Welcome to Save File Sundays, the end-of-week series where I look back at games that have elapsed in our collective consciousness, whether due to flying under the radar and going unappreciated or just the dreadful power of time.
This time around, I’m calling back to a great game, one that didn’t go underappreciated by any means, but was still perceived as a quirky, different, and experimental title in its long-running series.
Released after the successes of the original Stronghold and Crusader, our focus today is on Stronghold 2, a title which sought to emulate realistic medieval castle life, introduce 3D graphics into the mix, and overall pour in the complexities and gameplay layers, which not everyone adored.
The pinnacle of RTS gameplay
The Stronghold series is a cornerstone of real-time strategy. From the early 2000s to the present day, it represents a trend in video games long forgotten, one where skill and mettle were truly tested, not by throwing you into an arena to duke it out with guns or swords or whatever else, but a place where you only got a handful of units, a small chunk of land, and a general idea of what you need to do.
There are dozens of buildings, all of which are unlocked from the very onset, and it takes nothing more than pure skill and knowledge to place them, build up, arm up, and skirmish with others. This is the core of the Stronghold formula, and one that makes the series one of the most complex and difficult and challenging real-time strategy franchises ever made.
And Stronghold 2 kicked everything up a notch. Initially released in 2005, it went from 2D sprites to a 3D graphical engine, adding a lot of weight and realism to the game, which was Firefly Studios’ ultimate goal with this title.
It is set during the 11th century and possesses a level of realism unseen in the rest of the series. It emulates medieval social life, castle antics, plagues, diseases, peasant behavior, and everything in between, adding more than a few buildings to the core Stronghold repertoire to bring the complexity to a higher level.
Not everyone was fond of the 3D graphics or the more complicated gameplay, but little me cared not for such squabbles, and generally had no idea what was going on outside of his cathode screen and old Pentium-driven PC. Stronghold 2 was, to me, a very dear game, and one super popular in my small town in Montenegro, for whatever odd reason.
It’s one of the first games I owned on disc, and I probably still have it at the bottom of some box somewhere. That Prince William splash image and the shield with the “2” engraved on it is something I will never forget seeing on my Windows XP desktop, eagerly launching it whenever I had the time (or the interest that wasn’t swallowed up by Warcraft 3).
But I’m here to talk about the game itself and what made it great, so here goes.
Stronghold 2 has numerous modes you can choose from, with several campaigns tailored to your liking. Whether you like peaceful environments where you can pretend you’re actually playing a city-builder (which is exceptionally fun in this game), or combat-oriented stuff that provides more traditional Stronghold gameplay, Stronghold 2 is there to provide.
You can hop onto the Prince William campaign, the one in all the promotional material, and you’ll find a Monty Python-esque story hiding in there, though with a lot of darker and more “serious” elements, which Firefly Studios heavily pursued for this title. You can also play skirmishes, conquer the realm through missions, or play custom scenarios and missions created by others, which is now more available than ever with the release of Stronghold 2: Steam Edition that opens the game up to the Steam Workshop.
Whichever mode you choose, you’ll find that Stronghold 2 is by no means an easy game. Whether it’s plagues, famine, wild animals, or external elements shaking your kingdom’s foundations, you’ll have to manage, provide, and help your peasants by any means necessary, lest you get ousted and banished to lands far away.
Managing the populace, its needs, and fending off attackers (or going on the offensive yourself) in a game with such a quick pace can prove overwhelming for players and is much heavier on the micro than other Stronghold titles.
However, I don’t think this is necessarily a detractor from the overall experience, given that Stronghold 2 places such a strong focus on realism and medieval simulation, which is something you won’t find in many other places. Knocking the game speed down or changing difficulty settings is one way of alleviating some of the pressure, while custom scenarios tailored to your liking might also be another way out.
Either way, Stronghold 2 remains a true RTS masterpiece, a game which was ambitious and daring enough to experiment with new forms, perspectives, and levels of complexity, which ultimately resulted in one of the most unique and compelling medieval titles, even if its combat couldn’t hold a candle to Medieval: Total War, though that isn’t really even its focus.
Sieges are impeccably done in Stronghold 2 thanks to the 3D graphics, as everything has its own place in the world and doesn’t rely on sprites and other 2D tricks to make your brain believe you’re actually in a 3D space. Combat is fast-paced, fun to watch zoomed in, and quite complicated to micro, all of which are just staples of RTS, especially in 2005.
With the Steam Edition I mentioned above, you can even play this game on any modern system without many issues, which really helps the graphics stand out as they finally “pop” on modern machines and high resolutions, making that perspective switch worth it in the long run.
Makes me yearn for more
I’ve been on a medieval binge the past week or so, having been caught in an argument with a friend regarding the origins of Montenegrins, their Doclean heritage, and the very character of the state in the mid and late 11th century. Being the obsessive person that I am, I’ve been ravaging old writings, authors, and medievalists, engrossing myself in a part of history which is so often glossed over in my corner of the world.
Crusader Kings 3 provided a lot of relief for this reignited passion of mine, but Stronghold 2 allowed me to truly soak it in, plagues, diseases, crazy peasants and all, from up close. Playing the game, I began wondering what else is out there, and why this historical period, at least in a realistic sense, has been ignored by big-time games during the past decade. Ever since Medieval 2 Total War, we haven’t had a proper game set in those times, and whenever we did get something, it failed to amount to anything of note.
Stronghold 2, if it were just a game about managing a medieval society, would be the perfect title, but its nature as an RTS title first and foremost breaks that immersion, and makes me yearn for something much more. Perhaps there is something out there akin to what I’m looking for, and maybe you could help me out by name-dropping in the comments. Please do, if you can.
As is traditional by now for Save File Sundays, I love giving out a re-review of any game I play for this series, if we did ever give it a grade in the first place. In this case, Stronghold 2 pre-dates Destructoid, so I’ll be the first one grading this title.
Recompiled Review Score: 9/10 – A layered, complex, realistic, and ultimately fun game which will test the skills of any RTS player, noob or veteran. It isn’t Crusader, and falls short of some of its predecessors’ offerings, but it is nonetheless a stellar title standing on its own in the franchise as unique and different.
Nostalgia Factor: 10/10 – Seeing that icon makes me want to cry for my lost years and time, but I guess they were all worth something, for what are we if not our cherished memories?
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