One of the best Fire Emblem titles with something for everybody.

Fire Emblem: Heroes of Light and Shadow (FE:HLS) is Intelligent Systems' (IS) latest title in the flagship turn based tactical Fire Emblem series. It's a remake of the third FE title on the Super Famicom titled Monshou no Nazo, continuing Marth's adventures after Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon to put an end to the reptilian (dragon) menace once and for all. FE:HLS is a significant improvement over FE:SD in both plot and character development, combat mechanics, content, balance, and difficulty settings.

The My Unit system lets you create and customize your own character to fight alongside Marth. You can select their appearance, **** and provide them with stat and growth boosts. As you might expect, an optimally configured My Unit will easily best anyone else in your army. My Unit gets his or her own prologue and side story chapters focusing on a group of assassins out to kill Marth.

Maps are better designed than FE:SD, with plenty of variety and unique conditions. Frequent enemy movement and reinforcements encourage the player to keep moving. There are few choke points for the player to turtle up and hide in, and if there is a choke points, you can be sure there will be large numbers of enemies trying to pass through it. There are many groups of enemies that are scripted to not move out and attack until you move one of your own units deep into their collective attack ranges, ensuring you'll need a durable unit that can take punishment from multiple enemies to proceed. The many scripted events and tactical map design ensures most players won't get bored or feel like they are dealing with a brain dead opponent.

Side story chapters are far easier to access than FE:SD, accessible by clearing the chapter with a very lax turn count, or meeting a very easy optional objective. You practically can't miss them this time around. This should appease gamers who were highly disgruntled at having to kill off more than half their army to reach the side story chapters in FE:SD.

New to the series is Casual mode, where units that reach 0 HP during chapters do not die permanently. Instead they are temporarily removed until the next chapter with no other penalties. Casual mode is selectable independent of the difficulty level selection, so you can play any difficulty while remaining on Casual mode. This should appeal to audiences of gamers that don't like the permanent death feature of Fire Emblem. ****c mode is still available for those gamers who enjoy their carefully laid plans going awry by a stray critical.

FE:HLS features the widest range of difficulty levels of any Fire Emblem game. You may choose from Normal mode up to Hard, Mania, Lunatic, and Lunatic Reverse (note: Japanese names, may not be the same in NA). On top of the difficulty selection, there is a ranking system that grades you on Speed, Survival, and Tactics. The easiest mode is a walk in the park, perfectly suited to beginners or those who aren't interested in a hard slog. Hard mode is most comparable to the original Super Famicom version - it can get a little stressful here and there, but you probably won't be losing any sleep over it. Mania mode is fairly difficult, but it doesn't go all out like Lunatic mode. Lunatic and Lunatic Reverse mode is a sadistic test of skill, patience, and planning that only gifted tacticians will be able to dominate. Clearing Lunatic unlocks Lunatic Reverse, which is a version of Lunatic mode where enemies always get the first attack in combat even during player phase.

One major difference in Lunatic mode compared to easier modes is that you don't get game altering items such as the Warp stave, so there are far fewer easy 1 turn victories like in FE:SD. Enemies promote earlier, come in vastly greater numbers, show up as reinforcements earlier or more frequently, wield powerful forged weapons as soon as the first chapter, and always have the highest weapon rank with a bonus +10 to hit. By the mid-late game enemies have almost fully capped stats with very powerful forged weapons. Having characters who can take more than one hit before dying are a valuable commodity on Lunatic. Finally, Lunatic mode has an anti-boss farming feature that awards decreasing amounts of XP for hitting any boss with regenerating HP. Getting low turn counts, every possible item, and every recruit on Lunatic Reverse is a worthy challenge for even the most experienced tactics veteran.

The ****change system returns. There are no characters with abnormally high growth rates like in FE:SD, so the system is far more balanced this time around. Mid-battle save points make their return. These are a useful way to keep random bad luck to a minimum or reload for level up growths. Game balance isn't all perfect. Some ****s such as Heroes are particularly worthless in comparison to the better ****s. On Lunatic difficulty you'll be restricted to a handful of the best characters in the game if you want to survive. The ranking system only goes up to A, no S this time around. Veteran players will not have much trouble reaching an A rank on most difficulties, which is a disappointment.

During intermission, you'll have access to Everybody's Situation, where you can get free items, weapons, temporary stat boosts, and support conversation levels. This feature is somewhat unbalanced as you can get some of the best weapons in the game if you get lucky or wait long enough. There should have been more restrictions built into this feature, such as only being able to use it a limited number of times per chapter and removing the powerful weapons.

The plot and characters are more fleshed out, with lots of personal conversations, base conversations, and an expanded plot featuring My Unit. Much like Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance, supports are developed by deploying characters in the same chapter together then initiating support conversations during intermission. Gamers disappointed by FE:SD's bare bones plot and low character development will like the greatly increased personal development of the cast.

