Shovel Knight: Plague of Shadows (For Everything Shovel Knight is for. Seriously, that’s a long list.)

Heads up, this review assumes that you’ve read my previous review about Shovel Knight so click here to check that out.

The Order of No Quarter isn’t exactly as united as we were lead to believe in the events of Shovel Knight. The eccentric alchemist, Plague Knight, has hatched a scheme to create the Ultimate Potion. With it, anything could be his — and I do mean anything. Unfortunately he’s missing nine vital ingredients, which happen to be nothing less than a portion of each of the essences of the other knights in the Order, the Enchantress, and Shovel Knight himself — that’s right, this game takes place during his adventure. With the Ultimate Potion nearly within his grasp you take control of the masked maniac himself, Plague Knight, as he journeys across the land to defeat his so called ‘comrades’. The real question though, is what he means to do with the mighty concoction once it’s made.

History

If you want a fuller story of Yacht Club Games and the creation of Shovel Knight then check out the Shovel Knight Review. That being said, Yacht Club expected to make DLC campaigns but they didn’t know which characters to use… so they asked the fans. There was a giant poll for which members of the Order they wanted to play as and Plague Knight, Spectre Knight, and King Knight were the top three. As such, Plague Knight’s expansion was the first to be released. It and all other additional chunks of content are FREE so if you purchase Shovel Knight expect a ghostly present and a crowned present arriving in your future.

Plague of Shadows was released on September 17th, 2015. It’s competition was Undertale (Mac and PC), Armikrog (PC, Mac, and Linux), and Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain (PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, and Xbox One.)

Experiences

Do you remember when I said Shovel Knight was the platformer I was most emotionally invested in? I may have fibbed a bit because it’s Plague of Shadows that really had me following characters and reading really deep into minute pieces of dialogue.  Every little interaction reveals more about what sort of person Plague Knight is, why he joined the Order, and what he means to do with the Ultimate Potion. He’s not just a stock villain. In an Undertale-Esque fashion it’s plain to see how he got caught up in all this and what sort of person he is. And — it makes no sense saying it here but trust me — it’s a delight to watch him dance.

Shovel Knight’s a heroic guy with a lot of regret but Plague Knight is my favorite of the two.

Gameplay

This game plays unshockingly just like Shovel Knight. It’s the same levels and enemies but Plague Knight’s new abilities and play-style make it a unique experience. Unlike Shovel Knight, Plague’s jump is much shorter but he makes up for this with a little double jump and his ability to blast-jump. Plague Knight also differs from his spade wielding foe because he has a ranged attack. This small change makes combat completely different, it turns into a game of keep away where you cascade explosives on your enemies.

Our dear alchemy obsessed friend also has unique secret areas and collectibles. If you see any shining green coins floating around then try to collect them. This bizarre currency is used to unlock more upgrades that Plague can purchase with treasure — alchemy ain’t cheap, y’know. This includes blast effects, bomb fuses, and bomb explosion types — mix and match to destroy your enemies. Speaking of all this, Plague Knight doesn’t actually make all this stuff. His assistant, Mona — she’s the dour woman who lives in the basement by the juice bar — will be doing all this crafting from within Plague Knight’s secret under-village lab.

Ah… the Secret Lab, Plague’s home away from the Explodatorium.

The Gush

I loved all the upgrades. There wasn’t one that I never used. For each component there is a situation for which it is the tool for the job.

Did you ever wonder where Chester got all those relics? Well let’s just say Plague can acquire an arsenal of his own and that he’s got no problem with the barter system. In short, Plague has got a series of very special items at his disposal that have a variety of uses such as mega bombs or a potion that makes HIM deal contact damage to enemies. I recommend finding them all.

Throughout the course of Plague Knight’s adventures he can go anywhere Shovel Knight could go. It’s really interesting to return to these locations and approach them differently. I can tell the designers had a field day thinking of all the ways to get Plague Knight through a Shovel Knight shaped hole…

… both figuratively and literally.

Jumping jackrabbits, Plague Knight is incredibly mobile. Instead of taking attacks to the face like Shovel could you can dodge with all the grace and acrobatics of an explosion. There’s something great about jumping way high up and raining chaos and pain from above. I love how the guy has so much utility and yet lacks a basic melee attack — it really suits his style.

