The early years of Luca Turilli's career as a composer and guitarist were a time of quick growth, evolving from an atmospheric approach to Metal with heavy keyboard usage to a Symphonic hybrid style that makes equal use of acoustic and synthetic sounds. Although this album is heavily criticized as being an outtake from Rhapsody's first 2 albums, there are some noteworthy differences in songwriting, lyrical content, and overall performance that may make this album more appealing to the traditional power metal crowd who don't generally go for the pomp and grandeur of Rhapsody.

This release includes a good deal more electronic sounds than is the case on Rhapsody's material. "Lord of the Winter Snow" and "Princess Aurora" in particular have an almost techno vibe in their respective keyboard intros, although their tonality is still based in Turilli's Neo-Baroque style. The former is actually quite similar to what is found on the follow up release "Prophet of the Last Eclipse", carrying a lot of percussive sounding keyboard drones and dance like ambiences, not to mention a highly thematic guitar solo that rivals all the ones found on that album. "Princess Aurora" features a brilliant female vocal performance and some misty sounding synthesized string sounds, not all that dissimilar from what is heard on "Timeless Oceans" off the follow up album.

Olaf Hayer's vocals are another point of contrast to the conventional wisdom that Luca's solo project is merely a Rhapsody clone. Anyone familiar with his work with Dionysus will tell you that his voice is not cut from the Opera Seria style that Fabio Lione sings in, thus lacking the extremely wide vibrato during long notes. His best performance is on the ballad "Warrior's Pride", although he shines consistently on every track his voice touches, showing some similarities to Michael Kiske and Rob Halford when in his high register.

Naturally there is a fair amount of music on here that is stylistically similar to Rhapsody, primarily sounding like a bridge between "Symphony of Enchanted Lands" and "Dawn of Victory". "Black Dragon" and "Where Heroes Lie" are riff driven fanfares with bombastic choruses and plenty of speed. "Ancient Forest of Elves" and the title track are the most epic sounding, the former featuring a pleasant violin theme and a chorus that begs to be sung along to, while the latter has a lot of changes and plenty of long instrumental sections. "Warrior's Pride" and "Legend of Steel" feature prevalent harpsichord parts and plenty of textural density, the former being a more dramatic take on the Rhapsody ballad of the first 3 albums.

Fans of Rhapsody and Dionysus are encouraged to look into getting this album if they don't already possess it, and fans of Power Metal in general are encouraged to give it a chance, although Rhapsody detractors may not go for it. Although its pegged as the unofficial 3rd album by Luca's principle band, it does carry a good deal of an identity of its own, both in the music and the more personal approach to storytelling which emphasizes the romantic side of fantasy more than anything Rhapsody has done in it's history. I still listen to it every now and then and it has yet to lose any of its charm.