Songs of Conquest - Review

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Explorminate reviewed Songs of Conquest:

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Songs of Conquest: A Review

Let's just rip the bandaid off: Have you played Heroes of Might and Magic 3?

I know. I hear your groans. At this point, it's thoroughly cliche for touchstone games to get trotted out and compared to any new 4x or 4x-adjacent. Any game that starts with little people in loincloths discovering farming is compared to Civilization. Any game with galaxies and spaceships is compared to Stellaris. Any game with swords and spells is compared to Master of Magic. And these comparisons will, inevitably, not be favorable. You can't go home again.

But Songs of Conquest (Songs) openly invites this comparison - partly out of deserved pride, partly because pretending otherwise would be like hiding an elephant behind a bedsheet. The store page is at least a little coy, identifying it as a "turn-based strategy game inspired by 90s classics," but it means, very specifically, Heroes of Might and Magic 1-3.

There's absolutely zero room for doubt here: Heroes informs every bit of Songs of Conquest's design. Multiple instances exist where entire systems directly respond to imbalances or shortcomings in Heroes of Might and Magic 3. These instances will likely seem clever (or at least make sense) to Heroes veterans, but if you haven't played Heroes, you're more likely to find these systems feel artificial or convoluted.

Are you already familiar with Heroes and just want to know how Songs is different? Feel free to skip the next section.

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You Can't Go HOMM Again
Heroes 3 is in no danger of being usurped. We all knew it never really was: nostalgia is fueled by that which tries to supplant it. But Songs of Conquest doesn't need to usurp anything to be a good game.

Ultimately, my recommendation comes down to you as a player. If you're a 4x or general strategy fan who's never given this subgenre a shot, there's not the slightest shadow of a doubt in my mind: I'd send you straight to the source with the Heroes games. They're as close to timeless as you can get, especially with mods.

But if you've played Heroes, liked it, and miss the subgenre, I'd recommend Songs of Conquest in the same breath as the excellent King's Bounty: Crossworlds. Both are worthy successors that provide two different ideas about where this subgenre could go moving forward. Check it out!