Tactics

Steam says I spent a little over 36 hours in Symphony of War: The Nephilim Saga. The game had a lot to recommend it, and I enjoyed my time with it. A touching moment between two bonded A tactical strategy lives or dies on its tactical combat. A great story or memorable characters are definitely important, but if the battles aren’t fun, there’s really no point to playing. Symphony of War executes the battles extremely well. It gives tools and character upgrades at a pace good enough to not overwhelm, but also to allow you to shape your squads for their roles. My main character’s squad, and that of the paladin Diana’s, both were meant to tank. They would use the Nephilim power that taunts nearby enemy units and buffs their defense to take out enemy groups. ...

I wrote that this game was competently developed, but the plot was entirely vanilla. Then I played through more of the game. There are some spoilers below the fold. I’m about thirty hours into the game and I believe I am heading toward the endgame. The game has managed to surprise me a couple of times so far. The broad outlines are normal enough – five avatars of ancient heroes and gods, one of whom is evil, come together to recreate an ancient conflict. A plot so normal, even the Power Rangers used it. ...

It’s a tactical RPG where you control an army on the battlefield made of several squads. It’s a callout to one of the most unusual tactics battlers of all time – Ogre Battle. In Symphony of War, as with Ogre Battle, you form squads of units and take them across a map, seizing towns and castles until finally meeting with the boss of the level. Each encounter takes you to a separate screen where the fight progresses. ...

It’s a story, or maybe a comic. Some friends gather together to save their town. Well, a couple of them don’t really get along. A couple get along really well – REALLY well. And then bad stuff happens, but some good stuff, too. Time passes and people get old, but there’s always a new danger and new people to step up to face it. It’s… everything I ever wanted in an RPG. ...

So, there, it’s done. 62 hours and 22 minutes from the start to the end of the game, LucasArt’s near forgotten cinematic tactical strategy gladiatorial combat RPG defied all my expectations. The last time I blogged about Gladius, I’d just left Imperia for the Windward Steppes. That gave us the last group member, Eiji, an archer, who was more than she first appeared. But who didn’t know that? Continuing on to the Southern Expanse brought us a cutscene where one of the many evil villains dogging our steps said she would be sending someone to us who would bring us right to her, followed by a new character joining us immediately afterward. ...

It’s hard to get your main characters killed, but not impossible. I did it :-) Gladius trades plot for deep strategical game play, and I’m there for it. Given Gladius is from LucasArts, known for deeply cinematic games, I expected there to be a little more plot in the twin stories of two Vikings, or an Imperial gladiator, who build their gladiator schools from scratch until they are large enough to challenge the emperor’s best fighters. ...

Welcome to the start of my playthrough of LucasArts’ “Gladius”, a tactical arena fighting game for the PlayStation 2. Wow. What to say about this game? I first heard about this game only a couple of weeks ago – I guess I’d entirely missed it when it came out in 2003. I ordered a copy from eBay. It arrived yesterday; popped it into the PCSX2 emulator and it came right up. ...

A lot of indie developers of turn-based, tactical RPGs were strutting their stuff on Twitter yesterday. So wait a second – Pawnbarian is a card based tactical strategy puzzle RPG? And the hero moves like chess pieces? That you can upgrade? And there’s a demo? Me? I’d already be downloading the demo. And did. But for those of you who need a little more convincing… The Goblin Caves, Floor 1 In the demo, you are Pawnbarian, a warrior from the northern Chesslands come to die in glorious battle. The full game has four different character classes with different abilities. Pawnbarian’s special ability revolves around pawn promotion – pieces are promoted when their move starts in the top rank, a pawn moves into it, or there are three pawns in the hand. ...

Last week, we saved the forest with apple pies in My Little Scythe. Now we have to save the world – or at least 1920s Eastern Europe – in Scythe. Both “My Little Scythe” and “Scythe” have similar game play. In both, you choose from among a certain amount of actions, that are upgraded as the game progresses, in order to boost your faction and reach a set number of goals. Scythe takes that basic template and bolts on asymmetric gameplay, where each faction plays a little differently from the others, with different advantages. I played Crimea, which also grabs parts of both what would be Ukraine and Russia in today’s world, and utterly controls access to the Black Sea. Crimea’s special ability is built around farming combat cards and using them to make itself a more formidable opponent, as well as one that is deadly in a fight. ...

Rise Eterna claims to be a modern successor to the legendary tactical rpgs of the past. Can Rise Eterna really wear Final Fantasy Tactics’ crown?