Rise of Legends Review | 🇮🇹™ Edition™ 

The phrases "there is no humans, only italians" and " this game is pasta-punk" had me laughing so hard

The fact that a pasta company actually contacted you for a sponsorship is killing me, that shit is hilarious.

As one of the old devs -- thanks for the laughs! RoL was a lot more nail-biting than AOE3. We only managed to balance the Cuotl in the last 2 weeks before we went gold. The song in the credits was from a local band 'Growlers of Resurrections' (if I remember right). Lots of good memories. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-mn63Bmc2tIA.html *edit to add*: Since lots of folks have asked about how to break into game development, the last comment in this thread should help -- ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-PCSWwL-f1WQ.html&lc=Ugxt3NcokUrecYdKeTp4AaABAg.9sC1z-OqLm9A0DSjiMwWmd Appreciate all the nice comments!

As an Italian I just want to say this game is not a steampunk fantasy scenario, it's an accurate portrayal of 1970s Italy.

The most historicly accurate telling of the Venecian-Italian-Aztec war I have ever seen is in this game. My favorite period in history.

As a proud italian i approve this content all is 100% accurate and i can assure no one wants to be labeled as a siciliano

Hey, this is probably going to get buried in the comments section, but thank you for this video. I discovered Rise of Legends through your video and came to like it a lot. I had this work colleague whom I befriended and he was a huge gamer. I mentioned this game to him and he talked with so much passion about Rise of Legends, as it was his favorite game. He loved how full of life everything seemed to him at the time and how cool the steampunk art was. Last night he unfortunately passed away, and I came back to your video, as it was what brought us together, to re-watch and remember him. So truly, thank you Sseth. I will be forever thankful for your video. Edit: Spelling

I have a ton of respect for the pasta company for having the will to sponsor SsethTzeentach. They fully knew what they were getting themselves into and I hope it works out well for them on the business side of things.

Every time sseth showcases a game he personally loves the world takes another step back from the brink.

Always wish I'd got to work on this one (worked on the titles before/after ROL: Rise of Nations and AOE3: Asian Dynasties). Very important facts to know: * "Timonium" is the town where the developer worked. * There was a life-sized sticker of Giacomo on the company fridge. He held a donut. A dialog bubble said "buy more donuts". * One of the balance testers was fond of singing about Giacomo to the tune of Cocomo (by the Beach Boys).

The unit designs in this game have yet to be matched in my opinion. It was a fever dream of steam punk, glass golems, and mechanical wonders. The epitome of a fantasy world.

Noticed when Giacomo fires his mech gun he slam his fist onto the fire button. He controls with levers, but the fire button is one he punches. Helps with steampunk feel.

As a Latin American who got this game by buying bootleg copies as we often did during those times. This game was so significant during my childhood and I still remember it fondly, specially the magnificent soundtrack. Thank you, Sseth.

As an Italian, you have no idea how happy this content made me . I also vouch that every reference to italian culture made by Sseth in this video is perfectly accurate and totally part of our story

Bless you Sseth for doing a better job at preserving "products of culture" than most companies

I'm Italian and I can confirm that we MUST play this game in school as part of the History class curriculum, and we get graded on it.

The pasta company when they realize sseth doesn't do proper sponsorships: ''They played us like a damn noodle!''

Giacomo here to reassure everyone that Sseth’s head canon is indeed what actually happened

"This shit looked photorealistic when I saw it for the first time. I was thinking damn I wonder how crazy video games will be in the future" Thank goodness I'm not the only one impressed by destruction physics of buildings which still hold up to this day only to be disappointed but the reality that... they did it better 20 years ago.

10:20 The juxtaposition of the VA for "He drew us out Giacomo" with Giacomo's calm and intense profile is absolutely cinematic.

This game was done so dirty. Legitimately an amazing game, really fun, imaginative and well thought out. Broke my heart that its not sold anywhere anymore. I still have my DVD version and a cherish it. Did not expect to see it featured ever again, thank you Sseth.

21:05 Don't forget the part where you get to drive her to the hospital and avoid pedestrians or getting stopped by the police for going too fast, I've loved that part.

Every part of this one is a masterpiece. I can't get over that he's actually called the Doge, or that Sseth got a pasta sponsor. That damn near broke me

SO happy to see someone covering this ancient and hidden gem of a game. My story for obtaining my copy as a child was similar to yours, and the unique design of the 3 factions is something I will always admire.

