As a lifelong and avid gamer in his 30s, who has enjoyed numerous strategy and roleplaying games, I must say Fallen Enchantress has impressed me to the point where I felt the need to just post a big THANK YOU note to its creators! I read through the forums almost daily and thought I might add just one little post which relays my experiences so far.
I have not played past the mid-game yet. The reason I am saying this is simple. I am extremely impressed with the level of customization towards factions, abilities, colors, unit and hero design, shield design, ability to create your own backstory. I am simply spending all my time since launch just customizing and creating new factions and heroes. I spend atleast once a day pouring over the manual and reading about different races and statistics, then checking online for the spell guide. Should my first hero have water magic or life magic? Should I take the Decalon skill or switch those two extra points towards something more apparantly useful. These are not really questions for the reader, just an example of some of the things I am constantly going through everyday. I have created about 4-5 factions and heroes already, complete with colors, customization, and LONG backstory, and then simply scrapped the idea for something else later.
The point of this post is that I used to enjoy reading the backstory about certain games when I first bought them, or pouring over the artwork in the manual or other sources. I like fantasy, but not over the top fantasy nonsense. Typically, I enjoy a good setting which I believe fallen enchantress provides. I like all the pre-generated characters as they feel quite memorable to me. I love the artwork for the spells in the guide and even just the backround art itself. I love playing around with customization options, and I think it's a testament to the game creators that I am still constantly reading up on skills, abilities, magic options, and so on.
Well done, Stardock. It has been many long years since I have felt the excitement that I do today about this particular game. Elemental had promise, and was still enjoyable, but Fallen Enchantress was the final and loving touch to an otherwise great idea for a game.