Wi-Fi features such as the Wi-Fi store are back. Nintendo is offering free Wi-Fi goodies like the 77 use Rainbow Potion that gives your party members +2 to every stat for a chapter. Expect the Rainbow Potion to show up 3-6 months after the expected NA release, if the JP release is anything to go by. The Wi-Fi store contains the usual selection of items that you make the game significantly easier with, such as a Rescue and Again stave and hero weapons. I would have liked to see more restrictions on Wi-Fi store usage on Lunatic difficulty mode.

The UI is responsive and well designed as would be expected from IS, but not everything is perfect. The intermission management could have used some consolidation between the unit selection, trading, and ****change sections. There are a lot of unused buttons that could have been employed to do so. The roster details section doesn't include pages where you can check a list of your army's weapon levels, which is something that previous FE titles had.

Clearing the game unlocks features like the ability to change male characters into a wider range of available male ****s, adding stat boost items in the base store, unlocking 4 extra missions, and other goodies. The extra maps have their own scoring system independent of the campaign and getting a top score is not an easy feat.

FE:HLS is a major improvement on FE:SD and one of the best console tactics games thus far. There's something for everyone, no matter your skill level or whether you like combat or plot. I highly recommend you pick it up if you're at all interested in tactics games. I would definitely call it the best console tactics game of 2010 in Japan.

If you'd like to read more about FE:HLS, check out my guide here.

Strategic Depth: Medium-high. All of the micromanagement and tactical combat you'd expect from a Fire Emblem title.
Strategic Difficulty: Low to very high. A very wide selection of difficulty modes ensures just about every player will be satisfied.
Overall Score: 9.2/10 - A great tactics title that only falters when it comes to balance and abusable features at the higher difficulty modes.

Wargame:
Wargames were the first type of tactical game to be developed, sometimes based on even older tabletop games back before personal computers. Wargames attempt to be as historically accurate as possible, with many combat variables, hundreds of historically accurate military units, and real life nations. Wargames are sometimes played at the operational level with battalions and groups instead of individual units, such as The Operational Art of War, which most resembles the old tabletop games.

Most recognizable Wargame examples in NA:
Panzer General
Daisenryaku


Wargame-lite:
A tactical level Wargame with reduced strategic depth compared to full fledged wargame titles. The wargame-lite usually replaces the hundreds of historically accurate units and nations with a handful of generic units and fictional nations or factions. Most wargame-lite titles add unrealistic or abstract combat systems that separate them from traditional wargames. Wargames and wargame-lite games rarely have any kind of repetitive grinding or easy to abuse combat systems, making them a better indicator of tactical skill.

Most recognizable Wargame-lite examples in NA:
Advance Wars
Military Madness


Simulation RPG or Strategy RPG (SRPG):
SRPGs primarily come from Japanese developers, and they are usually fantasy based with living creatures instead of military machinery. They typically take the standard RPG format and place it on a grid with more units. While some titles attempt to make legitimate challenges that can't be mitigated through grinding, save/load abuse, etc., the large majority of SRPGs simply use the grid based format as an excuse to tell yet another generic RPG tale. There's little point to playing most SRPGs unless you're interested in the plot and characters.

Most recognizable SRPG examples in NA:
Final Fantasy Tactics
Shining Force
Front Mission
Fire Emblem
Super Robot Taisen/Wars


Sandbox SRPG:
A tactical game that contains a sizable amount of strategic depth by the way of gimmicks and combat systems, yet rarely requires the player to utilize it to solve a challenge. Instead the player is allowed to develop whatever strategies they want and almost always win, provided their numbers are big enough. Usually involves copious amounts of repetitive forced grinding and a focus on abstract numbers instead of strategy. This type of game usually feels like messing around with an obscured graphing calculator instead of playing a strategic chess-like game. These generally require the least amount of skill and the most amount of patience out of any type of tactical level turn based game. Almost always features fanservice for the ronery crowd.

Most recognizable Sandbox examples in NA:
Disgaea and other NIS titles
Record of Agarest War and other Idea Factory titles

2010/07/15 [DS] [1] [2] [3] Fire Emblem: Shin Monshou no Nazo Hikari to Kage no Eiyuu

The next entry in the Fire Emblem series is a remake of the new content in Fire Emblem: Mystery of the Emblem, also known as Fire Emblem 3 for SNES. The english translation of this title is Fire Emblem: New Mystery of the Emblem - Heroes of Shadow and Light. However I doubt the official English name will be so wordy. Most of the details about the game are now official, so let's get started.

