PC Critic Reviews

Elemental: War of Magic has a lot of good ideas that set it apart from being another kingdom-building clone, and while it borrows from many places, it doesn't really do a great job of making any of them feel particularly strong or fully fleshed out.

The bare bones of a hugely exciting strategy RPG hybrid. The the AI just isn't good enough to make it special, yet.

While it may be too unfocused and complex for some there's no doubt intrigued 4x fans will feel the pull of Elemental's premise, and those of you who do can likely find something here to love, faults and all.

My intense 4X fandom has been conquered by Elemental's nonstop irritations. I'm putting it down for now, but I'm not writing the game off forever.

In the end I have to admit that despite its large number of problems I find Elemental strangely engaging, and I want to keep playing just because I know that someday it's going to become a much better game than it is right now.

The subtlety of these exchanges suggests that a strategy game of some greatness exists beneath the cumbersome framework, and we trust Stardock, a developer of proven diligence and passion, to continue refining it. [Nov 2010, p.93]

Out of respect for Stardock, I will stop here, because it's hard for me to imagine how a decent developer has allowed such a product to be released in this state, with little connection to the term of entertainment.

So, is it all a disaster? Well, the A.I. problems are fixed to some degree by the robust multiplayer (if you can find friends willing to slog through the ugliest visuals since finger-painting class), and yes, the level of customization for both the world map and your alter-ego hero is nice -- but no number of small details can hope to salvage quality from this debacle of execution.

Once again, the excellent idea was killed by ambitions. If Stardock's risky bet had paid out, Elemental would have been a masterpiece, but to make one is not as easy as cramming a bunch of "new" features together. You actually need to glue them with a rock-solid concept. And, in violation of the second clause of its own The Gamer's Bill of Rights, Stardock had released a game as buggy and unfinished as Disciples 3.

But we can only look at what we have now. Elemental is now undercooked with no incentive to keep sitting down to dinner. With more variety and more clarity, Stardock's fantasy world might tell stories you would tell your friends. It's a shame it insisted on trying to tell them now.