YMMV / Elemental — War of Magic

• Game-Breaker:
  • Some of the spells are absurdly powerful once you unlock them (and have enough mana to use them), perhaps most notably Ineluctable Vision, which after the initial investment of 280 mana permanently reveals the entire map for as long as you can pay its (by then) trivial 5 mana per turn maintenance cost.
  • Want to win every battle in the game, there's a random event that allows you to produce dragons. Sure they're expensive, but create a frontline of dragons and with their powerful Herd-Hitting Attack, they'll wipe out enemy Zerg Rush and the elite stuff with ease. Only boss type creatures can withstand a dragon onslaught and not for long.
• Good Bad Bugs: One bug in the release build allowed for champions and sovereigns to equip an unlimited number of rings, amulets, and what not. This meant the bonuses on each would stack to very high values. There was some debate/confusion as to whether or not this is a bug or by design.
• Obvious Beta:
  • The release version of Elemental had six patches in the first four days of release, and was accused of being a beta version by a writer at PC Gamer, among others. To put this in perspective, Galactic Civilizations and Sins of a Solar Empire both shipped in somewhat-buggy states, and also received a couple patches each within the month of release. Elemental was shipped (against numerous suggestions NOT to release it as-is from the preordering beta testers) and patched more times in a shorter timespan than both of those titles. Stardock acknowledged the difficulties and problems of the initial release, regardless of why those reasons existed. In an act of apology and thanks, Stardock allowed anyone who paid full price for War Of Magic to download the beta for the sequel Fallen Enchantress, in addition to getting a free copy of the game when it is released.
  • While not nearly as bad as Elemental, Fallen Enchantress shipped with an astonishing number of bugs, many (but not all) of which were resolved in a flurry of hasty post-release patches.
• Sequel Displacement: Barely anyone even remembers Elemental thanks to Fallen Enchantress: Legendary Heroes. In fact, barely anyone remembers that Legendary Heroes itself is actually an expansion to the original Fallen Enchantress. It helps that Stardock are still supporting Legendary Heroes with significant updates as recently as 2021, while both Elemental and the original FE have been officially retired from sale altogether^note Elemental was retired shortly after the release of Fallen Enchantress, while FE was retired in 2017, 4 years after the release of LH.