I had heard about the issues that
Stardock was having with the launch of
Elemental: War of Magic, so I had held off with buying the game.
Reports had come in that the game was incredibly unstable and that there were possibly problems with the user interface. Concerns with user interfaces can sometimes be in the eye of the beholder, for example I know many people who love the Age of Empires UI, whereas I preferred the interface for Civilisation.
So, when it was announced that
with patch 1.06, the game was now stable, I decided to give a vote of confidence in Stardock and give the game a fair go.
Positives
The basic theme and idea behind this game is gorgeous. It essentially tries to meld together games like Sid Meier’s Civilisation and Heroes of Might and Magic. If this idea was executed properly, it should have been hugely accessible to a large number of players. It should have attracted large numbers of casual players.
I give Stardock credit for trying something ambitious.
To Stardock’s credit there are some elements which have been well designed, and have been designed to be simple to use. For example, navigating your Ruler across the screen engaging in basic combat is relatively straightforward point and click exercises. There is even the option to AutoResolve combat. The screen where you equip your character is well designed, and you are able to equip your character via a simple drag and drop.
The music is also lovely and is well-appropriate for the game.
Elements that could be improved on
The biggest issue in the game is a lack of in-game tutorial.
The earlier Total War games, the Civilisation series and the Sims all use in-game tutorials to great effect. They’re crucial if you’re trying to get someone used to a new game.
I spent a large part of my first hour or so in the game totally lost and asking myself “what the heck do I do now?” I only persevered due to the amount of money I’ve spent on the game, and the fact that I really wanted to be fair and make a proper attempt at getting into the game.
When you’re not sure what you’re supposed to be doing, you find yourself mildly panicking and start randomly pressing buttons in the faint hope that you’re going to find the button you need. Which leads me to my next point:-
The game suffers massively from a confusing user interface that uses symbols that don’t have a great deal of meaning for most users. Elemental is badly in need of pop-ups to make the interface less confusing. As at patch 1.07, there were a few more pop-ups or some sort of labeling, but they only scratched the surface of the level of confusion the interface causes.
Basically, if you can’t find something you need within three clicks, that’s an issue.
There are a number of points in the game where I would discover really lovely features by accident. For example, I accidentally found the Store about an hour into playing the game. It took me another hour before I accidentally found the screen which allowed me to equip my character.
It would have been helpful if I had gotten a message at that point stating “You have just bought some equipment, would you like to equip your Ruler with that equipment?” leading straight to the equipment screen if you chose to say “yes”.
Serious issues
The storyline in this game appears fairly week and badly thought out. Stardock would likely have benefited from hiring at least one professional writer to write the storyline as Bioware did for Dragon Age Origins. With a more compelling storyline, the interface would have been less overwhelming, and players would have had a stronger reason to continue playing. I am unsure as to how they will be able to overcome this issue.
Most seriously, I had the same serious bug three times (both with patch 1.06 and 1.07) where I got stuck on the cloth map without the user interface and without the means to escape that screen. In each case, I got stuck on that screen for about ten or fifteen minutes before the game flicked back to the normal play screen.
The game should not have been released in this state, especially not from the game company who stated that we have the right to deserve our games be delivered in a finished state.
In Balance
As at this time, I have asked for a refund from Stardock due to the issues I experienced. I’m not entirely sure I will buy a game produced by Stardock again. Only time will tell.
I would not recommend you buy Elemental at this point.
Brad Wardell has a large update planned sometime in the future (1.1) which may fix a great many of these issues. Until that time I would suggest holding off, as Elemental in its current state, is more stressful than fun for most players.
Editorial review written by saraswati
Reclaim Your Game
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