Songs of Conquest - Rise Eternal Review Summary

A strong story, fun campaign, excellent map design, and great-value DLC make it enjoyable, though the final chapter floods you with enemies and Root Master battles feel unfair and tedious.

Story praised as strong: Multiple clusters highlight the story as very good, solid, interesting, and well executed, with particular praise for its depth compared to the base game. The narrative is a central strength of the DLC.

Campaign is fun and enjoyable: Players consistently describe the new campaign as enjoyable, fun, and pretty good. It provides a satisfying experience for those returning to the game.

DLC offers excellent value: The DLC is considered great value, an excellent addition, and reasonably priced for the content it offers. It is solid for players wanting more story and gameplay.

Map design is excellent: The third map and the four campaign maps are praised for interesting design, secrets, and varied challenges. Improved map visualization and unique mechanics add to the enjoyment.

Risen mechanics are fun and useful: The new Risen feature is cool and fun, and the mechanic is finally made useful and playable. Summoning large squads of risen and buffing undead units creates a satisfying power fantasy.

Final chapter overwhelmed by enemy stacks: The final chapter throws excessive tier 3 stacks such as 70 faey queens and mother trees at the player, making it nearly unbeatable and abandoning the risen-conversion mechanic for those units. Conquered towns are also overrun by these strong stacks.

Root Master battles are unfair and tedious: Fighting Root Masters is miserable and feels unfair, dragging on for 30 rounds or 20 minutes with little agency. Massed archers and acid clouds wipe out armies, and there is no option to avoid the encounter.

Mission 4 punishes unprepared players: Mission 4 is very difficult because the Root Master crushes unprepared players, forcing a restart after the first failed attempt. Players who did not focus on the right school must endure humiliation.

Final mission side objective is unhinged: Finding 10 random unmarked graveyard-like spots is bad design that requires stalling the main objective and slowly moving heroes across the map. The bonuses are pointless.

Recent DLCs feel stale and underwhelming: Recent DLCs have been underwhelming and the game is beginning to feel stale, with each new update feeling like more of the same. The team is not considering adding new spells.

Adds four-mission story campaign: The DLC introduces a self-contained story campaign consisting of four connected missions with narrative content that expands the game's lore. The campaign features non-linear objectives and conveys each faction's motivations.

Adds Risen mechanic: Defeated human enemies become Risen, which can be summoned as a free passive stream onto the main character. This mechanic makes the Risen playable and enables a full undead army.

Focuses on Loth faction: The campaign is centered on the Loth faction and changes or improves its playstyle. It builds on the previous Roots and Vanir DLC and brings other DLC factions into the story.

Enables powerful necromancer power fantasy: The campaign lets players drown enemies in bodies of their own men, with Kastus becoming overpowered in missions 2 and 4. The unique skill Call the Faithful gives him a strong start and enhances Risen further.

Adds new artifacts and artifact sets: New artifacts and objects are added, including an artifact set focused on the Barony of Loth. Kastus's artifact set is narrowly focused but powerful and fun, and set-based gameplay is central to missions 3 and 4.

Game crash bugs: Players report two or three bugs that cause the game to crash. These crashes disrupt play sessions and negatively affect stability.

Appeals to base-game fans: Several comments recommend the content specifically to players who enjoyed the original campaign or base game.

Strongly recommended by reviewers: Multiple reviewers give a clear thumbs-up and label the content as highly recommended, including a general recommendation to everyone.

Worth the asking price: Reviewers consider the content worth buying at full price and say the DLC justifies its cost.

Must-have for single-player fans: Reviewers describe it as essential for anyone hungry for single-player content and as a must-buy alongside the faction DLCs.

Deepens lore and characters: The DLC is praised for letting players explore the world's history and characters more deeply, and the story alone is considered worth the purchase.

Community fair range: $20.00 - $35.00.

Story-Driven Campaign Player: Plays through single-player campaigns, following the wielder and evaluating narrative quality. Motivation: To experience richer campaign storylines and character-driven single-player content. Stance: buy.

Value-Conscious Faction Fan: Plays new campaign content with the Loth faction, weighing price against content. Motivation: To get worthwhile faction updates and a fair-priced campaign expansion. Stance: buy.

Achievement-Driven Completionist: Uses stalling and completion-focused strategies to meet achievement goals. Motivation: To earn achievements and complete the campaign despite finding its design gimmicky. Stance: no buy.

Story-focused DLC expansion: The DLC is a story-driven expansion for Songs of Conquest that continues from the base game's narrative rather than adding a new faction or campaign system. It expands the lore through narrative content.

Short but enjoyable campaign: The campaign offers roughly six hours of content, described as relatively short but comparable to a standard campaign length. Despite the length, it provides hours of enjoyment.

Positive campaign storytelling quality: Reviewers praise the campaign's staging, storytelling, and writing, comparing it favorably to the original faction campaigns, especially the Barony of Loth. The base game story is considered much better told here than in the original.

Developer support appreciated: Reviewers appreciate that the studio continues to support the game with narrative content and hope to see more content of this kind. Some bought the DLC primarily to support the developers.

Compared to Heroes III: The gameplay and artifacts are reminiscent of Heroes of Might and Magic III, and the expansion reminds the reviewer of Sandro's campaign. The DLC adds content that makes the future of Songs of Conquest look bright.