The original SNES title contains 21 original chapters, which is a bit slim for a main Fire Emblem entry. Thankfully, Nintendo is adding a new story for "My Unit", a character you create and customize to your liking, including **** appearance, and background. Your personalized unit will star in the tutorial prologue, fight alongside Marth in the main story, and engage in their own side chapters throughout the game. In addition, 4 trial maps from the SNES Satellaview releases will be included. This should push the number of chapters to an acceptable level, somewhere between 30-35.

Your personalized unit will be able to talk to others in your army during intermission, although it's not clear if there are any rewards for doing so. There will be over 300 conversations available throughout the main story. This is akin to the Base Conversations of Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn. Much like FE: Shadow Dragon, the interpersonal character guide will return, plotting out how every person is related in the Fire Emblem story. There will be characters added to the game from Shadow Dragon, the Satellaview maps, in addition to completely new characters to the series.




The re****ng system will return, where you can change a characters ****and alter their base stats and growth rates. Hopefully it's a bit more balanced than it was in FE:SD. Gaiden chapters featuring your personalized unit will be available provided you meet certain requirements, which probably don't involve killing off more than half your army this time around, like you had to in FE: Shadow Dragon. I'm sure the developers have heard the sentiment of disgruntled fans who didn't like the lack of character development, personality-erasing re****ng, and having to kill off most of your army to access the side chapters, and it looks like the developers are working hard to address those complaints.

Wi-Fi returns with a couple new features. You'll be able to download new maps from Nintendo, both multiplayer skirmishes and single player chapters. The DLC single player maps will include new story content, not just trial maps with no plot development. You can trade characters with other players, although I'm not sure what the details on this are. The online store will be returning, which is one of the things I really disliked about FE: Shadow Dragon. You can go online and buy very rare items and ruin the games balance and difficulty, and you have to wait for a specific time of the month to buy the item you want.





Keeping with Nintendo's philosophy of catering to a wide range of player skill levels, there are now two difficulty altering settings available. New to the series are the addition of Casual and ****c modes. In Casual mode, if a unit reaches 0 HP, they will not die permanently, while ****c mode is the typical Fire Emblem permadeath feature. There are four difficulty settings, Normal, Hard, Maniac, and Lunatic. The two difficulty mechanics are independent of one another, so you can play Casual mode on Lunatic difficulty if you choose.

I have not heard anything about a score or ranking system, so I'm guessing there isn't one. That means this games challenges are not legitimate because you can boss/arena abuse, use the online store, etc. and ruin the games difficulty. I appreciate the extra difficulty modes, but they are pointless when you can spend infinite turns on a chapter farming XP and weapon skill, or going online and buying rare, powerful items that are only available once a month. And who knows how wi-fi unit swapping will upset the balance of the game? We're far removed from the legitimate rank based challenges of older Fire Emblem titles.




Graphically, the game looks a lot like the Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon. It uses the same sprites and character art. Whether you like it or not, it seems like it's here to stay on the DS.

As you may already know, Fire Emblem and Advance Wars set the gold standard for tactical turn based strategy user interfaces. They are always extremely responsive and packed with useful features and management tools. I've seen quite a few tactical level games botch the UI and make the game a drag to play. Not so here. Expect the same polished quality that Intelligent Systems has been delivering for decades.

Import gamers may be unhappy to learn that the game may be 'DSi Enhanced', which means it will be region encoded if you try to play it on a DSi system. You'll be fine if you play it on a regular DS or DS Lite, however.

Overall this looks like another solid Fire Emblem title, difficulty issues not withstanding. It should please fans who were soured on Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon, and the new casual mode should bring in more sales, appeal, and fans of the series. Look forward to import impressions once I've spent some time with the game.

2010/08/31 [PSP] [1] [2] Valkyria Chronicles II



Valkyria Chronicles II is the direct sequel to Valkyria Chronicles for PS3. While the BLITZ combat system remains intact, the developers have made some significant changes elsewhere to suit the new portable format.

The first significant change is that you no longer fight on one large battlefield. Each mission is broken up into small segments that can be traveled between. This significantly alters the battlefield making each area into a small combat zone that favors mobile ****s that can shift from one area to another without being vulnerable. To match with the smaller map size, you can only deploy up to 6 units per battle.

Next, quicksaving has been removed. You can no longer save and reload abuse until a potential procs or a lucky shot hits. Orders are back, but they are more expensive and harder to abuse. You can no longer stack orders on a scout and send them running to finish a mission in one turn while nearly invincible. This balancing out of the game may frustrate poorly skilled players who relied on these tactics.

The developers have added multiplayer PvP and co-op play, which is a bit of a strange decision to me. VC is not optimized for speedy multiplayer gaming. Each unit needs to move, aim, and fire, which will make for some very long turn waits even with the 6 unit limit. It may end up feeling like playing a squad TPS in super slow motion.

