Disciples: Liberation Review — IGN
Disciples: Liberation
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By Jon Bolding
Updated: Mar 21, 2022 6:40 pm
Posted: Oct 29, 2021 5:30 pm
A tactical RPG adventure, Disciples: Liberation is a fun outing in a fantasy world that puts you in the shoes of a classic RPG protagonist with special powers, a motley crew of companions, and a bone to pick with fate… then just keeps escalating the stakes further than you’d ever expect them to go. In fact, it punches above its weight class in the quality of its combat and content, but lets itself down with a disorganized mess of extra systems and some very prominent bugs.
Blending a turn-based tactics game with a proper RPG, Disciples: Liberation has you wander through isometric environments as you play through a hefty 80-hour RPG story – I did more than a few sidequests and optional fights, ending up at 92 hours played. It’s not an open world, but it’s not linear either; each chapter is divided up into a few regions that can be tackled in any order. Within those regions you fight a lot of turn-based battles, and it’s good that those are fun and (aside from being a bit slow at times) pretty openly designed because there are a lot of them.
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It’s a suitably sprawling, cosmic story for Nevandaar, a fantasy world that’s dark and terrible, but still allows for goodness and redemption. Your character, a gutter-born mercenary named Avyanna, has plenty of dialogue choices: Kind ones denoted by halos, aggressive ones denoted by horns, and snarky ones denoted by Avyanna’s own twilight wings symbol. The sidequests have enough diversity, and enough compelling characters, that I couldn’t always easily decide who to side with.
Disciples: Liberation knows what tone it’s going for and sticks to it.
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There’s a lot of branching dialogue, most of it pretty good, but some of it’s really cheesy and accompanied by equally cheesy voice acting. That’s honestly a positive thing, because Disciples: Liberation knows what tone it’s going for and sticks to it.
Nevandaar is a comfort-food setting; this is a familiar, feel-good, generic fantasy done right.
Humans
Demons
Undead
When you settle in for a fight you’ll control Avyanna, a few of her named companions, and a set of generic units you’ve recruited on your travels or produced back home in the ancient magical city of Yllian. There’s a lot of variety to the units, from armored infantry to bone golems, possessed berserkers, and feral elf snipers. There are over 50 units, all told, and units level up as you go, so nothing ever becomes truly irrelevant. (Unfortunately, though your companions are a diverse and weird lot, on the battlefield they’re just reskins of basic units with higher stats.)
In addition to its front line use, each unit can also be placed in one of your three back line slots, where it contributes a unique power from afar by buffing your units or weakening your enemies.
Pro tip: Winter Dryads give your entire army permanent regeneration, which I found invaluable.
From armored infantry to bone golems, possessed berserkers, and feral elf snipers.
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The combat maps are an ideal size, giving you enough room to maneuver and a sprinkling of terrain to play around. They avoid both the trap of feeling like a tight chessboard and the classic genre mistake of attempting environmental realism at the cost of being tactically interesting. No playstyle feels penalized, nor does any style feel fundamentally overpowered. Both melee-centric and ranged options have their high points, and while mobility is strong, units get bonuses and healing if they choose not to use an action point. Those small bonuses for not acting are brilliant design, allowing defensive strategies to flourish in a genre normally obsessed with aggressive movement. The enemy AI does its best, and does focus fire pretty well, but is very bad at knowing when to time its special abilities and truly terrible at staying put to capitalize on those bonuses.
Disciples: Liberation Screenshots
I liked to build my armies out of combos of Undead (who have staying power), Demons (who hit hard), and Elves (to pick off the stragglers). The human Empire units are all obnoxious god-botherers and I couldn’t stand their voice shouts after a while, so I mostly didn’t use them. One of my favorite army compositions came about mid-game, when my undead Death Knights would inflict the chilled effect on enemies and Elf snipers, who automatically critical on chilled foes, would pick them off. Meanwhile Avyanna – who I’d built into a teleporting battle magician – would wreak havoc with controlling spells in the enemy’s back line.
The spells are a particular joy, with an extensive spellbook of magic to collect that varies from situational buffs and fireballs to weird utility spells like walls or clouds of mist. It really nails the feel of that classic fantasy magic-user with a spell for every situation, even if you’re playing as one of Avyanna’s melee builds.
Other systems, however, seem designed almost at random.
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Other systems, however, seem designed almost at random. Resources for building your base and upgrading your troops are poorly balanced, with some critical and others all but useless – I had a stockpile of over 200,000 wood and iron at the end of the campaign but constantly wanted more gold. They also accumulate in real time while the game runs, but can only be picked up in your base, so if you really wanted unlimited resources you could leave Disciples: Liberation running and visit every hour or so. There’s other stuff that generally feels irrelevant and only comes up as a frustration, like persistent damage between unrelated combats, or the arbitrary limitation on how many buildings you can place in your settlement.
