Ancient Empires II

-Glu (2005)

-played on a Sanyo 8300

Summary

Medieval characters dance about the snowy land while a cursed beam from the heavens destroys them one by one.

My Thoughts

Ancient Empires II is a turn-based strategy game that owes much of its look and presentation to the awesome Advance Wars series on the GBA. The graphics may be a bit cute, but the game is a solid, challenging strategy game that becomes severely addicting.

Unlike the Advance Wars games, Ancient Empires II takes place in a medieval fantasy realm. The land is a desolate, snow filled place with forests, rivers and a dangerous evil lurking about. Before beginning your strategizing, you must first decide the type of quest you will embark upon. The first choice is story mode. Here you’ll guide King Galamar on his quest to defeat the evil Saeth from using the powers of the crystals. The eight story missions vary from setting up a base and wiping out the enemy to chasing a certain enemy to surviving a series of ambushes along a narrow path. The final level is very difficult and puts you in panic mode immediately because of a certain, very deadly turn of events. Before, during, and after each mission the story progresses through little mug shots and dialogue of the main characters. When you’re finished with story mode, you can then replay any level.

Your second choice is skirmish mode. In skirmish mode you choose one of twelve stages, which are all completely different maps than those found in the story mode. You pick the color of your army from red, blue, black, or green. The goal is to capture all of the opposing armies’ castles. Some stages have two armies battling it out, while others have three or four. This is also the mode where another player or three can join in for multiplayer action on your phone.

When you’ve completed all the skirmish missions what more is there to do? Plenty! Choosing a different colored army will change your starting castle, sometimes making the game more difficult. In one of the stages I chose a color that started in the middle of two other armies. Fending off and attacking one enemy force is one thing, but it took me a few tries before I was able to make any headway against an army on either side of mine. If you happen to tire of the bounty of included maps there is another bonus; you can download two extra maps.

Having not played the first game, I can’t tell you what’s different. However I do know how great of a strategy game this is. The graphics are excellent and approach a near GBA level. They are very colorful and everything is easy to see. There is a sweeping epic score during the opening title and a nice little battle score when the armies start fighting. The gameplay is easy enough to get into, but is a challenge to master. You tell your units where to go and what to do. You can move, attack, rebuild houses, or occupy them. Occupying house and castles is the only way to earn gold, which is what is used to create other units. There are a total of ten unit types to create and command. You have the commander, soldiers, archers, Dire Wolves, catapults, elementals (water dragon things), sorceresses, wisps, golems (floating rock eyes) and the powerful dragon. Each unit has its own weapons, strengths, weaknesses, range and movement. Most units can only attack when placed next to an opposing unit and the enemy will always counter-attack (as will your units if the enemy is attacking). The archers and catapult have a greater range where they can attack a square or more away and not impose the adversaries’ counter. The sorceress has the unique ability to raise the dead and bringing in an eleventh unit into play, making any deceased unit a horde of skeleton warriors. Wisps increase the attack power of any nearby units. As units battle and continue to survive, they will gain experience, up a rank, and become more powerful in attack and defense.

The alternate terrain of the maps also affects the movement and defense of the units. Most units can’t move as many squares at a time when traversing over water, mountains, hills, or through snow. The one water exception is the water elementals, as they have greater movement and defense in water. Terrain does not affect the mighty dragons because of their ability to fly. Terrain can also determine the amount of defense for a unit. Mountains and dense forest provide a bit more defense while water can actually weaken your men.    

Ancient Empires II presents quite a challenge. The computer A.I. knows what it’s doing so it is important to become familiar with the different units and know all their strengths and weaknesses. A single map can take hours and hours to complete, which is pretty incredible for a game you play on your phone. It is then fortunate that you can save the game at any time. If you think your next move could be a fatal flaw, save the game right before your move. If it turns out alright then keep playing, but if your army is almost eliminated because of it, just re-load the game. There are also three save slots so you can have several separate games going at the same time. The difficulty seemed fairly high at first, and you will most likely be utterly annihilated the first few times you play. I certainly was because I wasn’t familiar enough with my forces, yet. After awhile I was able to figure out a decent strategy for employing units for many of the maps that usually worked pretty well, which is also my only gripe about the game. The single strategy worked for nearly all the skirmish levels. At least it didn’t work on every map though, so it was crucial to figure out an alternate strategy at times.

Ancient Empires II is terribly engrossing, addictive and I played it any chance I got. It offers more length and replayability than you could ever ask for in a mobile game.

Score: 9.5

-Shawn       

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