To make up for the small deployment limit, you're now able to customize your units with far more detail. Characters can choose between 30 different ****s when upgrading from the original 5. Weapons can be customized into hundreds of varieties. There's also a few new vehicle types to deal with. The new morale meter changes based on your performance in battle, which should reward efficient play. The scoring system remains the same as before. You're graded based on turns taken, with extra points given for destroying aces, leaders, and tanks.

The game progresses month by month. Instead of a straight single campaign, there are a variety of side missions that can be completed before moving on with the main story and advancing a month. There are a large number of missions available, over 100, although some of them don't take very long.



As for hands on impressions, I've completed the Japanese demo that was released a while ago. The BLITZ system feels fine, but the confined maps take away some of the epic scope and strategic depth of the original. It was also very easy, to the point where you'd have to try hard to lose. From import reviews I've read, the most of the game is quite easy. I doubt you'll be seeing anything as difficult as the original EX-Hard missions.

The plot and characters target a younger audience, with less war and more school dating sim. It's definitely got more of an average anime feel and less of an epic war story like the original.

VC2 should appeal to anyone who enjoyed the originality of the BLITZ system, anime fans, and anyone looking for an original turn based multiplayer experience. I don't expect much of a challenge but maybe the developers will have some surprises in store.

There were three big pieces of SRPG news to come out of E3 2010. Atlus has announced a NA port of Knights in the Nightmare for PSP with a release date of October 19, 2010. This SRPG is a little unusual with some realtime elements like bullet dodging, but it's a fantastic and creative game. If you have any love for the genre you'll enjoy learning and mastering what Knights has to offer. If anything, you should buy it so I don't end up weeping at the sight of a bunch of good Atlus titles in the bargain bins next to the shovelware and yearly sports titles. Just do it!



Valkyria Chronicles 2 has an official release date of August 31, 2010. Sega has taken the title portable, cutting the big battlefields into smaller segments. The game is aimed at a younger audience and the main campaign is apparently quite easy. According to a developer interview, the PSP was chosen not only for portability but also for multiplayer, which is new to the series. There are a lot more customization options available, but it remains to be seen how balanced they are, or how much of it is utilized by the mission content. I'm probably going to write a video guide for VC2 like I did with the original, so look forward to that.



Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions has been announced for the iPhone/iPod Touch with a release date of September 15, 2010. This is one of the most popular SRPGs in NA, with a frenzied Final Fantasy fanbase that still obsesses over the game to this day, even going so far as to hack and modify the game files to make it more challenging or balanced. The PSP version suffered some lag and load time issues that I'd assume an iPhone 4 or iPod Touch 3rd gen would avoid, in part because the data will be stored on the phones flash memory and not accessed from a disc. FFT is a decent game but suffers from slow pacing, many overpowered and imbalanced ****s/characters, and general lack of difficulty. I doubt this version will do any balancing, but it proves Square is serious about the iPhone/iPad Touch as a games platform.



One last tactical game at the show was Magic: The Gathering Tactics for PS3 and PC. This is an online multiplayer game that's free to play with purchasable card decks. Each player has a summoner that uses cards to summon their creatures, and if the summoner dies the game ends. Like any card based microtransaction game don't expect to compete without spending some coin. This game was only being shown off behind closed doors at E3 2010, so there's not much news about it. You can read some impressions here and here.



Finally I'll talk a bit about Civilization V, which was revealed at E3 2010. According to a developer interview, they have revamped the tactical level combat with inspiration by games like SSI's Panzer Tactics. That's on top of all the strategic level diplomacy, nation building, resource control, etc. If they can successfully merge quality tactical combat with the strategic level play Civ is known for, it could be a standout title for any kind of strategy fan. The screenshot here shows off some of the tactical or operational level combat that will be taking place.

I didn't see any news regarding Skulls of the Shogun, but don't give up hope yet. It looks like a fun title that should do well on Xbox Live Arcade.

There was a new trailer released for Disciples III: Renaissance, although the game wasn't being shown at E3 2010. This is an RPG where combat takes place on a tactical level turn based grid.

3 SRPGs were announced in Japan around the time of E3 2010, coincidence or not. Fire Emblem 3 DS, Blue Roses (PSP), and Agarest Senki 2 (PS3). These were not at the show and there's no news regarding a NA release for any of them. Fire Emblem 3 DS is pretty much a given, while the other two I'm not so sure about. NIS is publishing Blue Roses in Japan and given their pro-NA stance I'd say there's a good chance Blue Roses will see a NA release. Agarest Senki 2 may also see release by Aksys, although it may be DLC only on the PS3.

