the lowest grade should be "Tarpeian Rock".
Yooo how did the Venetian city state deal with all those Martian death rays?
This is actually my favourite strategy game of all time. Glad it's getting the attention it deserves nearly twenty fuckin years later
Yeah its always a jolt in the neck when mr obscure game mentions a game you used to adore
Man, when this came out I couldn't believe how disappointed I was. Rise of Nations was top tier amazing and this one had virtually none of the things I liked about it. Glad you enjoyed it!
@@TankorSmash it never should have had the Rise of Nations title honestly. Nothing like the original in any way
Its one of the best of its era, right there with Armies of Exigo. Shame I can't play both of them anymore on PC...
If only the game didn't have some horrible balancing and performance issues, and they didn't try to link it to rise of nations. It's a great idea for a game but it has some critical flaws, which is unfortunate. Saying this as a person who owns multiple copies on disc.
Sseth has blessed me again with a review of one of my favorite childhood games no one has heard of
Ikr, it's criminal that it's never gotten a re-release on Steam
I heard of it and I’m pretty excited too.
I dont get why they didnt get a steam release when Rise of Nations got one
bro exactly.. the one of those gold ol day of everyone's rts childhood games
If Sseth ever wrote an autobiography, it would be one of a single digit list of sources to ever contain the knowledge of whatever bootleg products that Sseth coincidentally owned existed to begin with. A modern Marion Stokes.
wat
Either I just had a stroke, or you did. That shit makes no sense
SO happy to see someone covering this ancient and hidden gem of a game. My story for obtaining my copy as a child was similar to yours, and the unique design of the 3 factions is something I will always admire.
ancient? Dude that was like yesterday ...
So basically no one bought this game properly. You either trade it for a pot with a local hobo or download it from pirate bay.
My dad pirated this and burned it to a CD when I was a kid. Still one of my favorite RTS games.
The AI actually knows how to propose alliances in the skirmish mode. It's really cool to negotiate with them and have dynamic games where you don't really know who is gonna be an a-hole to you and who wants to be your buddy. Some will actually try to convince you to ally them.
Timonium is named for the town in Maryland where Big Huge Games used to be. Same with some of the campaign maps; Padonia was the street some of the devs lived at iirc.
Most based dev move: doxx yourself
Padania is the plain in Italy where the Po river flows and Milan actually is.
Update on the Pasta situation, I have registered a fake business and should be receiving 30 dollars worth of yummy authentic Gnocchi in about a week (as long as my Translate app worked appropriately)! Will keep you guys posted. Forza Fratelli d'Italia!
Ok I don't know if anyone will see this
But apparently this game was going to be bigger at the end of the day with a 4th race and larger world map
Though with the ideas they had, it feels like there could have been 6 races
The cut races were the Kahan, Mongolians who had cities on massive Beasts of burden, Skald were Finnish with some Nordic and Slavic touches that lived in Ice Cities, and a final race of Beastial Giants called the Kragar which didn't get as far in concept as the others
>Finnish with some Nordic and Slavic touches that lived in Ice Cities
So Finnish
@@Attaxalotl Ye
@@AttaxalotlI was quoting how it was described by TV tropes to be fair
So yea, kinda awkward
Wait for real? Sheet, that sounds awesome.
@@fumarc4501 yee
I found it originally on TV Tropes though so you might want to double check
As an Italian, I certify this video as 100% accurate. I haven't even had time to watch it yet, but it's accurate.
Can you tell me which pasta has the juiciest marrow?
I had no idea italians can communicate like human beings and without their hands.
@@j22563i like that everybody use hands when talking (especially Americans) but only the Italians are dumb when they do that. Ma fattela ficcare
There is even an ad for a b2b Italian pasta company.
@@RitariJormaI'm not Italian, however, I can tell you that Farfalle and Pici do in fact have the juiciest pasta marrow inside them
I hope this gets more people into Rise of Legends, its such a little-known classic and it's never gotten even a re-release on steam despite all the talent and work that went into it
A true shame, that is.
