Game Vortex writes: "In April 2009, Paradox Interactive released Elven Legacy, a fantasy-themed turn-based strategy game. A follow-up to 2007's Fantasy Wars, the game met with mixed reviews from critics. Despite the relative mediocrity of the game, Elven Legacy was embraced by a fan-base that was suffering through a relative drought of decent offerings within the genre. Initially advertised as including both an Elven and Human campaign, Elven Legacy released with only the Elven campaign, promising later expansions to highlight the Human story as well as extending gameplay and appeal. Following up on that promise, Paradox Interactive has recently released Elven Legacy: Ranger (EL:R), the first of three slated expansions due before the end of 2009."
Boomtown writes: "Ranger and Siege add 35 missions, five heroes, new artefacts, spells and armies. While this sounds like a lot the vast majority of the expansions remain completely unchanged. Both games feel like the developer has done a copy and paste job. This means that if you only flirted with the original you will find very little to sink your teeth into. Also, if you were looking for a continuation of the original story then you might be disappointed to learn that Ranger and Siege depart from this. Ranger focuses on a human ranger named Cornelius while Siege, set several months after Ranger, follows the invasion of the human lands by Saggitel and his elves. Both stories don't really draw you in as it is very clichéd and plays out like a very low budget Lord of the Rings."
There are essentially two ways of approaching the difficulty level presented in a strategy game. Either one alters the difficulty, or one alters the strategy used in approaching the difficulty of the game. In Elven Legacy, a player needed not necessarily alter his approach to the game, but rather simply set the difficulty to "easy" at the beginning of each mission. In the game's first expansion pack Elven Legacy: Ranger the same does not hold true.
Adopters of the original would do well to pick this expansion up if they are seeking to add to their strategy collection, but those who didn't buy the first time aren't missing anything. Elven Legacy: Ranger might not be treading any new ground, but once again, the price is right for what you get.