2010/02/08 [iphone] [1] Military Madness: Neo Nectaris




Nectaris is a venerable series almost as old as Nintendo's Wars series. It's another wargame-lite ****game that isn't as complex as a full blown wargame, but makes up for it with creative and strategic missions. This game is a port of Military Madness 2 for mobiles, which itself is a port of the 1994 Neo Nectaris for the TG16, making it the first time Neo Nectaris has been available outside of Japan.

The campaign is made up of 48 missions, which is a good amount of content for a $5 game. There's a tutorial to walk you through the basics if needed. The difficulty is aimed at an intermediate skill level. There's only one difficulty mode so if you're not fairly experienced with the genre you might want to look for an easier title. Some of the later maps can be huge and missions can take up to 30 mins on the first try, so if you like Military Madness there is lots of it to be had here. There are a wide variety of unit types available, including creative units like flying blockades to prevent enemy movement and artillery that can only fire with an allied infantry nearby. That must have been pretty cutting edge stuff back in 1994.

There are no funds or unit production, instead you rush to capture factories that have units inside them, which usually decides whether you win or lose the mission. The mission strategy is mostly about rushing to capture factories and retreating your injured units into factories to be repaired. Like the original Neo Nectaris, surrounding an enemy increases the damage done to it. Zone of control is in effect in this game, which adds to the depth. The combat formulas are fairly luck based. Sometimes you'll get the full terrain/gang up bonus, and sometimes you won't get anything. Quicksaving is available and it's possible to save/reload spam until you get the results you want. I found that isn't necessary at all though since the difficulty level allows some leeway for mistakes or bad luck.

The game has a real-time timer which measures how long it takes you to complete each mission. This is an interesting concept but the game doesn't really do anything with it. The time taken is sort of meaningless without other stats like units lost or turns taken, which the game doesn't record, although you can take a screenshot to record it manually. At least there's some kind of stat tracking going on here.

I'm not sure why the developers removed multiplayer for this port but it's a disappointing omission considering the iPhone's connected nature. Interestingly, the original Neo Nectaris had multiplayer support with 5 maps to play on.

The UI is mostly context sensitive which is good, although you have to touch the 'abort' button to move into enemy attack range without attacking. Some very basic features remain missing like unit numbers next to each unit on the map, or damage numbers appearing above the units after combat. The original Neo Nectaris for TG16 was like this as well, but that doesn't seem like a good reason to leave those basic UI features out.

The graphics look quite dated as you might expect. The units look decent with good detail but the terrain and some icons are low resolution, making for an ugly mix. There's no music and the sound effects sound like they came from the original TG16 version.

Strategic Depth: Low-medium. No unit building, gas, ammo, etc. but there is a fairly wide selection of units.
Strategic Difficulty: Intermediate. If you capture more factories than the CPU, you win.
Overall Score: 7/10. Good value for $5 if you like the series, but Neo Nectaris needs a bit more than just a straight up port with multiplayer cut out.

It seems Advance Wars has inspired a whole generation of western game developers, as games inspired by the venerable Wars series continue to be revealed. This preview is based on info at the official site and a 1up.com interview. Skulls of the Shogun will be playable at E3 2010 so look forward to some more coverage tomorrow.

The development team is going for a tactical turn based strategy game similar to Advance Wars. The developers are aiming for an "arcade like experience" with simple and fast paced tactical fun. The focus of the game will be on tactical interaction between a limited variety of units and as little time spent in menus as possible. Like Advance Wars, there's no customization or unit growth between battles. Attention is being paid to streamlining the UI and making the game fast paced and easy to pick up.

Instead of a grid, units are allowed to free move within a circular radius. Zone of control becomes in effect when two allied units movement radius overlap each other. Buildings can be captured to produce income to purchase spells and new units. You'll also be able to summon creatures with special abilities. Your ghostly units can advance in rank by killing other enemies and 'consuming their skulls'. Tasty.

The game seems like a primarily multiplayer affair. The goal of multiplayer battles is to kill the opposing sides general. You're limited to moving 5 units per turn to keep the pace of battles fast, according to the 1up interview. The simplified nature of the games combat means it's more likely to be balanced and easy to pick up.

The game has a feudal Japan theme with lots of ghosts floating about. The cities are rice paddies and the factories are temples. The art ****is clean and simple and gets its info across well. Skulls of the Shogun is definitely a game to look out for if you're interested in a fast paced multiplayer TBS game, and hopefully there will be some good single player content in there as well.

2009/07/13 [iphone] [1] [2] Mecho Wars
Version Reviewed: 1.53

Mecho Wars is a straight up Advance Wars clone with only a few minor changes and simplifications to the formula. The only twist is that every 20 turns or so, the water freezes for a few turns and ground units can walk over it. A few of the units have altered stats from Advance Wars, and the rock-paper-scissors format has been simplified down to air-infantry-heavy.