I'm not an RTS autist but it's so cool seeing the cutscenes be a mix of modeled characters and pre-rendered backgrounds. Performance optimization is truly a lost art
Now that you said it, obsession with RTS (or strategy games in general) should totally be considered an autism symptom. There's no way in hell a neurotypical person can enjoy this type of "games" voluntarily
Nowdays devs use high poly assets with 4K texture for every tree in the forest then wonder why the game is bellow 30 FPS
@@NoperareMostly because of "hardcore gamers" too hopped up on the smell of their own urine bottles whining any and every time graphics look worse than whatever the current expectation is.
@@cosmicmuse2195I literally saw a Reddit post complaining about the texture in Death Stranding Director's Cut looking to low-res... For a bunch of decor items no one would even see normally.
@@AnMComm Typical. Next, they're going to complain that real life is too low-res. Fucking hell
Every part of this one is a masterpiece. I can't get over that he's actually called the Doge, or that Sseth got a pasta sponsor. That damn near broke me
It’s like reversed Caesar, while people took his name as a imperial title, he took the imperial title as his name
The dog right
@@AC-hj9tv Doge was the title of the elected lord of Venice back in the day
Never ever I have imagine someone would make a RoL video like this in 2023, thank you so much for the nostalgia trip of such a classic.
I'm russian, and that's why I'm not surprised why Sseth found only a russian version of Rise of Legends. Let's say that RTS is still extremely popular genre in post-soviet gaming community. We are big fans of strategy games.
Well, yea-yeah, and we also did not have legal publishers, and the pirates were suing other pirates because they pirated pirate "releases". Buka, for ex went bankrupt
Fun fact: even if you knew Russian, the text in the installer wizard window would still have been nonsense to you. That is because the code page chosen for non-Unicode text was wrong (likely Western European instead of Cyrillic), so it showed wrong letters (mostly diacritics). This is a frequent problem for non-Unicode applications of the past.
I encounter the same issues whenever I install obscure vintage hentai games.
That's the joke.
the japs all use shift_jis though
I cannot describe the joy I have in seeing you cover this. For years I was borrowing character names from this game for various profiles and such cause I assumed this game would never see a large audience ever again and I always thought this universe was too cool to forget. My surprise when one of my fav youtubers also has fond childhood memories of playing this game is immeasurable.
Keep that flame burning.
My god... 2006 release. This game looks stunning for that time. Kinda reminding me of ParaWorld, dinosaur-themed RTS, the game I hold dear in my heart despite it having its own flaws. Would love to see it covered in Sseth-style video.
EDIT: Now that I look at this, maybe this is what Iron Harvest devs were trying to achieve.
I also miss ParaWorld.
And the early 2000s were bonkers. Remember that Devil May Cry 4 came out in 2008. Now the game had its issues, but the graphics _still_ look gorgeous to this day.
Really all that seems to have changed in the last 10+ years is more shaders and lighting shenanigans or something. Also 4k textures cause everything to take up an order of magnitude more space.
blessed years where Gothic 3 looked like a pinnacle of super-realistic open world rpg
Ah, ParaWorld. It was the first game I have bought from a legit gaming store.
And the last.
hmm not really, the games are really quite different
Iron Harvest straight up copied this game yes
This video was a nostalgic gem for me, got this game as a kid after spending countless hours in rise of nations and those cutscenes were like a blast from the past.
Same :)
As far as I can see, Rise of Legends has the best steampunk human faction in video games. The way the Mianans are pitted against magical desert people and Aztec alien overlords was also expertly done, but it would be awesome to see the game remastered for larger scale and better gameplay/cinematic visuals.
This game is amazing
The gemaplay and the lore
I love playing the campaign again from time to time.