Look at this dapper dude. He’s got style oozing out of his beak.

The Secret Lab is anything but solitary. It’s filled with goons to chat with and blast away — Plague Knight is not a kind boss– Magicist returns from the town above, there’s a goat-man performing mathematical feats, Mona, and a giant oboe creature. It’s really fun to see how they all bounce off each other.

The Final Boss is a real treat in this one. It’s mechanically and thematically satisfying as well as presenting a marvelous challenge.

The Kvetch

I described Plague as being incredibly mobile and sometimes this works against him. It’s incredibly easy to blast-jump into obstacles or into a pit. Between jumping, double jumping, blast jumping, and the Surging Staff’s uppercut it can be a little bewildering to coordinate. It took me a lot of practice to get all this stuff straight and it’s almost required for you to master all this junk to get Plague Knight where he needs to go.

The Verdict

This is a must-have piece of DLC for Shovel Knight and the best part is that IT COMES FREE WITH SHOVEL KNIGHT! That’s 15 dollars for basically two games. To top it all off the game’s got co-op on the WiiU so now you can play with your friends. I cannot recommend it enough and loved it so much I thought I would spontaneously combust.

Next Week: Dishonored

Shovel Knight (PC, 3DS, Wii U, Mac, Linux, PS Vita, PS3, PS4, Xbox One, Amazon Fire TV, and select digging implements everywhere)

 

In a world of knights, kings, ancient magicks, hordes of treasure, and 16 bits there was an inseparable and unbeatable duo of knights, Shovel Knight and Shield Knight. Their adventures took them far and wide to the prestigious and dangerous Tower of Fate. A mysterious amulet wrought a dark spell around Shield Knight. As Shovel Knight came to Shield Knight was gone and the Tower was sealed. With a burden of shame too great for him — and the tower locked in any event — Shovel Knight went into exile. Some time later news reached him that the kingdom was dominated by the brutal Order of No Quarter lead by a bewitching Enchantress. The Tower of Fate has been unsealed and Shovel Knight vowed to figure what happened to his dear friend, no matter how many adversaries crossed his spade.

History

Shovel Knight is the inaugural title of Yacht Club Games, a collection of Way Forward Technologies employees who split from the company to go all in on this game. They started a Kickstarter Campaign to fund the project and it was backed three times over again. It was delayed for almost a year before its final release and it still has unimplimented features. There are three additional campaigns planned, with one released and two more on the way, and a battle mode in the works. All of these additional features will be free when they’re finished, I should note.

Shovel Knight draws a lot of inspiration on games from the past, Megaman especially.

Shovel Knight was planned for release in September 2013 but was actually released on June 26th, 2014. It’s competition was 1001 Spikes ( PC, Xbox 360, Xbox One, PS3, PS4, 3DS, WiiU, Goddam everything), Valiant Hearts: The Great War( PC, Xbox One, XBLA, PSN, PS4), and Oddworld New N’ Tasty (PS4).

Experiences

Shovel Knight is like a lost and hidden gem of an experience. I bought it, beat it,  beat it again, and then bought the soundtrack. This was one of those deep binges. I completed the whole thing in three days, I just couldn’t get enough. I cannot think of another 2-D platformer in which I was more emotionally invested in the story. I wanted so dearly to see what had become of Shield Knight, what united the Order, and what happened in the Tower of Fate.

Gameplay

The Kingdom serves as the overworld map for the game and it’s a akin to Super Mario Bros 3 in many ways. Shovel Knight travels across it to different towns filled with helpful NPCs and upgrades, treasure troves filled with sweet loot, and enemy strongholds filled with baddies and a Knight of the Order –oh yeah, they all contain fun as well.

Complete with ominous clouds to prevent you from seeing further than you’ve unlocked.

Shovel Knight’s control scheme is shockingly simple. He can jump, strike with his shovel, and bounce on enemies — different enemies offer varying levels of bounce. For such a little guy he can dish out and take shocking amounts of punishment — and he’s agile to boot. Don’t be too afraid of dying though. The only thing you lose is treasure and there’s always more of that to be had.

