Elven Legacy: Ranger

It's Fantasy General 1.72...
It's very much in the family, in a Russian version sort of way.
Time limits are more strict than in FG, and some folks dislike it for that, but it's cheap as chips. Looks nice. (Go in the options and turn units to "always small", so it doesn't do that absurd shift as you zoom, did wonders for my enjoyment of these games)

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It's definitely worth more than what I paid for. I bought it on a sale with no great expectations and to be honest it blew my mind. If offers solid gameplay for Strategy and RPG lovers. The story is somewhat acceptable nothing great but good enough to keep you hooked. It has role playing elements in it, which you learn while progressing the story. It's hard but not as hard the Base Game Elven Legacy. So, if you like turn based Strategy Games then I say go ahead and get the complete collection.

Note: There is no voice acting in this expansion.

Rating: mediocre (5/10)

Introduction
Elven Legacy: Ranger is a story-driven strategy RPG where by leading a small army of human with heroes in turn-based combat you have to fulfill smaler missions to save the kingdom from a self-proclaimed tyranny king.

Gameplay & Story: 5/10
Since you get thrown into combat from the very first mission of the campaign, you get to know that the gameplay consists purely of fighting on a small scaled map, upgrading and recruiting your troops between the missions and spending some time listening to dialogs or watching cut scenes. The gameplay does not differ at all from the main game Elven Legacy. The story is written slightly better than the main game, however is still as simple you are being the good guy chasing some bad guys.

Combat & Challenge : 6/10
The combat does have some aspects of tactical troop management and each unit does have some upgrades, where you can specialise it in a certain way. The units including melee, ranged, air troops and heroes fulfill different roles and you have to be aware of their strengths and counters on higher difficulties. Hard was actually hard even to me since the mission had a time limit and at a certain point you had to charge heads on into the enemy troops, so the preset had to be perfect not to lose too many units.

Graphic & Interface : 3/10
The design of this game is not only old, but also quite cheap looking to be honest. Only the heroes (especially your main one) has some fancy looking gear and the UI is your basic old looking tons of buttons one. The maps do not have many details either, the special spots containing artefacts are barely distinguishable and only later in the game the units receive some better looking equipment.

Progress & Mini-Games : 5/10
The progress is determined by the difficulty you pick before starting a mission, since hard takes much longer to finish. There are no mini games so the only progress is finishing the current mission, determing the difficulty of the next, picking your troops and jumping into the next one.

Audio & Immersion : 5/10
To be honest I cannot say much about the music, since I turned it off after the first mission and played with my own. The sounds used for the troops, fighting and voice overs are mediocre and get their job done. However, do not expect any serious immersion in this game since the combination of bad graphic, non-immersive audio and typical storyline will not really let you dive any deep into this game.

Side-Notes

• This game offers a single player campaign of about 8 hours.
  
• This game contains no steam achievements and no trading cards.
  
[*]This game offers minimal replayibility, since it is story heavy.

Summary
Elven Legacy: Ranger is an oldschool tactical turn-based RPG and strategy hybrid, that offers a story of elven warriors traveling through the world fighting humans, dwarves and orcs while chasing some anti-heroes. Some missions will offer a tactical challenge at higher difficulties, however neither the battles nor the story feel any strong in this game. The immersion just did not happen with the game of this quality, so I can only recommend it to fans of tactical turn-based combat and fans of oldschool strategic RPGs.
If you enjoyed the main game, you should also get the Ranger addon, besides you can save your money.

I hope this review helps you making the decision if its worth buying and installing this game. Rate and leave a comment if you enjoyed reading it.
~ForestWolf

More of Elven Legacy, easier with the help of a broken hero at your disposal and nicely developed maps for your pleasure. If you enjoyed the main and want more here it is.

A good expansion from EL, f*ck I'm too drunk to review this,,,

10/3423

Know that Ranger doesn't bring anything new to the gameplay (though I like the idea of a hero scout), but it's still the Elven Legacy you know and love.

So if you enjoyed Elven Legacy and want more, don't hesitate. Especially for the price.

Note that this new campaign is clearly easier than Elven Legacy.

Nice addition to a very good, turn-based strategy game in the spirit of the good old Panzer General series. Not a game for anyone but excellent to those to want challenging battles and strategical planning of controlling many different units with vastly different abilities having to fullfil specific goals under limitations (number of turns).
Factors from cover, ground type, unit type/abilities affect the outcome of the battles between unit pairs.
Leveling heroes and units by adding skills and using artifacts add a light RPG element to the game.

With respect to difficulty it is quite easier than the original Elven Legacy, getting all missions with gold rating is not super difficult.
I have to disagree with some reviewers, once you understand the strategic rules of the game it is not too difficult.

Drawbacks: rather mediocre graphics and definitely not tailored to a casual player.

Definitely not an absurdly difficult game, but one that does require planning and strategy. I enjoyed my romp through the a panzer general-esque fantasy world.

This game is much too hard. I'd like to see someone pass a level without cheating. I'll bet it's impossible. Not sure why they made this game for Koreans only.