The one thing I remember most vividly about this game is that breaking the glass buildings was so satisfying because it was like throwing rocks at giant windows.

They've played us for absolute fools! This isn't a fantasy setting, it's just a faithful retelling of the Years of Lead!!

DUDE THIS IS IT I PLAYED THIS GAME ON MY BUDDIES COMPUTER ON THE 4TH GRADE IVE NEVER BEEN ABLE TO FIND IT THANKYOU SSETH

Ok I don't know if anyone will see this But apparently this game was going to be bigger at the end of the day with a 4th race and larger world map Though with the ideas they had, it feels like there could have been 6 races The cut races were the Kahan, Mongolians who had cities on massive Beasts of burden, Skald were Finnish with some Nordic and Slavic touches that lived in Ice Cities, and a final race of Beastial Giants called the Kragar which didn't get as far in concept as the others

Loved Rise of Nations to bits but this went totally under the radar for me

As a Zimbabwean I love how often Sseth references my country,he probably references it more than Zimbabweans themselves

I cannot describe the joy I have in seeing you cover this. For years I was borrowing character names from this game for various profiles and such cause I assumed this game would never see a large audience ever again and I always thought this universe was too cool to forget. My surprise when one of my fav youtubers also has fond childhood memories of playing this game is immeasurable.

Is it just me, or does sseth sound way happier in this video than most of his others

Never in a thousand years would I have imagined Sseth reviewing and endorsing a childhood favorite so obscure that it can't even be bought anymore. The absolute mad lad has made my day. ♥

Honestly one of my favorite games

One of my favorite RTS games growing up. I remember being blown away at how good the game looked (for the time) and how awesome the battles were. I spent many hours in multiplayer vs the AI on the hardest difficulties and having ginormous map wide land battle games that lasted 30+ minutes. I had an original 4 disk copy of the game but I lost it, then one day I decided to look around and ordered a copy of the game off Ebay. This is one of those things I never want to lose/forget as I get older. I really miss RTS like these.

It always feels special whenever Sseth reviews a game that only you and a few other fellow weirdos have played.

this bootleg game store is completely a true story. As someone living in one of those countries, the way he told the story makes me believe that is 100% legit

Its a absolute crime that this isn't available on GOG, had so many memories playing this when I was a kid. Good to see it get a spotlight again.

As far as I can see, Rise of Legends has the best steampunk human faction in video games. The way the Mianans are pitted against magical desert people and Aztec alien overlords was also expertly done, but it would be awesome to see the game remastered for larger scale and better gameplay/cinematic visuals.

I can't believe you did a review on this. When I was 12 I asked my parents for Rise of Nations, and for Christmas they got me Rise of Legends thinking it was the same game. I still have that 16 year old disc in its box and its truly a treasure of mine. Not surprised its abandon ware. XD

Absolutely loved Rise of Legends, this and Rise of Nations were two games that dominated my childhood

As an Italian Brazilian i'm proud that both my nationalities would provide (by selling a pirated version) you with such a great and accurate experience.

In Argentina we have a ton of bootlegs and piracy running about, but I have to respect how far the bootleg dudes went on Brazil. Most of them naturally evolved into great Mod developers.

This game is criminally underrated for the amount of fun I had playing it in my childhood. Thank you for bringing it to light

I really miss the mid 2000's RTS era where infantry came in squads and big mech units could send the tiny troops flying across the screen.

This is actually my favourite strategy game of all time. Glad it's getting the attention it deserves nearly twenty fuckin years later

Injust really want to shout out Sseth's impecable ad timing, this man places his ads in the most perfect spots every time and I KNOW it goes unnoticed, but i just want you to know that I see what you are doing, and I appreciate it.

Holy shit, I used to love this game when i was in high school. The player base was never that big and multiplayer died in 2009. I am so pleasantly surprised that you covered Rise of Legends. It wasn't a popular release back in the day, but it's a big part of my childhood. This video made my day, thanks dude.

Sseth has blessed me again with a review of one of my favorite childhood games no one has heard of

If Sseth ever wrote an autobiography, it would be one of a single digit list of sources to ever contain the knowledge of whatever bootleg products that Sseth coincidentally owned existed to begin with. A modern Marion Stokes.