The shovel is both a weapon and a tool in the hands of a capable Shovel Knight. As such he can dig through earth and enemy alike. Secret treasures, relics, and music sheets lay hidden everywhere so keep your eyes peeled and give your shovel a swing at any suspicious piles of dirt of background.

The Gush

SHOVEL KNIGHT IS SHORT! I mean literally, he’s a short character, as in not tall. I can’t rightly say why but I really like that. The last character I remember playing who had difficult time reaching the highest kitchen shelf was Lil’ Mac from Punch Out. That’s some serious under-representation of shorter characters.

The music in this game takes the limitations of 16 bit sound and makes them shine. Jake Kaufman truly outdid himself with this memorable and bouncy soundtrack. It perfectly builds mood and atmosphere along with the beautiful art direction

The difficulty curve here is incredibly smooth and well calibrated. This game will challenge you, it will be tough but there’s never a situation or enemy that is unfair. Everything has a tactic or ability you can use to counter them, you’ve just gotta figure out what they are.

Except for these Green Fan jerks. They’re LITERALLY impossible to figure out.

The story is scarce but it provides a skeleton of sorts. The player-base can brew their theories but there isn’t a lot of definite proof/ are not a lot of outright answers. I mean this all in a good way though. We’ll imagine a story that suits

Each of the relics you can find provide a powerful and interesting new ability for our digging implement related hero. They acentuate his strengths or cover up his weaknesses and in any event they provide a playground of design.

Every so often random minibosses will appear on the overworld. Should you cross their paths then there will be a rumble. Each of these opponents provides a quick but challenging boss fight — and a little treasure to sweeten the deal. Many of these were also created by Kickstarter backers who fronted a lot of money for the project.

The Kvetch

When Shovel Knight gets hit he gets knocked back just a bit. This will lead to many deaths due to pits or spikes. But the thing that frustrates me about it is that Shovel Knight gets knocked back relative to what direction he is looking instead of which direction he was struck from. It’s unexpected to bump right when Shovel Knight gets hit with a projectile that was coming from the same direction simply because he’s walking away from it.

Take damage in a section like this is a near death sentence! Also, sweet flame rod.

Trying not to spoil things but Shield Knight is dangerously close to being a damsel in distress when that’s definitely not in her character. A few small tweaks and I think this game would be a little more woman friendly.

This one is really small but I wish there was a quicker way to access Shovel Knight’s relics. I can scroll through them with A and S but enemies are still moving during that time and it’s extremely stressful. The alternative is pausing and opening the relic menu and selecting what you need. It’s just a little too slow for my tastes.

The Verdict

Shovel Knight retails on Steam for $15 and I would say that pricing is perfect. If you were itching for an old-school platformer or you wanted to understand what your dad’s been railing on about all this time then Shovel Knight is a great place to start. Oh yeah, I did mention something about an expansion pack right? Well…

Next Week: Shovel Knight: Plague of Shadows

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (PC, PS3, XBox 360)

Five years after the crisis in Morrowind spears have been outlawed and a new and powerful Daedra — which is the game’s word for demons — cult is part of a conspiracy to kill the Emperor of Cyrodiil, an act that hasn’t occurred in a long ass time. You play as a prisoner who is in the path of Emperor Uriel Septim’s flight from The Imperial City. Septim declares your presence as fate and tells his bodyguard to bring you along. Despite their best efforts to talk sense into Septim and keep him safe they fail in both regards. He is killed before your eyes and he bestows the Amulet of Kings on you — conveniently forgiving your crimes in this act, apparently. It is your duty to find the last heir to the throne and give him the powerful artifact — or you could go fight mud crabs instead, no rush.

When the legends say that a Septim must sit on the throne the legends ain’t foolin’. The walls between Cyrodil and Oblivion — Basically this game’s version of hell — and this strange cult are opening gates to usher in their Daedric host. Thwart their plans and take back Cyrodiil, brave prisoner-adventurer-guy or gal.

I love this guy, he’s like a magical Grandpa — voiced by Patrick Stewart no less. 

History

Immediately after the release of The Elder Scrolls: Morrowind in 2002, Bethesda began working on the next installment in the series, Oblivion. The Havok Physics Engine allowed them to create a world in which objects could actually move in a semi-realistic fashion. Improvements in graphics technology and hard work by the developers allowed them to create a world approximately 14 square miles large. Sadly the enormous throngs of imperial citizens had to be curtailed to 20 or 30 to a town due to major slow down issues.

