The background story

The background story of Empire of Magic is as follows: In a time long ago the whole world was ruled by the Empire Of Magic. There were many mages and the most powerful of them held the power in his hands. One day however, his fate was doomed. Mayhem and terror took over the land as everyone was fighting for power. In the meantime, strange things began to happen in the border territories. Troops of soldiers and sometimes even settlers vanished. Well, a situation worth a closer look but none of the superior mages wanted to leave the capital city in a time when important positions in the government were being severed.
So, one of the minor mages called Artemian is sent to the southern border. Little by little, he uncovers the complex story and finds out that not all is as it seems.

The first moments with the demo

I got hold of a press demo lately, which is 670 MB in size and seems to cover the final game's features pretty well. When I started the press demo, I was at first very suprised by the nice intro movie and the great music. But then came the first disappointment: The graphics are not up to today's standard. So don't expect too much and more important, do not let this keep you from starting to play the game, as it really offers some fun.

You start out outside a town, which is overrun by undead enemies. You have a group of allies on the green outsice, which you can collect in smaller troups ot travel alone. There's higher heroes next to Artemina also; for example, Yano is one of them and can also group heroes around him.

Graphics, combat, gameplay!

The general graphical overview is not really up to date, but spreads a very moody charme, almost like the old Ultima games. When you come to encounter enemies the games switches to a closer view, which looks nicer then. Each unit has ist hit points, action points and mana, if they can cast spells also. Combat turns is running until all action points are spent, the attacker flees or one party dies (if your higher heroes die, the game is over)!

As soon as you freed the city from the undead you can enter the town hall and get new quests, buy weapons, spells or train several skills. Then the party goes on, with allied troups fighting more undead hordes, after which you get to travel to the old city below the town, get new quests etc.

Ups & Downs

Technically, Empire of Magic also features the fog-of-war map, but both on the mini map and on the terrain itself, it is sometimes hard to spot units, heroes, items or general things, which are also hard to distinguish whether they're enemies or allied or other buldings.

Other not so great things in this demo are the very long turn the NPCs and enemies take after you end your turn. Also, there's no resource building either, at least not in the demo.

On the pro side, the game offers excellent and atmospheric music tracks and very nice movies and an overall fun experience. Later in the game, Mayhem promises more tactical possibilities, whereby you can use the siege of the castles and 3D segmentation of the terrain. Your units can hide behind the hills or prepare an ambush from the behind.

Outlook

If Mayhem manages to straighten out the downsides and keep the quests and the story interesting enough, Empire of Magic will appeal to more than just genre fans despite its graphics, otherwise, this may stay a niche pruduct only.