One of the BEST features of this game thats very hidden via a button on your keyboard you never press is that you can freely speed up or slow down time. Its SO GOOD in the campaign to skip boring parts of in general when playing PvE! SO many games sadly dont have this feature anymore, its the best QoL and saves so much time during boring phases
Me and my friends used to play this game all the time! It was just insanely fun multiplayer, legitimately replaced Starcraft as my favorite RTS. This and SIns of a Solar Empire were really something special.
Stay tuned with MandaloreGaming - he's reviewing Sins soon.
@@Ultrox007
The newest Sins 2? or good old Rebellion?
It still works for multiplayer using game ranger I got a video on it
@@NcrXnbi I believe Trinity but don't quote me on that.
I just know "Sins of a Solar Empire" and "Myth 2" are his next uploads.
Sins Rebellion is so fucking good.
In Argentina we have a ton of bootlegs and piracy running about, but I have to respect how far the bootleg dudes went on Brazil.
Most of them naturally evolved into great Mod developers.
Holy shit you don't understand how much you've made my day. I remember playing Italian Simulator back in 2008. Now, I didn't speak any English whatsoever back then and neither did I have the time and energy to learn it. Fast-forward less then a decade, I eventually did it. When I kept getting flashbacks of games I used to play as a kid, I decided to search for this exact game, the problem was that I never saw the cover or the game-title of it since my dad was the one opening the game for me and setting the skirmish matches against the AI. All I remembered was the floating sand city and the goofy looking units defending it.
It's been 12 whole years of me trying to find this God forsaken game and out of nowhere it pops up in my UA-cam feed. The algorithm is finally healing itself.
The mega units it's what I loved of this game. Specially the land leviathan, I still remember it's name for how fricking awesome that unit is.
Like that spider from wild west movie.
I got a video on how to get it
Sseth never fails to provide for us
And here I thought sseth committed to only posting on Mandalore. Good to know he still comes back to the original channel
Hehe, thats a great joke....
.... right.
Couldnt be reality, clearly.
as a Serb, i am honored to have our flag featured in your video... this game looks unironically fun asf though
Serbia stronk!
God is a serb
@@annelisemeier283but Tesla is croatian.
serbs are gay and dark as the night
@@damian131313131313 🤡
Is it just me, or does sseth sound way happier in this video than most of his others
It’s because of the pasta. You should follow the links and try it too.
He does sound a bit more chipper here, honestly. At least to my ears.
Must be because he's talking about something he really loves. Is nice
Found my old CD box for this game a while back, bought an external CD reader to play it again, hearing the ingame music after so many years was an insane nostalgia hit. The OST's for Rise of Nations and Rise of Legends are some of the best out there hands down.
It's great bc the composer, Duane Decker (if I remember correctly) uploaded the tracks to UA-cam and still responds to comments to this day! It was great to hear the work he did on it and how he was able to use an orchestra for ROL. Also got some background on why the credit music is just joke music
The combination of the turn-based campaign map, being able to spawn in with units from the map, and various other elements of the RTS made me realize: This game is basically the precursor to what Divinity: Dragon Commander was trying to be.
No gay marriage, cannabis legalization or goblin explosions though :D
It reminds me on that one Dune game from 2001
A LOT of rts games of the time had campaigns like this (either as Main campaign or side/Bonus campaign) : Rise of nations, Dawn of War Dark Crusade and Soulstorm, Universe at War, Star Wars Empire at War and probably a bunch of others.
@@chaosmonkey1595 The Dawn of War campaigns are probably the closest analogue. Rise of Nations _did_ have modes with a world map, but that one wasn't quite as involved.
Empire at War is actually real-time, and the campaign map is actually the main meat of the game
I totally forgot that game's name, and I have been trying to find it for a long time Freed, thank you for cosmically positioning yourself in the right time and place to answer my question.
When you actually played the old game sseth reviews. Happiness.