The big draw was the new Radiant AI system, home-brewed by Bethesda itself. It allowed them to alter and create semi-random behaviors in the citizens based on certain traits they had. Hungry characters who tended toward crime would steal food. Thieves will spawn outside of towns and try to sneak around to steal valuables. Some civilians will run away instead of fight — and others will, unreasonable, fight to the death because I stole a loaf of bread.

YOU’LL NEVER TAKE ME ALIVE, COPPER!

The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion was released on March 20th, 2006. It’s competition was Kingdom Hearts II (PS2), Metal Gear Acid 2 (PSP), and Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence (PS2)

Experiences

When I think Oblivion I think glitches.  The game was notoriously glitchy on release. Bethesda would eventually do their best to patch things up but there were still problems. The craziest thing I’ve ever heard of follows as such.

My friend, we’ll call him Sparko, turned in a quest and in a scripted event he is attacked by the quest giver — nothing unnatural yet. Sparko retaliated, town guards arrived and joined in the brawl, killing the quest giver. The guards initiated dialogue and expressed sorrow that the dead man lost his mind. At which point the guards began shouting, ‘someone’s been murdered!’ about the man they just helped kill. Strangest of all, the body spontaneously rose as if nothing happened. He began to stare at where is dead body had formerly lain and joined in the chant of, ‘someone’s been murdered!’ Sparko then began to back away incredibly slowly.

In short, it’s a well coded game.

Gameplay

Oblivion is a Sandbox Fantasy RPG. You’ll be swinging swords, firing your bow, or casting spells to get from A to B across Cyrodiil, to complete quests, or explore exotic locales and lost ruins. Um… that’s all there is to it really. There’s an overlying plot about putting an emperor on the throne but there’s absolutely no urgency to complete it and a million other things to do. There’s really no wrong way to play the game

Except whatever this is. This is the wrong way to play the game.

Wanna kill an old lady, whatever, the guards’ll probably get pissed. Wanna steal stuff, aight. Like the plot and wanna pursue it, go ahead. Oblivion don’t judge and when it does it entails a slap on the wrist and some skill penalties — or death, those guards will not hesitate to kill you.

The Gush

Ragdoll physics might be the greatest innovation in video game history. Shooting a minotaur with a lightning bold and watching him flop through the air like a drunken ballerina is one of the most viscerally pleasing things on the planet.

The quests in this game are generally really fun and interesting. Some are even downright challenging and fascinating. I still remember the truth behind the Grey Prince’s lineage and I can’t think of a Daedric Prince quest that was boring.

Speaking of Daedric princes, the Shivering Isles is one of the greatest pieces of DLC I’ve ever purchased. I cannot think of a world in which I felt more like a guest in my own home than the dominion of Sheogorath, The Daedric Prince of Madness. Most of the time I find insanity to be a cheap character trait but the thing that makes Sheogorath great are his moments of clarity — so inconsistent is his inconsistency that he has powerful moments of immense sanity. The characters, architecture, creatures, and larger than life depiction of the Mad God himself blew me out of the water.

I mean, just look at this dapper bastard.

The Kvetch

The leveling up system in this game is a mess. I think it’s pretty cool that your skills level up as you use them, even if it is slower than dirt for some skills — I’m looking at you athletics. But then raising your skills related to your class makes you level up. I follow so far but in order to level up you have to sleep, why? I understand that it’s indicative of epiphany but… it’s annoying… really annoying — and the trite inspirational quote that accompanies each level up screen is similarly unwelcome. When you level up you select stats to increase by 1-5 points. I thought that the degree of increase was random but it’s actually related to the skills that were raised for that instance of leveling up and there are only a certain number of skill raises per level up. Each skill correlates to a certain statistic so if you want to make a statistically powerful character then you need to make sure you only raise certain skills that correlate to the stats that you want to raise and the game doesn’t tell you which skills correlate to which stats. How do you figure it out? You gotta look it up, I guess. TLDR: I JUST WANNA GET STRONKER! HOW DO?