Your videos are awesome Ssethtzeentach. Please don't stop making them. ❤

Ahhh, this brings me back... One of my favorite childhood games. You've earned this sub!

Fun fact: even if you knew Russian, the text in the installer wizard window would still have been nonsense to you. That is because the code page chosen for non-Unicode text was wrong (likely Western European instead of Cyrillic), so it showed wrong letters (mostly diacritics). This is a frequent problem for non-Unicode applications of the past.

My dad pirated this and burned it to a CD when I was a kid. Still one of my favorite RTS games. The AI actually knows how to propose alliances in the skirmish mode. It's really cool to negotiate with them and have dynamic games where you don't really know who is gonna be an a-hole to you and who wants to be your buddy. Some will actually try to convince you to ally them.

Rise of Legends and AOM are the two childhood games ive played a bunch when i was younger and while AOM has some love out there still (RETOLD WHEN) goddamn bro youre the first to touch RoL that ive seen. This game is so, so nostalgic for me and i love it, and the way you covered it, the fucking references and shit were so relatable and i never thought id see someone make them and seeing the aom clips at the end, godd, i mean obviously theres others out there but ive never met someone who knew RoL much less both it and AOM i love htis video, thank you so much for making it

RU-vid's criminal mistake was not notifying me about this banger video despite having the bell on all videos. Love your videos man

As an Italian, I want to point out this game is completely canon and a faithful recreation of the Assedio delle Gambe di Lenora. Grazie all'onorevole Setto Zentacci for bringing superior Italian culture abroad.

This game is a masterpiece for its time. The lore and mechanics are shockingly good. Played it to hell. Still my favourite game to this day. Sad it never got the fame it deserves. Hope for a remake some time

This game was amazing. I played it so much back then. It had balance issues, was a bit rough around the edges but it oozed with character and atmosphere. I loved it. Thank you for bringing it to light again ❤

Fantastic game, wish they would make a remake/sequel. The depth and variety in each faction as well as the strong themes and asymmetric play styles always made the game feel dynamic and fresh to me.

Timonium is named for the town in Maryland where Big Huge Games used to be. Same with some of the campaign maps; Padonia was the street some of the devs lived at iirc.

As an Italian, I certify this video as 100% accurate. I haven't even had time to watch it yet, but it's accurate.

Gracious for Sseth giving us such a graceful link during the premiere

i dont know why but i use your videos whenever i wanna sleep. your voice is really soothing honestly.

I'm not an RTS autist but it's so cool seeing the cutscenes be a mix of modeled characters and pre-rendered backgrounds. Performance optimization is truly a lost art

Me and my friends used to play this game all the time! It was just insanely fun multiplayer, legitimately replaced Starcraft as my favorite RTS. This and SIns of a Solar Empire were really something special.

Congrats on the sponsor. I hope they continue sponsoring this business relationship as it truly benefits everyone

I don’t know what I like most about Ssethzeentcah. His editing, His charming voice, the obscure games that he reviews for our entertainment.

My god... 2006 release. This game looks stunning for that time. Kinda reminding me of ParaWorld, dinosaur-themed RTS, the game I hold dear in my heart despite it having its own flaws. Would love to see it covered in Sseth-style video. EDIT: Now that I look at this, maybe this is what Iron Harvest devs were trying to achieve.

I hope this gets more people into Rise of Legends, its such a little-known classic and it's never gotten even a re-release on steam despite all the talent and work that went into it

The time dedicated to talking about this game is really appreciated, it was part of my childhood and at least for me it was a very good game (very good unit designs in my opinion). Sadly it was forgotten, only being remembered by those of us who played it and enjoyed it.

Seth never disappoints:) and represents so many countries in his videos

as a Serb, i am honored to have our flag featured in your video... this game looks unironically fun asf though

This video was a nostalgic gem for me, got this game as a kid after spending countless hours in rise of nations and those cutscenes were like a blast from the past.

Not gonna lie man, that montage at the end was... pretty damn epic! I've never played the game but remember it being on the shelf of the (very small) PC section at Gamestop when I was a kid.

This was one of my favorite games growing up, thx for covering it

Update on the Pasta situation, I have registered a fake business and should be receiving 30 dollars worth of yummy authentic Gnocchi in about a week (as long as my Translate app worked appropriately)! Will keep you guys posted. Forza Fratelli d'Italia!