Pure joy
One of my favorite RTS games growing up. I remember being blown away at how good the game looked (for the time) and how awesome the battles were. I spent many hours in multiplayer vs the AI on the hardest difficulties and having ginormous map wide land battle games that lasted 30+ minutes.
I had an original 4 disk copy of the game but I lost it, then one day I decided to look around and ordered a copy of the game off Ebay. This is one of those things I never want to lose/forget as I get older.
I really miss RTS like these.
Many years ago I accidentially pirated RoL instead of RoN which everybody hyped at the time.
I'm glad I did, It was a truly unique and great game. Cool factions and interesting story.
Only the campaign (especially 3) could get a bit annoying when you were stuck going back and forth over the same territory against 3 AI heroes.
What hilarity ensued when you tried to talk to your friends about the wrong game?
Yes, RISE OF LEGENDS! One of my favorite games ever. All 3 factions feel unique and destinguished between each other, no analogues for them in other games, base building is unstandard either, campaign is plain amazing. Works like shit nowadays, but damn, the game is awesome!
This is still one of my favorite RTS games and it just has so many good features of the genre, it deserves a remaster so badly. Shout out to those of us that lost one of the discs so we couldn't traditionally reinstall it.
Heck its so beloved I remember some madmen recreated the whole game (skirmish) in the starcraft 2 editor (though its butt ugly)
Do you have the link? I can’t find a comment with it 😢
It always feels special whenever Sseth reviews a game that only you and a few other fellow weirdos have played.
God I remember playing this game as a kid. I had so many fond memories, but I've lost the discs and have been unable to play it for years, just watching some videos with less than a thousand views with the cutscenes or some guy with a gamestop xbox live microphone doing a lets play. Thank you Sseth for reintroducing me to this masterpiece.
it's time to set sail, bro
Savescumming that Cuotl mission where you have to escort cargo ships and defend them from enemy fighters was so worth it back when I played through the campaign myself, when you manage to get all shipments safely to your base, you get the Cuotl super unit. Main strat for beating it is to immediately rush to air production and beating the enemy's fighter spam with your own.
What is the Cuotl super unit? I don't remember ever completing that side objective so I wouldn't know.
So... spam the spammer?
One of the BEST features of this game thats very hidden via a button on your keyboard you never press is that you can freely speed up or slow down time. Its SO GOOD in the campaign to skip boring parts of in general when playing PvE! SO many games sadly dont have this feature anymore, its the best QoL and saves so much time during boring phases
@@rippachopper9607 City Of Vengeance. You know that one unit he loved more than any other in the game? This is it's older brother who started lifting weights and never stopped, with some lasers slapped on for extra spite, an anti-city beam attack, and the ability to pause for a brief moment to FULLY HEAL (assuming your research level is high enough).
@@nottelling6598 City of Vengeance is on some different type of bullshit, I'm pretty sure it has crush despite being a air unit and a ranged attack with the same damage output of a Leviathan that is mostly melee.
Seth's description of the bootleg store is so spot-on. I have fond memories of walking through the bootleg bazaars, buying lots of games for less than 50 reais. That would be no more than ten dollars today.
My favorite store also sold subbed animes. For those without good internet, it was wonderful. Stuff like Chrno Crusade, Elfen Lied, Fafner, RahXephon... Me and my brother had to pool our money and negotiate who bought which games and which animes.
I can't believe you did a review on this. When I was 12 I asked my parents for Rise of Nations, and for Christmas they got me Rise of Legends thinking it was the same game. I still have that 16 year old disc in its box and its truly a treasure of mine. Not surprised its abandon ware. XD
Fun fact: While "Timonium" sounds like made up fantasy mineral, its actually the name of the town that the developers were located in.
Thank you for highlighting this wonderful game Sseth. It means a lot.
I always thought it was a reference to Tiberium from Command and Conquer.