I JUST WANT TO BE AN ORC! LET ME HIT THINGS!

I only complain so much about the levelling up thing because the higher your level the stronger the monsters get. So if you don’t put points in the right places, get good spells, and/or get good equipment then you’re gonna end up in the dust. My level 21 Orc Barbarian, Gronald, was stun-locked and viciously murdered by an unarmed goblin. That’s just wrong. This guy killed a giant demon spider and he got totally owned by goblin.

The persuasion minigame isn’t exactly intuitive and it’s certainly not fun. It’s not even particularly useful but some quests are impossible to complete without raising a subjects personal opinion of you.

Just looking at this, try to figure it out.

I gotta complain more about the level scaling because it doesn’t just effect the gameplay, it can even shatter the immersion. Enemy equipment is also scaled up so sometimes the struggling bandits are wearing ebony armor. How did he get that? He just complained about his rumbling stomach. Did he blow all of his money on his suit of armor? Why doesn’t he pawn it for enough gold to eat for a year? I’m so confused.

Wouldn’t it be weird if the Arena, Thieve’s Guild, Mage’s Guild, Fighter’s Guild, and Assassin’s Guild all had the same leader? If you so choose, your character can be this individual. I’m not sure what the design alternative would be but it seems odd that it’s even possible considering that these guilds sometimes have conflicting tenets. Maybe quest chains could just end without the player becoming the all high, supreme, mega, leader and the actual Leader’s closest agent. Or maybe they could only choose to be leader of one faction.

The Verdict

I know I complain about it a lot but a few ticks down on the difficulty meter and the enemy scaling becomes much more manageable. For those few proud souls who refuse to lower the difficulty on principle I say, ‘Godspeed. May you be beaten to death by unarmed goblins for your hubris.’ That being said, the game is worth it alone for the Shivering Isle’s Expansion. The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion is available on Steam for $20 with all the DLC included. For the complaints I’ve cited I’d wait for it to go down to $15. It’s fun but it can be a real pain in the genitals. Especially when you could play next week’s game for the same cost as it’s theoretical sale price.

Next Week: Shovel Knight

Armello (PC, Mac, Linux, iOS, Android, and PS4)

Armello is a kingdom composed of four major clans; Rabbit, Wolf, Bear, and Rat. Long ago they fought a grand, unending, war among one another but were united by the great and powerful Lion King. As of late however The King, a beacon of wisdom and justice, has lost his mind and begun to turn to dark magicks. You choose a hero from one of the clans and must dethrone the king by whatever means necessary –putting yourself on the throne wouldn’t hurt either–, Purge the land of this evil, become the heir apparent, kill the king with your own hands, or prove that you are truly the greater evil — why choose a lesser one?

History

Armello started off  in 2012 being developed by Team of Geeks, a 15 person team. It was originally going to be an iPad exclusive but Team of Geeks got a little stalled out. Development staggered forward for 2 years until they began a Kickstarter Campaign. Asking for $200,000 and getting $300,000 they made the game available for PS4 and computers.

The game’s influences include The Dark Crystal, Red Wall, Magic: The Gathering, and Spirited Away.

Armello was released on September 1st, 2015. It’s competition was Grow Home (PS4), Super Mario Maker (WiiU), and Undertale (PC and Mac)

Experiences

Big shout out to Youtuber Kikoskia, without whom I would have no knowledge of this game. Check him out, he makes good stuff. Before I go on I must announce that I have not actually played any PVP multiplayer. I can only speak to the vaguely competent AI. In my estimation games against other players would be totally different from a single play experience. I foresee the King dying and the players waking from their pvp smashing stupor to realize they were supposed to be playing the game instead of creating an endless cycle of revenge. My heart is filled with equal measure dread and zeal to play against another human.

“Are you guys even trying to kill me?”

Gameplay

The first thing you do when you begin a game of Armello is pick a character. Each character has unique statistics and a special ability, their clan also gives them an affinity for night or day — offering them bonuses during that time. Fight is how many dice you’ll role in a fight, body is your health, wits limits the number of cards you can carry and is used to avoid certain perils, and spirit is the amount of magic you get each night and is used in certain perils as well.

