#Fantasy general 2 campaign choices series

“A lot of players had the same issue we did - they fondly remembered, but they didn’t exactly remember,” Wagner says. The lengthy hiatus of the franchise also helped them, after a fashion. One of his interesting beliefs, however, is that the quality of the players that are attracted to their games outweighs the quantity.

#Fantasy general 2 campaign choices series

I have to admit that I wasn’t familiar with the original Fantasy General or the Five Star series prior to Fantasy General II - but Wagner says many of their players came to them by way of franchise recognition. They challenge me on the keyboard, not in my brain.” For Fantasy General II, specifically, Wagner also acknowledges that its turn-based nature allows the narrative to thrive, since the player isn’t always “glued to the immediate action.” He also goes on to say that turn-based games have some inherent advantages: “The time it takes me to get into a real-time game and learn everything to be competitive takes a lot of work. “There aren’t a lot of turn-based games around! They have been undervalued for a long time 3D and real-time made them seem obsolete,” Wagner contends. The choice to follow-up Fantasy General specifically, though? Almost pure coincidence. “Games have gotten a little scared of challenging players. “You can’t challenge the player above their ability,” Wagner explains. Wagner’s position on releasing a sequel was interesting: “I’m of the generation that played the original (Fantasy General), and I find myself increasingly … I wouldn’t say ‘bored’, but there isn’t a word for ‘under-challenged’.” His contention, fundamentally, is that most contemporary games don’t provide meaningful challenges for players. I found that to be the most interesting thing about our entire conversation - the question of resurrecting the Fantasy General franchise 23 years later kept coming up. What that modern version would end up becoming, in Wagner’s opinion, is something more accessible, but that takes every element of the original to the next level. So we sat down and said, what would a modern version of this look like?” that weren’t there the way we remembered.

“But there were things we imagined would be in the game - narrative, story, etc. “When hit its 20th anniversary, a bunch of us got together and played it, and it held up well,” says Wagner.

To answer the simple question of what Fantasy General II is, Wagner says they intended it to be a successor to the original Fantasy General. In particular, I wanted to know what it was about Fantasy General that drew Wagner and his team in – why this long-dormant franchise? What is Fantasy General II, given how distant it is from the first Fantasy General?