Most of the 20 mission campaign is an extended tutorial, introducing the familiar Advance Wars ****cast of units each mission (minus a couple units). Beginners will enjoy it, while more experienced players may consider it a waste of time. The AI is dumber than usual, and won't even bother to pick off your infantry as they capture everything in sight. Most maps are played out using the same strategy, so don't expect any surprises or creative challenges. The campaign missions tend to drag on needlessly because you need to capture every enemy HQ long after it's obvious you've bested the map. Mecho Wars is currently being ported to the PSP, DS, and Wii, where hopefully the developers will spend some time on a campaign that isn't a long tutorial, as well as some more units to add depth to the game.

There are 20 skirmish maps aimed at novice to intermediate players which can be played in HQ capture or elimination mode. A couple of these skirmish maps are identical to the campaign maps. The original maps are well designed and if you liked the campaign they offer about the same experience and difficulty level.

The multiplayer, being a Wars clone, is fairly balanced, but it's simplified to the point where not a lot of strategies can be made, especially with the simpler than Advance Wars depth. For example, there's no anti-air sea unit to ward off air units, like the AW Cruiser. For the $1 price point though you can't go wrong if you're looking for some multiplayer action.

I felt the playing tiles were a little too small for my fingers, and I don't exactly have big hands - it's easy to fudge a position and there's no way to zoom the map. This game might be best played with a third party stylus. I also don't like how the UI is not touch sensitive - you have to touch Stay every time to end a movement instead of just being able to click on the just-moved units position, and you have to touch Attack every time to be able to hit a target. There's further inefficiency between every player turn where you have to sit through scrolling lists of whose turn it is, environment changes, and then city/factory income ping animations. There's also no option to speed up or skip the movement animations. All of this unnecessary time wasting adds up and makes for an unsatisfying experience to anyone used to better designed UIs and faster paced TBS games.

The art design is full of otherworldly colors and strange alien creatures. It's a neat concept, but my eyes began to grow weary of the unnatural palette. Maybe a martian would feel more at home playing this game. The games sound effects are well done, and the ambient music is repetitive but listenable while playing. Plot and characters are pretty much nonexistent.

Strategic Depth: Low. Simpler than Advance Wars.
Strategic Difficulty: Low. The campaign is for beginners only, and the AI is extra stupid.
Overall Score: 6/10. Above Average.



2009/06/15 [iphone/CEL] [1] UniWar
Version Reviewed: 1.06

UniWar is a wargame-lite ****TBS game like Advance Wars, with a heavy emphasis on base capturing and unit building. There are 3 playable races (Sapiens, Titans, Khraleans) with 8 fairly similar units per race - not a whole lot of strategic depth. Apparently the multiplayer is popular although from my single player experiences I can't see it being very balanced. First of all, each race has a specialized unit that can take control of an infantry unit from one of the opposing races, but not the other. This means certain race matchups clearly favor one race, presumably because the game is balanced around a 3 player free for all with each race, which seems like an odd choice. A quick browse of the official forums confirmed my suspicions that the game is far from balanced and the ladder is full of cheaters.

The 21 mission campaign is a mixed bag. On Hard mode the developers make up for the AIs weaknesses by giving it far more funds per turn than you, which means you'll often be swarmed by a large and aggressive enemy force. The difficulty is inconsistent, with a few missions like 4 and 19 being nastier than the rest, and a few of them being 5 minute easy. The 1.06 patch makes the campaign far more difficult than it was at launch, probably as an unintended side effect of multiplayer balancing or AI improvements.

Most of the mission strategies are fairly simple, involving massing one or two unit types or rushing to capture neutral factories, but you still need to have strong general tactics on top of that to get the upper hand. Almost every mission is completed by capturing all bases on the map, which can lead to some boring clean up duty when the doomed CPU refuses to give up. Also a minor annoyance is that you can't auto-skip the 5 second wait countdown after ending your turn (there is a button to skip it, but you have to press it every time). However I did like the UI's efficiency - touching a unit or hex is usually context sensitive, and the game auto-rests your units if you leave them unused. This means less endless menu touching and faster gaming.

The graphics are well done with good animations. The game looks clean and easy to read even with dozens of units on the screen at once. The music is forgettable and the sound effects are average. As for plot and characters? There literally isn't any besides endless hostility between the Terran, Protoss, and Zerg.. er.. you know what I mean.

If you want a quick portable tactics experience $3 is not a bad price for the 21 campaign maps.

Strategic Depth: Low. It's even an even simpler wargame-lite than Advance Wars.
Strategic Difficulty: Low to moderate. The 3 difficulty modes should appeal to most players.
Overall Score: 6/10. Above average.