My favorite character is Barnaby because there’s something about a bunny in full plate that gives me the giggles.

What’s a peril? It’s a thing on the map that’ll mess you up if you fail to overcome it. What’s a card? Well it’s an item, spell, or trickery card that you can use, equip, cast, inflict on someone, or plop on a space and turn it into a peril. Cards also have a symbol on them corresponding to one of the faces on the armello dice — which are sword, sun, moon, shield, Wyld, and Rot. You can discard a card in combat or when faced with a peril to force one of the dice to roll that symbol. Barring that you can roll the dice and hope they fall favorably.

You also get to see who played the peril so if you know who’s at fault.

The resources in Armello are gold, magic, prestige, and rot. You gain gold from delving in dungeons and protecting settlements. Your magic equalizes at nightfall or can be boosted with certain items. Prestige is gained by defeating enemy heroes, saving towns, or killing monsters. It’s lost when you fall in combat, spend it on certain cards, kill a guard, or other special circumstances. Rot is acquired by playing certain cards, being killed by corrupted creatures, or failing certain perils — and rot is bad voodoo, just one point changes the way your character works and five points changes the game entirely.

The goal of Armello is to become the next monarch of Armello. You can do this by having the most prestige when the King dies, killing the king and surviving the encounter, gathering four spirit stones and bringing them to the king, or getting 5 rot and challenging the king to corruption mortal combat.

The Gush

When you have the most prestige you are prestige leader. Being prestige leader gives you the privilege of advising the king at the dawn of each day. He will present two options about how the kingdom should change and they’re almost always a choice of damnation. It’s a matter of choosing the lesser evil and some of the lesser evils are still very great. It’s a strategically satisfying mechanic.

Naturally, as prestige leader you cannot have the least prestige so… uuuuuh, guess we’re not fighting each other!

You can unlock certain items that can increase your stats for the duration of the game. Increasing weaker stats to balance out your character or making their powerful stats even more impressive. Even possibly granting new and interesting abilities altogether like regaining health at night or starting with 2 Prestige.

There’s something very satisfying about discovering effective strategies with each character. The first time I played Barnaby, The Screwloose Tinkerer, I stumbled upon a Blacksmith in my quests which made Barnaby’s weapons and armor even more effective. Now, whenever I’m presented with the opportunity to acquire the Blacksmith as Barnaby I do so.

The latest patch just put in a speed up function. Now during other players turns you can speed things up and skip their combat scenes. It makes everything run lightning fast when you’ve seen all the animations a hundred times — although watching the other turns was entertaining when I started playing.

The Kvetch

Achieving the rot victory is frustratingly difficult. I have yet to figure out how to get enough rot quickly enough to challenge the king before he keels over naturally. It might just take a lucky hand of opening cards and abilities but that would also be very unsatisfying. Maybe it’s just something that happens on accident?

At the end of the game each character is given some superlatives about how they played but… the game never explains what each superlative correlates to so I just gotta guess.

What the hell does being a warlock mean? Cause I didn’t cast a single spell. Or does that make me a purist?

I understand the flavor for each of the clans and it’s thematic and enjoyable. Wolf is all about fighting, rats are sneaky, bears are spiritual, but I have no idea what Rabbit’s deal is. Are they like the Hufflepuff of the clans? Doing that loyal and true thing? The closest thing I’ve got is that they’ve got a lot of ingenuity… I think… I dunno.

Sometimes I feel like the game’s go big or go home mentality makes the game too much about luck and too little about skill. Between card draws, dice rolls, Wonky AI, Guard placement and movement, monster movement and spawning, peril placement, and percentage chances of completing quests I sometimes feel victory goes to the luckiest.

It’s a 20% chance or nothing and there’s no way to improve my odds. If I win everyone will groan. If I lose I will be sad.

The Verdict

Armello is serious fun. It presents all the best parts of a board game without the worst parts of a board game. There’s no set up time, no putting away time, and no way to screw up how the rules work. The systems are very simple but also incredibly deep. Playing each character feels like a new experience. You might go for a certain path to victory but it’s much easier to win if you have an adaptive strategy adding even more to the replayability to the game. I’m not entirely sure if it’s worth the $20 price tag but it’s definitely worth $15 if you can catch it on Steam sale. Alone or buying it with a group of friends it’s incredibly fun.

