Tzar: The Burden of the Crown

The Good
Everyone who knows me even a little, knows how big sucker I am for Westwood games and their real-time strategies, and I rate any other RTS game by taking C&C and Dune II as examples. However, I oughta admit, occasionally, some never-heard-before companies pop outta nowhere bringing us a really amazing piece of art. Same goes for TZAR. I mean, who ever heard of Bulgarian company Haemimont!? ;)) But yet, that small bunch of developers accomplished to bring us evrything we can ever need in top-down RTS game.

First of all, by the look, even the box cover front page, the game radiates of some certain oldness, and that's exactly what drive you to play at first. I mean, it's obvious to expect so new high-tech full of effects game on the sheleves, but it's pretty bizzare and intriguing to spot a brand new made game that looks as if it cam out before Warcraft. Still, once you start playing, nothing is old, it just sparks to some early '90s atmosphere, though.

Before I let myself talk more about game details, I gotta mention this detail - NETWORK & MULTIPLAYER KNOCKS DOWN THE MAIN SCORE!!! :) Yeeah! It's fast, it never disconnects (like what happens with games such as TS, RA2 or some other real-time strategies). Better yet, if you pair with your friend and play on some large map against only one computer, but on hard level, you'll soon realize you two might not even match the good ol' AI ;)) The best part of AI in this game is something I never saw before in any such game, and that's that computer pretends to be stupid and plays stupid, and once you fall for that, he outsmarts you. It sometimes even let you kill hordes of its armies just to trick you, and that's a whole new perspective of AI, right? :)

Now, for beginners, you can choose training which consists of six or seven missions where you'll learn most of things you need to know to be able to resist in a campaign battles, but still, I played campaign on EASY level, and I still had a hard time passing the game. I mean, I once stuck for over half-a-year on simple level. It was like status quo, nor I was able to advance further, and I just was strong enough to defend my position, got low on resources, now that I remember ;))

Once you start a campaign, you play Sartor, a young peasant, that will soon realize he's actually a son of a king, and the royal heir to the throne. Though, the throne in chaos and devastation. You'll be saved by one of white mages, Ghiron, and taught to ride and fight by your father's guards, especially Woolin. Once you become a knight, you'll have to fight through the first few missions only by raiding tax wagons and enemy camps, and messing the Army of Evil plans, and when you gather troops enough, you'll be able to siege the Keana castle and hometown of your father's troops. You'll have to raise the strength in the nearby villages, gather troops, and launch the attack on the enemy castles. But just when you think your war is closing to an end, you'll realize it goes beyond the reach of a view, across the other far east and south continents. You'll have to leave some troops to protect occupied areas, while with the others you'll go and check what's happening in the Asian and African territories. And the last of all, you'll have to shut down the dark portal and kill Messiah of Evil and seal them off this world.

One of the greatest feature in this game is that your wizzard, and even you, after like 10 to 15 missions gain really awful strength and magic that Ghiron (the wizzard) alone will be able to wreck havoc on pretty large enemy army, or even wipe out the entire enemy base. Of course, since computer AI is not that dumb, it takes only one priest to cut your magical efforts down, so saving the game occasionally wouldn't be a bad option :)

Sound effects are really nice, thunders, rain effects. What's the best, there are day and night cycles, 30 mins each, and this time, you actually look forward when the daylight comes, as at night, you can barely desguise your troops with enemies. A default resolution is 800x600, but if you like to see more of a battlefield (and I know I do), then you cans witch to 1024x768 pixels.

And for the conclusion, the ending animation and story somewhat ticks and tacks and is definitely opened for a sequel to come by ;)) I hope that will happen, though.

The Bad
Well, the game's pretty much flawless, but that intro animation is worst then if it was done like 15 years ago. Still, that somewhat compensates a really nice quality ending animation :) Though you're most likely never to see it if you don't decid to give at least a few months to this game's playing, hehe. Can't get reward without an effort, now can you? :)

The Bottom Line
It's by far the best medieval/fantasy real-time strategy ever. It has three different nations, Europeans, Asians and Arabians. Each culture has different houses, units and strategies. As always, the main strength lies in the hands of peasants, but you can get them cheaper if some nation allowes slavery, hehe. Also, you can bribe enemy units or steal cows. And if all resources are gone, you can always convert stock in your tavern, though it's 1:10 measuring system, and it's not that fast to convert.

There are four things you need to keep an eye on; food (you can get that by fishing or from a farm, or even from cows), wood, gold, and stone. Beside technologies, you can upgrade most of houses and units, especially ships and/or the cannon level. You can establish trading routes and try diplomacy ways if your troops are too drunk to fight, or you can just employ couple of thugs in a tavern for a quick fight. As for the wizzards and priests, each culture has different magics, and can spawn different creatures, like bats, stone golems, dragons, jinnis, and more.

Bottomline, this game will give you more then what just ordinary real-time strategy games can supply. It will give you a story driven game, with main characters to follow, it will grow to some point to role-playing game in Diablo or Nox alike style, and most of all, it will never be easy to pass it through, not on single point. The only time to rest is between enemy assaults.