2010/06/02 [iphone] [1] [2] Highborn
Version Reviewed: 1.00



Highborn is a Fantasy strategy/tactical TBS game. There's no unit growth/changes between missions which is unusual for a fantasy turn based game. There are both generic and hero units in this game, with the heroes sporting a unique spell that can be used on the overhead screen. A number of cooldown limited combat spells can be cast before any encounter, most of which are damage or buffs. Recruiting during the mission is done by capturing buildings. If you lose the building you lose the unit, and if you lose the unit but not the building you'll get a new unit after a few turns. Monolith structures can be captured for new combat spells, and towers that can be captured for support attacks during combat between units. Towers tend to be overpowered and trying to fight while being hit by one is a death sentence for generic units and dangerous for heroes as well, so taking control of them is very important.

While there are only 8 campaign missions, each mission is large and unique with its own plot, dialogue and scripted events. The difficulty of the game is low to intermediate - don't expect a challenge here if you're experienced. You can't undo movement or attack commands, which might slip up beginners, but you can quicksave if needed. There's not a whole lot of strategic variety, just move through the map capturing buildings and slaying whatever enemies show up, then finishing off the mission boss. The 8 missions manage to stay entertaining, but I'd hope to see some variety in later missions other than point A to B slaughter. Additional missions will be added with a future patch to the game.

The UI is mostly context sensitive allowing you to tap to move, attack, and capture, although it requires a quick, precise double tap to pull off. Unfortunately there's no way to skip movement and combat animations, which makes the game unnecessarily slow. Units move along the map at a plodding pace for no particular reason. In addition you have to click off whether you want to use a combat spell in every fight, when it would have been more efficient to have the spell selection during the overhead screen directly before combat instead. And there's no reason to split the common 'wait' command into what's called "hold position" and "hold action" in this game. Maybe they can do something with that "Useless Slider" in the options menu in a future patch, because the game could use a whole lot more speed-up options that are standard in most turn based games.



With those game slowdown issues in mind, it's fair to say the multiplayer is far slower than it needs to be. It's best played one or two turns a day, instead of in a single (very long) sitting. Towers are overpowered with high damage, infinite support attacks, the nonsensical ability to support itself when being attacked, and frequently respawning mage recruits. Trying to fight while being hit by tower support is more or less suicide, so if someone grabs a tower they pretty much own the area around it. There are a couple of maps available but I don't see the multiplayer being much more than a casual diversion in its current state.

The game has a wry and goofy sense of humor. Conversations and unit descriptions are full of jokes making fun of RPG culture and history, frequently breaking the fourth wall to do so. Sometimes it's corny, sometimes it's chuckleworthy, but it's more entertaining than another turgid medieval politics fantasy plot. The humor provides a good motivation to play even if you find the difficulty too low.



Graphics are well done, especially the map and building tiles which have lots of detail for such a small screen. The 3d battle cutscenes are good although you'll probably get tired of looking at them by the end of the campaign. Sound effects tend to follow the humor of the game with cartoonish sounds and corny trumpet fanfare.

At $5 this is one of the pricier iPhone titles, but it's worth a purchase if you can overlook the slow pace of the game. Highborn would make for a good full featured console/PC game if the developers added more content and fixed the UI issues and lack of options.

Strategic Depth: Mid-low. Spells, recruit, and tower capturing add some depth to the game, but it's fairly basic overall.
Strategic Difficulty: Low to intermediate. Not a challenging game but still entertaining.
Overall Score: 7/10. Good for a $5 game.

Dawn of Heroes for the Nintendo DS is a fantasy strategy/tactical RPG being developed by Wicked Studios based in Montreal and published by Majesco. This preview is based on video and screenshots on the official site and developer interviews at Joystiq and RPGamer.

Dawn of Heroes packs a full featured SRPG experience into the DS, with an ambitious 50 mission branching campaign, online multiplayer, and combat and customization systems that distinguish it from other SRPGs.



There are 26 different heroes available with their own stats and abilities. Heroes come in different ****s like Supporter, Attacker, Guardian, and Controller. There's a wide variety of special abilities which should add plenty of strategic depth to the game. I'm impressed by the sheer number of abilities on display in the preview videos. There are buffs, debuffs, all sorts of damage spells, spells that move targets around, etc. I'm pretty sure each hero has a limited number of ability slots and the player can choose which abilities they want to take into battle with them. Heroes can be decked out in a wide variety of weapons and gear that all have different effects, and items and scrolls can also be equipped and used. The combat system reminds me most of a turn based Guild Wars, with the ability slotting and small scale fights with about 4-6 heroes.

The campaign has around 50 missions and there are also optional, sometimes hidden objectives and optional bosses. Bosses can sometimes be 4 squares large and possibly larger, taking up a lot of space on the battlefield. On the world map you can enter towns where you can hire new heroes and buy gear and consumables. In the camp screen you can customize your heroes name, palette colors, and swap around their gear and abilities.

