How Russians botch western games and troll everyone So originally there was a Japanese game called Ogre Battle.
Its author Yasumi Matsuno later made Final Fantasy Tactics.
Matsuno is like the Kojima of Japanese fantasy strategies.
His latest game Unsung Story uses a non-uniform grid.
In 1993 Matsuno apparently saw Civilization.
So he pushed out a dumbed down fantasy version.
It had a continuous pausable-real time world map.
And turn-based autoplaying combat, where
Player controlled the composition and formation,
And could use a special card if they had one.
Squads were limited by 5 units.
One of these was a hero.
Some powerful units took 2 spaces.
Units could evolve along the branching paths.
That frequently required consumable items.
Players couldn't develop cities or train units.
New units gained by capturing cities.
Or through random events,
which happened on entering specific biomes.
Cities gave income which was used to deploy units.
The idea was cool but the execution was flawed.
Coming up with a compelling idea is easy.
Hard is polishing it into something fun.
So this style of Civilization clone lay dormant.
Until 1999 when westerners remade it as Disciples.
Disciples shuffled the formula a bit.
The world map was made turn-based.
There was a Lord Monarch style land marking mechanics,
and a ton of world map a spells,
which moved the game closer to Master of Magic.
But core 5 character squad mechanics remained.
Although unit advancement was limited by city development.
Players couldn't lose or fully defeat the enemies.
Since main cities were defended by almost unbeatable units.
The game had a lot of such gimmicks.
But everyone loved it for its unique artstyle.
After the Disciples II (which only polished the concept),
The studio which made Disciples got disbanded,
and the talented people moved to make nigger goyslop
for Electronic Arts and Ubisoft,
shittin trash like Assassin Creed and Army of Two.
As an insult the Disciples license was given to Russians.
The infamous Krapella was responsible for what was to come.
Knowing no better, Russians made a subpar HoMM3 clone.
The art was now full gzhel matryoshka.
Of course with a ton of birch trees and a T34 easter egg.
Slapped Disciples III on top and released,
with a Warcraft III style logo on top of a badly drawn woman.
That was not well received by anyone but other Russians.
Now even the HoMM3 fans were happy to eat this shit.
Anyway, recently the Japanese made Unicorn Overlord,
which clones Ogre Battle, while fixing its issue.
But I hope everyone will remember the Russian invasion.
Still the question remains, what happened to the woman's right hand?!!
Current Mood: amused