Disciples II: Servants of the Dark (PC)

GameSpot editors' review

• CNET editors' rating: 3.5 stars Very good
  Detailed editors' rating
  Overall score: 7.0 (3.5 stars)

• Reviewed by:
  Greg Kasavin
• Reviewed on: 07/16/2003
• Released on: 06/30/2003
• Originally published on GameSpot: Disciples II: Servants of the Dark (PC) Review

Though you can find plenty of fantasy-themed turn-based strategy games on the shelves, last year's Disciples II is still one of the most distinctive and one of the best. Featuring some unusually detailed and stylized artwork, the game also incorporates many role-playing elements to lend continuity and an epic feel to its campaigns. Now, about 18 months after its release, Disciples II finally gets a well-deserved expansion pack. Two, actually, since Servants of the Dark is an immediate follow-up to the very similar Guardians of the Light expansion. If you already know about the strengths and weaknesses of the previous Disciples II add-on, then Servants of the Dark will be exactly what you expect.

Like Guardians, Servants of the Dark isn't very substantial. It's halfway suited to new Disciples II players, who could just as well pick up a dirt-cheap copy of Disciples II from their local bargain bin, and it's halfway suited to experienced Disciples II players, who would probably expect more from this add-on than what its dozen-odd skirmish maps and two high-level minicampaigns provide.

The Servants of the Dark expansion only lets you play as the evil-aligned factions of Disciples II: the Undead Hordes and the Legions of the Damned. The Empire and the Mountain Clans, Disciples II's good factions, are still present as adversaries but cannot be controlled directly. And the recently released Guardians of the Light expansion was the exact opposite. This is a strange design that simply limits the appeal of both games, since one of the great things about Disciples II was how you could play from the perspective of four dramatically different and uniquely powerful sides.

This add-on actually contains the complete original Disciples II campaigns for both the Undead Horde and the Legions of the Damned. That's a lot of content for players new to the series, though again, they might as well just look for the original game since it's even cheaper now than this budget-priced expansion pack. Meanwhile, those who already own Disciples II have already seen this stuff.

The main reason the original campaigns are in here is that the new high-level campaigns may only be played if you have a leader character of 10th level or higher. So unless you've finished the original campaigns and still have the saved data on your hard drive, unless you've downloaded someone else's saved game, or unless you happen to look down in the game's readme file to find the clause about how some high-level leaders are hidden on one of the game discs' directories, you'll need to play through the original campaigns before you can get to the new content. The scenarios composing the two new minicampaigns are very challenging and filled with little scripted events, so they're good as Disciples II missions go. They let you fight with and against many of the game's most powerful units, which were a relatively rare sight in the original.

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