The "fair fight rule" prevents a unit from being attacked twice in one turn. I don't recall this ever being done in an SRPG before, so it will be interesting to see how they balance this mechanic, considering that focus fire is an integral part of strategy games of all kinds. In some of the gameplay videos I see multiple units attacking a boss so maybe the rule has been changed, or it doesn't apply to bosses.

The developers have placed a big emphasis on multiplayer being balanced and strategic, not just a side thought thrown in at the last minute. It will certainly be impressive if they can successfully balance the huge variety of abilities and equipment in the game. You must build up your heroes in the campaign before you can use them in multiplayer, from what I can tell in the videos.



One big UI distinction is that the game is played with the DS stylus only. From looking at the videos on the site there are no text menus to speak of, only a bar at the bottom with icons representing your heroes abilities. Having recently played a bunch of iPhone games that are also touch only, I think there's a lot of potential in a stylus only context sensitive UI that bypasses menus entirely.

Graphically the game looks great for a 3D DS game - it's up there with the upcoming Dragon Quest 9. I'm hoping there's an option to turn the animations off, even though they look good. The music is decent and sound effects fit with the cartoonish nature of the game.

I've been told the game has been delayed due to the approval for production process, but hopefully those issues are cleared up quickly and the game arrives on store shelves this year. Even so, it's likely the print run for this game will be relatively small, so it's best to pre-order your copy to be sure. Dawn of Heroes DS looks like it will be an innovative and well made SRPG, so don't hesitate if you're a fan of the genre.

I've been seeing a lot of wrong statements regarding Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon's added gameplay systems with the recent announcement of the new FE 3 DS remake. First, a game is a test of skill with game mechanics that exist independent of plot and characters. There are two ways to analyze a game that has plot/characters. You can rate it objectively as in game mechanics (how balanced or strategic it is), or you can rate it subjectively as in plot/characters. Just calling the whole system 'bad' because of a subjective opinion about not wanting to kill off your units isn't a valid argument. Both aspects of the game system should be considered when forming an opinion. Now whether you like the systems or not, it is a fact that they add strategic depth and difficulty compared to most other FE entries.

The re****ng system adds strategic depth in the form of figuring out optimal ****s for each character and setting up your party with ****s that compliment each other The only balance issue are the two units Sedgar and Wolf who have unusually high growth rates that make them overpowered if re****d, but that is a problem with those two units growth rates, not the ****change system.

The optional chapter requirements adds strategic depth compared to most Fire Emblems. In this system you need to keep a maximum army size of 15 units to access the optional gaiden chapters. The system adds strategy in the form of choosing which characters you want to live and allowing you to use some units as cannon fodder or choose whether to recruit them or not. Most Fire Emblem games make no distinction whether you lose units or not, except for Fire Emblem 6 and 7, where you are graded on a Survival rank. All Fire Emblem games are easier if you keep the best characters alive, it's no different with SD, you're just more encouraged to kill off the worse or inferior ones, which makes it a strategic choice about what units to keep. Thus claims like "the system rewards failure" or "it's less strategic than most other FEs" are objectively false.

The game handing out replacement units is just a way of preventing very poorly skilled players from being unable to progress in the easier difficulty modes - you will still be in trouble if you start losing the best units in hard mode, just like any other Fire Emblem. And just try playing Hard 5 with all recruits - not so reward/reward when your generic replacements can't do more than 1 HP of damage to an enemy, is it? It's not a reward so much as it's a way to keep poorly skilled players on normal mode from getting stuck, and it shouldn't concern experienced players about 'reducing strategy' on a difficulty mode that isn't meant to be strategically difficult in the first place. Play on H5 and stop complaining about the lower difficulty modes if you think they're too easy - that's the reason multiple difficulty modes exist in the first place.

As for the games difficulty, it is one of the most difficult FEs on Hard 5. The only FEs more difficult are FE5 SSS rank, FE6 HHM S rank, and FE9 Mania mode. The map design is average for a FE game and provides for a decent amount of strategy. FEDS is a mostly balanced and strategic SRPG. Yes there are some cheap things you can do to reduce the difficulty, but like most FE titles it's not a legitimate challenge anyway since you have limitless turns to grind. The only way you encounter 'resource scarcity' in a Fire Emblem game is if you are playing for an end of game ranking that limits the number of turns you can spend. Otherwise you can boss/arena abuse all day long. This is not unique to FE DS.

So if you happen to see these things returning in this new FE3 remake, remember that they are not unstrategic or poorly designed. You might hate them because you don't like killing your units off or you think a characters identity should be tied to their **** but that's a matter of opinion.