@@KingOfMadCows Nope. Timonium, Maryland. Its a real place, and where Big Huge Games was headquartered.
that they named it after the home of their office is true, but that it's a glowing blue rock with magic plot powers and serving as the primary resource is also absolutely a Tiberium reference. It can be both.
@@youmukonpaku3168 Never played C&C so I wouldn't know.
@@johnyendrey5590 Ironically it's a small little town. :)
Come membro della gilda degli spaghetti, apprezzo molto questo video chiaramente basato sulla storia Italiana. Grazie fratello Sseth 🤌 ma prima di andare vi lascio una perla di saggezza detta da un grande Leader. "Spaghetti are straight untill they get wet" Berlusconi.
Che la sua anima resti in pace😔
Pasta linguini, matador!!!
Presente! 🙋♂
Bongiorno, commendatori!
Basato e Sseth-pillato
Oh my god it’s finally here.
I adored this game. Burrowing into an enemy town with the leviathan was prime endgame RTS curbstomp 👌🏻
Fantastic game, wish they would make a remake/sequel. The depth and variety in each faction as well as the strong themes and asymmetric play styles always made the game feel dynamic and fresh to me.
the pasta sponsor bit is the best part of this entire vid. fantastic job sseth as always
You dont get how much i appreciate this. My dad installed this game on our pc when i was 6-7 years old and it is probably my favorite RTS because of that. That you are reviewing it and its quality will no longer go unnoticed almost makes me tear up.
My favorite bit in the game is an alin unit, a desert manta ray that a dude flies into combat, I love it cause the maps usually have non hostile critters in them and one of them is a tiny version of the aforementioned desert manta ray.
The moment he showed the image of a "bootleg videogame store" in latin america i imediately knew he was talking about a store in Brasil. And considering the price, you got scammed. Specialy in Rio.
If, IF next coverage is CnC generals, I'll go insane. That game was part of my childhood, and having it be covered by this man will be an experience
I think he's content to leave it with the one UberDanger made in his style
can i have some shoooes
He did teased some EDF gameplay in his DRG video so yeah its possible, either that or Age of Mythology.
How about CnC Renegade instead?
@@ashj8186 one or other works for me, truth be told
And after months of pain and sadness I finally get another sseth video to immediately save me from my suffering. Divine light restored, humanity regained, neckbeard shaved, weight training resumed.
I'm baffled how many of the old and obscure games you've reviewed by now that my cousin and i have played back in the day. Rise of Legends? The Nations? What’s next? Spellforce? Act of War??? :'D
The video is as always incredibly entertaining. Much Love! Great game!
EDIT: Holy shit! I am not only one who saw the Stargate parallel.
Man, Sseth covering Act of War: Direct Action and High Treason would be so awesome.
I'd love to see him rage about the naval missions.
Watch him review End of Twilight, Rise and Fall, Konung or Neverend.
Still waiting for the Guild Wars 1 review
@@domena1007 I got back and played both campaigns last year. I remembered the naval missions being a little off. Oh how horribly wrong I was! :'D
Injust really want to shout out Sseth's impecable ad timing, this man places his ads in the most perfect spots every time and I KNOW it goes unnoticed, but i just want you to know that I see what you are doing, and I appreciate it.
sseth realmente teve a experiência da infância brasileira de comprar jogo pirata, ele já é basicamente um brasileiro honorário
Quando ele começou a descrever a experiência de ir numa loja de jogos piratas na América Latina, comecei a ter flashbacks da minha infância xD
@@Gab8riel mais tarde no vídeo ele ainda menciona que foi no rio e deu pra ter mais certeza ainda
what's happening and why do i understand brazilian all of a sudden
@@elikyiael8740 the longer you spend near us the faster you turn into one of us, that's why you're starting to understand
Que coisa maravilhosa
as an Italian I can attest this video depicts our society and customs extremely accurately
I love this game. The setting it captivating, the story is engaging, and the gameplay is solid.
I feel terrible for anyone who’s never had a chance to play it.