If, IF next coverage is CnC generals, I'll go insane. That game was part of my childhood, and having it be covered by this man will be an experience

The moment he showed the image of a "bootleg videogame store" in latin america i imediately knew he was talking about a store in Brasil. And considering the price, you got scammed. Specialy in Rio.

Sseth's videos are the only reason I keep going

When you actually played the old game sseth reviews. Happiness.

Come membro della gilda degli spaghetti, apprezzo molto questo video chiaramente basato sulla storia Italiana. Grazie fratello Sseth 🤌 ma prima di andare vi lascio una perla di saggezza detta da un grande Leader. "Spaghetti are straight untill they get wet" Berlusconi.

This game was SO GOOD when I played it as a kid. I loved the story, the soundtrack, and the plto twists. I remember I was genuinely so surprised when the Doge died at the end of campaign 2. In my limited experience I first thought it was gonna be one big baddie per campaign, which surprised me for the first time when he escaped and destroyed Giacomo's hometown (that was so cool), and I was certain then that it was gonna be the Doge at the end of campaign 3, and yet it again it wasn't... It was so great, I have only good memories. To this day, I have Lenora's theme (lenora_long_amb.wav lol) in my music library and it pops in from time to time. The Giacomo's glass "upgrade" was also so cool to my edgy preteen eyes. I even made characters in my wanna-be writing like him. And when he sacrificed himself at the end, I felt like that's what true heroes should do. I can't really explain it properly, cause by narrative standards, the story isn't really that great, but it also isn't bad at all, and the twists were really well executed. The sacrifice was unexpected, but satisfying, although I remember being real sad for Giacomo not ending up with Lenora despite his sacrifice. Looking at it with a more mature mindset, I feel like this was probably the best end he could hope for, cause he was so driven by vengeance that who knows what he would do once he ran out of the obviously evil enemies. I feel so stupid for thiking like this 😅 I would say that, however unexpected, this game proved to be pretty influential in my formative years. I feel like I know what I'm gonna play when I get home after work lol And, of course, I had a huge kid crush on Lenora before I even knew what a crush was.

This is awesome! Thank you for saving this piece of history/childhood/ abandonware

Never ever I have imagine someone would make a RoL video like this in 2023, thank you so much for the nostalgia trip of such a classic.

Holy shit you don't understand how much you've made my day. I remember playing Italian Simulator back in 2008. Now, I didn't speak any English whatsoever back then and neither did I have the time and energy to learn it. Fast-forward less then a decade, I eventually did it. When I kept getting flashbacks of games I used to play as a kid, I decided to search for this exact game, the problem was that I never saw the cover or the game-title of it since my dad was the one opening the game for me and setting the skirmish matches against the AI. All I remembered was the floating sand city and the goofy looking units defending it. It's been 12 whole years of me trying to find this God forsaken game and out of nowhere it pops up in my RU-vid feed. The algorithm is finally healing itself.

This is most sleepable seth video to date. This cures my insomnia and cus i forget everything is rewatchable❤

So many good memories of this game. Thank you for the trip, friend. Now just looking for a good, physical copy to have of my own.

I was here before I watch any ads.

Found my old CD box for this game a while back, bought an external CD reader to play it again, hearing the ingame music after so many years was an insane nostalgia hit. The OST's for Rise of Nations and Rise of Legends are some of the best out there hands down.

God damn! A million views in a day! Not bad my dude. Thanks for the upload.

This was the game of my childhood. An amazing RTS with so many fun things. I wonder if people also remember some other great old RTS games, like Impossible Creatures or ParaWorld.

This game is amazing The gemaplay and the lore I love playing the campaign again from time to time.

On my way to watch another review about an old game I never heard before and will probably buy after this

I have been waiting decades for someone to remember this gem. Thank you sir.

that was a fun trip down memory lane. I didn’t expect to remember so many things watching this, looks like RoL was pretty close to my heart as well

The combination of the turn-based campaign map, being able to spawn in with units from the map, and various other elements of the RTS made me realize: This game is basically the precursor to what Divinity: Dragon Commander was trying to be.

I'm russian, and that's why I'm not surprised why Sseth found only a russian version of Rise of Legends. Let's say that RTS is still extremely popular genre in post-soviet gaming community. We are big fans of strategy games.

Holy shit one of my favorite RTSs of all time, thanks for covering it

Man actually put the Pasta Link in the description lmao. That was amazing.