The Best Modern RPGs
None of that really detracts from the otherwise nice story and combat, though. What does are the interface, which slows down gameplay, and the bugs, which are both frustrating and too numerous to list.
The interface itself just has delays built in: It’s riddled with submenus and loves to use three clicks for a task when one would do. It’s also poorly signposted outside of combat, doing things like showing you a total for a number but not what that number means – it’s not fun to reverse-engineer precisely what each point of strength does.
The bugs, on the other hand, are more than mere annoyances. Some were just exploits, like one that let me add infinite units to my army. Others were annoying but survivable, like low-level combats that can’t be autoresolved, or skills that seem to do nothing. Other issues consistently cropped up that required me to reload a recent quicksave or quit out and restart. I can’t be comprehensive, but I’ll give a few examples that required a reboot to fix: A persistent bug made me unable to interact with the world at random. Clicking «Done» too quickly after combat locked me on the summary screen. I’m a veteran of weird bugs and probably have more patience for them than most, but these were bad enough that I’d be sure they’re fixed before you commit to play.
None of them were apocalyptic, of course. My save worked, and I was ultimately able to finish relatively unimpeded, but it left me with the sour taste that combos, skill bonuses, and other key elements just didn’t work. Or, worse, that they didn’t work and I had no way to tell they didn’t work.
Disciples: Liberation struggles against itself. It contains a rich world and high-stakes story that are coupled with fun and varied tactical combat, but this RPG feels destined for cult status, especially among those who didn’t know they wanted this particular blend of genres. Despite its epic length, it’s a game that feels like the start of something bigger, and I had enough fun that I’d at least try a sequel. Disciples: Liberation has a lot of interesting ideas going on that could be refined into something great – if its rampant bugs can be smoothed out and its extraneous systems balanced.
Disciples: Liberation Review
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Disciples: Liberation is a promising RPG with rich stories and compelling tactical combat, but nothing quite makes it a must-play.
Jon Bolding
Reviewed on PC
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Donuts and Disciples 4-Week Children’s Ministry Curriculum
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This series uses kids’ favorite sweet breakfast treats to look at what the Bible says about becoming and growing as a disciple of Jesus
Click here to sample the first lesson for FREE.
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Digital Download Only — Instant access via email as soon as you order.
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Donuts and Disciples Lessons Overview
MEMORY VERSE:
«Have your roots in him. Build yourselves up in him. Grow strong in what you believe” Colossians 2:7a (NIRV)
Lessons:
Frosted With Sprinkles
Scripture: Matthew 9:9-13, The Calling of Matthew
If a donut has no toppings, not even glaze, is it even a donut? It’s basically just a circle of bread! But when you add the sweetness of glaze or frosting and sprinkles, suddenly you have a pretty special treat! As Jesus showed with Matthew, when we become disciples of Jesus, he redeems our sinful lives and transforms them into a sweet life filled with joy and purpose.
Objective: Kids will learn, “Becoming a disciple means admitting I’m sinful and need God’s help.”
Donut Hole
Scripture: John 3:1-16, Nicodemus Visits Jesus
Donut holes are like little baby donuts. When Jesus told Nicodemus that his followers must be «born again,» Nicodemus didn’t understand how people could become babies again. It would be like trying to turn a full-sized doughnut back into a donut hole. It didn’t make sense! But Jesus explained that he was talking about a spiritual birth.
Objective: Kids will learn, “Becoming a disciple means letting Jesus change my desires.”
A Dozen Donuts
Scripture: Luke 9:23-26, 57-62, Counting the Cost
Unfortunately, we don’t live in a world where donuts are free. If you want to buy a dozen donuts, you have to decide if the reward is worth the cost. (And if you do buy them, you have to decide if the reward of eating a dozen donuts is worth the tummy-ache later on!) Becoming a disciple of Jesus is so much greater than the regular life, but Jesus did tell those who wanted to follow Him that they needed to «count the cost.
» Following Jesus does mean we will make sacrifices in this life because we are living with the next life in mind.
Objective: Kids will learn, “Becoming a disciple means I will have put God and others ahead of myself.”
Bear Claw
Scripture: Acts 2:1-7, 14, 37-41, Peter Preaches at Pentecost
This donut may be named after a bold and scary animal, but the taste is sweet and delicious. Disciples are called to be bold for Jesus, which can be scary; but when we rely on the Holy Spirit, the results are sweet.
Objective: Kids will learn, “Becoming a disciple means I will be bold for Jesus.”
