The last Disciples game I played was the very first one, which at the time was enjoyable. Liberation is apparently the fourth in the series and bears a shocking resemblance to the King’s Bounty games.
Main differences would be that your army’s made up of single units instead of unit stacks and there’s a prominent quest system, including an assortment of companion quests. You also have to travel between different mid-sized maps instead of having a large open world and have to manually upgrade your recruitment buildings rather then find them in the wild. The storyline and dialog however are just as bad as in those games (although there are a number of roleplaying choices here), while the combat and exploration style are essentially identical.
Ultimately the main issue is that clearing the maps becomes incredibly boring quite quickly, which is not helped at all by the arbitrary availability of the ‘Auto-Resolve Battle’ button. If it could be used for any non-boss fight you significantly outlevel then map exploration would be immensely improved. As things stand I’m already basically burned out at the start of Act II from hacking & slashing my way through so many similar armies. The Act I boss also being a slog certainly didn’t help.
A few things to be aware of in the first act if you decide to play:
- While the order you visit the various faction locations doesn’t matter since enemy levels are to an extent tied to yours, visiting in Empire -> Undead -> Demon -> Elf order will minimize backtracking.
- The Bone Golem quest cannot be completed until Act II, and ~may~ fail if you try to complete it early by killing the undead queen.
- Most chests, particularly ones guarded by armies initially higher level than you, contain nothing but generic equipment.
- Since there’s no map function within dungeons, you’ll want to manually record any blocked paths or higher-level enemies you find for return trips.