This game is criminally underrated for the amount of fun I had playing it in my childhood. Thank you for bringing it to light
This was like a spiritual successor to the Age Of Mythology.
Ah, a silent tear for the bygone golden age of RTS.
I grieve with you, brother.
I desperately hoped that this game would get the attention it deserved. I also hope Microsoft takes note that the community is still alive, and decides to rerelease the game on Steam.
This was easily one of my most-favorite childhood classics. I squealed in joy when I saw my notifications. Thank you, Sseth.
Yeah, I keep checking on steam every time I noticed RoN on discount, only to be disappointed in not finding RoL on Steam.
I got a video on it
It actually surprised me how bad the game aged, still has save issues and mostly driver issues with graphic cards, old RON runs solid even with a new PC.
Microsoft doesn't even acknowledge the title enough to launch a steam edition, which would be an easy cash grab.
More likely to have GOG push it seems up their interest.
On my way to watch another review about an old game I never heard before and will probably buy after this
same
I think Rise of Legends is abandonware right now
For once it's a game I played as a child
i'm pretty sure it's a abandonware now. As far as I know it's never been released on any store.
sadly it can't be bought anymore
as a brazilian-italian who spent all my lunchtime at work at that bootleg games market in Rio, I really approve this video.
I can not thank you enough for covering this game. I absolutely loved it when it came out and love it just as much now that I can play it again. No one ever believed me about this game either
Honestly one of my favourite games. Worth noting the last official patch removed DRM from this game so it is functionally shareware
Wait seriously?? My physical copy mustn't have that patch
Please send this to me
Sendlinktodownload
Man I'm old. I remember buying this game in a box. Still have it too.😅 The aesthetic of Da Vinci, stories from 1001 nights and SG1 in one game🎉
Share fren
same, I still have a cd copy, still with original box, floating around my house somewhere that I first played on a shitty laptop probably over a decade ago. I played with my brother more recently by making disc images and mounting them so we could do multiplayer
it's still one of my favorite RTS games
This game was SO GOOD when I played it as a kid. I loved the story, the soundtrack, and the plto twists. I remember I was genuinely so surprised when the Doge died at the end of campaign 2. In my limited experience I first thought it was gonna be one big baddie per campaign, which surprised me for the first time when he escaped and destroyed Giacomo's hometown (that was so cool), and I was certain then that it was gonna be the Doge at the end of campaign 3, and yet it again it wasn't... It was so great, I have only good memories. To this day, I have Lenora's theme (lenora_long_amb.wav lol) in my music library and it pops in from time to time.
The Giacomo's glass "upgrade" was also so cool to my edgy preteen eyes. I even made characters in my wanna-be writing like him. And when he sacrificed himself at the end, I felt like that's what true heroes should do.
I can't really explain it properly, cause by narrative standards, the story isn't really that great, but it also isn't bad at all, and the twists were really well executed. The sacrifice was unexpected, but satisfying, although I remember being real sad for Giacomo not ending up with Lenora despite his sacrifice. Looking at it with a more mature mindset, I feel like this was probably the best end he could hope for, cause he was so driven by vengeance that who knows what he would do once he ran out of the obviously evil enemies. I feel so stupid for thiking like this 😅
I would say that, however unexpected, this game proved to be pretty influential in my formative years. I feel like I know what I'm gonna play when I get home after work lol
And, of course, I had a huge kid crush on Lenora before I even knew what a crush was.
Now this is forgotten and underrated. It deserved an rpg as well in this setting, great music, great style, rts still felt a bit jank in places but it was overall a good game. Seriously the soundtrack is incredibly good, puts tons of modern games to shame. It screams ADVENTURE! I cant believe Sseth didnt put the goofy "Giacomo" hidden song that I think appears in the credits of the game.
But all our memories are in the Lenora's theme right here in youtube.
like a reliable paycheck or a longterm partner, sseth comes once a month and delivers. all hail.