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Each Lesson Includes:
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Make It Stick! Parent Sheet — so you can let mom and dad know what kids are learning each week and look like a rockstar teacher who’s thought of everything.
- Memory Verse — so that you can make sure kids are getting Scripture in their minds and hearts every single week and you can feel like each lesson was a success even when it seems like 90% of your lesson time is spent saying things like «calm down«, «let’s be quiet«, «hands to yourself!»
- Skit or Puppet Show — so you have a way to easily connect the lesson with your hands-on and visual learners. No drama team? No problem! Just hand the script to the kids. They’ll have a blast and think you’re the coolest.
- Craft Activity — so you can give kids a physical reminder of the Bible lesson (and give yourself an activity to keep them busy until mom and dad come back!)
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Game — so kids don’t leave and say church was BORING! Games are so important to help keep kids engaged.
Our large group games always include a «What’s The Point» section to help you connect the game to the lesson. - Large Group Lesson — so you can present the Bible story in a clear and fun way, which means now you can enjoy Saturday nights instead of stressing over putting a lesson together!
- Small-Group Discussion — so you can find out who was paying attention and who was talking to their neighbor. Just kidding, this is a great way for you to build deeper relationships with your kiddos after each lesson, which means you’re going to care about them so much you’ll cry like a baby when they graduate and go to middle school 🙁
- More! — Yes, there is even more than all of that so that you can easily put together the perfect lesson for your ministry each weekend, which means no more agonizing over how to adjust complicated lesson plans.
About This Curriculum:
- Perfect for kids ages 6-12
- 4-weeks
- Includes large group and small group resources
- This curriculum is an instant download
- Download a free sample here
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Check out our collection of Children’s Church Lessons for more great curriculum series for your Kids Church or Sunday School.
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students grade 4
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Birds in sight
Let’s see what kind of birds are found in our school grounds or near our homes.
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Studying the density of snow
Snow covers the territory of Russia for a significant part of the year with a continuous layer of thick snow cover up to a meter or even more thick.
What can we learn about snow in our test plots? -
Mountains — to the sky, in the distance — plains…
Let’s create a gallery of relief forms — after all, it is he, together with vegetation, that forms the landscape, the very image of nature that surrounds us.
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Soil moisture
How much water does the soil contain in different months at different latitudes? In the course of the projects, factors that affect soil moisture will be studied — the position of the site in the relief, granulometric composition, proximity to the sea, geographical latitude, etc.
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Cloud cover
How often do you look at clouds? Can you answer how yesterday’s clouds differed from today’s? How does cloud cover vary between months where you live?
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Hieroglyphs of heaven
Do you know that snowflakes are completely transparent? And only by reflecting the light with their faces they create the white snow familiar to us.
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Soil temperature
In strong winds, the air temperature can change in a matter of hours. Does soil temperature change so quickly? This project will help to understand this issue
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“Wind, wind! You are mighty…»
«Wind, wind! You are powerful
You drive flocks of clouds
You excite the blue sea
Everywhere you blow in the open air. ”
(A.S. Pushkin The Tale of the Dead Princess and the Seven Bogatyrs)What winds prevail in your area?
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Rivers of your region
Tell us about a river in your region or a river known to you — great or less famous. Let’s study the diversity of the rivers of our planet.
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Secrets of the Snowmantle
Winter is snow, snowstorms and snowdrifts. And let’s all study the snow cover of our experimental sites together.
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Selection of an experimental site
Everything in the world is interconnected, so it is interesting to study how human economic activity, the construction of cities, buildings and roads affects the natural environment, the soil relief, the life of plants and animals.
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Air temperature
Does the air temperature in a settlement always correspond to weather reports? Let’s create our own map of air temperatures in different regions of the country.
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Sun above the horizon
Air, soil, birds and plants depend on solar energy entering the ecosystem, and its amount depends on latitude.
Let’s find out where we see the sun at the same time in different places on the globe.
How art plays a vital role in society 4th grade students…
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How art plays a vital role in society
Grade 4 students studied various art styles, for example, abstraction, impressionism, surrealism, and discussed how art can be used to convey information and draw people’s attention to the global problems of the world you can draw public attention to the problems
Next, the children were divided into groups of 2 or 3 people. Each group had to think about a global problem that exists in the world and design a mural sketch that would help raise awareness of the problem among people
The work on the posters was divided into several stages; studying the problem in the lessons of the world around; creating an abstract background in the art lessons; describing the problem under study in poetic form in the English lessons; to the existing problems of the world
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February 15
But what if the author of the story that you are reading in literature came to you on .
..
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February 14
We complete the regional stage of the Olympiad with enchanting success
Congratulations to the winners…
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February 10
At school, we are always looking for a creative approach to teaching and try to motivate students to gain knowledge…
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