izigame.me

I've very mixed feelings about this game. On the one hand, it has some rather interesting ideas and game machanics clearly inspired by beloved classic Master of Magic. On the other hand, they unfortunately chose to make this more like a turn based RPG on an insanely large map. And while I wouldn't say that this can't work out, there's a bunch of problems with how it's implemented here.
First, the game is extremely random. It's barely possible to plan anything ahead, since you're getting stuff like spell formulas or building blue prints just randomly by quests or special events. You can't even choose what units to build or heros to recruit, since you depend on what you can find. Not to mention that you can't look up pretty much anything. And yeah, be prepared to loose an important hero randomly by a special event anytime.
Secondly, the game is extremely grindy. Since resources run out, you constantly have to rebuild your hero lodges, move your tower and swarm the map with harvesters. And to a certain degree, this could still work to keep you on your toes. But it's just never ending and turns more and more to annoying busy work the longer it goes. And this gets even more problematic with another major flaw, that being...
Thirdly, the game is slow. Both in terms of pacing and unit movement. It took me about 15 hours just to get through the early game to the point where I'm getting the circle tasks. And now I'm expected to conquer the whole map and hunt down and kill all circle mages (amongst other tasks - it's quite the ToDo list, even if you don't have to do them all ). On a map that rivals the size of the Immortal Empires map in TW Warhammer 3, just with units so slow that they barely reach a quarter of the speed there. That probably beats every 4X endgame or MMO in terms of grinding and tedium. I'd estimate at least an additional 30 hours to just finish the game. And thanks, I pass! Even Master of Magic had the spell of Mastery to avoid endgame tedium like this.
And fourth, the battles don't have auto-fight. And sorry, auto-resolve is no replacement for this. Speed is also too slow there, even if I'm not sure if that can be changed in the options.
On a side note, while I did like the alchemy system in principle, most of its recipes felt pretty much useless. In a game with so many fights, the effects have to be permanent and not just temporary for one battle to make a difference. And using it for room extensions made no sense. Like none at all. Just imagine, that in order to get paladins you have to brew the most deadly poisons you can think of. WTF!!!
On a more positive note, I think the game does a surprisingly good job for its presentation. The map art in particular is amongst the best I've seen so far and can easily compete with the likes of Humankind. Can't say the same for the 2D art though. Battles are still decent, but don't reach the quality of AoW.
Overall, I think for a game about exploration, questing with tactical combat, the King's Bounty games did a way better job. And for a small turn based 4X fantasy rogue like, Conquest of Elysium has more classes with more unique play styles, better pacing and more customization options if you can live with the simplistic art.
That said, I still think this game could excel as a real 4X game, if its somewhat tagged on systems would be taken and refined into a new reimagination of Master of Magic. Unfortunately, this game ain't it yet.