Next Week: The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

Battle Realms (PC)

Long ago the demonic beings known as The Horde were bearing down on the remnants of the Dragon Clan. Their leader, Tarrant the elder, used the ancient artifact known as the Serpent’s Orb to drive back The Horde and, in doing so, broke the world. The remnants of his people renounced their old clan and renamed themselves The Serpent after the orb and to foster a new way of thinking for their new world. A path of ambition, industry, and brutal feudalism.

Three generations have passed since the establishment of the Serpent Clan and the clan has smashed and shattered by their Lotus Clan advisers and Wolf Clan slaves. The last remaining heir of Tarrant’s line, Kenji, must retake the continent from the two remaining clans. Will you reestablish the well oiled machine and strict caste system of the Serpent clan or will you embrace the old traditions of the Dragon Clan and try to restore the broken planet?

History

Battle Realms was the first game released by Liquid Entertainment. It was held in very high regard at the time for being a real-time strategy game in full 3D. It was also praised for its East-Asian aesthetic and innovative unit development system — instead of spontaneously generating units at buildings units train at those buildings. Despite its critical acclaim it wasn’t well marketed and sales suffered. A stand-alone expansion pack was released known as Winter of the Wolf to middling reviews.

I guess the fan base was not interested in barbarians of the ginger variety.

Battle Realms was released on November 7th, 2001. It’s competition was Stronghold (PC), Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty (PS2), and Return to Castle Wolfenstein (PC)

Experiences

Patching can make or break a game. And this game, before the patch, was nearly a broken mess. When I played it as a kid I didn’t realize what was wrong with it — I mean, I thought Bubsy was a good game when I was a kid so… It’s plain to see in the pre-patch version that the characters either do too much damage or don’t have enough health and would generally die before I even had a chance to use their abilities. The low health also made the story campaign more difficult as the death of a plot relevant character forces you to lose the mission. Checking over the notes some of the abilities didn’t even work in the game before the update. Liquid entertainment released a series of patches known as the Battlepacks and these did a great job at fixing the broken parts of the game. Right on, Liquid.

Gameplay

Battle Realms is a real-time strategy game with internet multiplayer, skirmishes vs the AI, and two story campaigns. There are four different clans you can play as who all have different strengths, weakness, abilities, and themes. The story campaign limits your clan selection and training abilities at first but unlocks to the full tech tree by the end. The basic goal of a skirmish or campaign map is to create an army that balances its strength and weaknesses and counters the composition of your opponents army.

Unlike other RTS games you have peasants who can build peasant huts which produce more peasants who can train at military buildings. Those units can train at other buildings to become generally better or more specialized. These unit can acquire battle gear at select clan building to further specialize their abilities — although not all battle gear is created equal. Fighting enemies generates the clans moral element, yin or yang, which can be spent on clan-wide upgrades at training buildings.

You can also tame and employ horses which move faster than most units and can trample foes.

The Gush

It’s something very small but I love how gold is not a resource in this game. Units are loyal to the clan, by choice or by fear, and are trained in rice and water instead of gold or something else.

The soundtrack is steeped in recurring musical themes between the different clans. I began to associate metallic chimes with the Serpent clan and whereas I began to associate the Wolf clan with chanting and exuberant shouts. To top it all off each song has a peace-time mix and a battle mix, switching between them as the battle rages or dies down.

Almost every unit has a secret passive ability linked to their character. Bandits, for instance, can scavenge rice and water off of enemy corpses and the powder keg sumo can spread salt across his comrades and reduce the amount of magical damage they take. The abilities vary in power and impact but I feel like they all give each unit flavor such as Shinja’s Ye of little Faith ability which lowers magic damage he takes — and suits his pragmatic and cynical disposition. Unfortunately these abilities were only hinted at in the manuals and some do not make themselves readily apparent in the game.

And if you’re facing the dark magicks of the Lotus Clan then you’d best have magical protection

The animation in this game is quality stuff. When units are unselected they generally idle around and check their equipment and some even goof off. When you click them however they assume a battle-ready stance and are totally ready for your orders. This sort of attention to detail gives them all character.

The battles in this game are patently absurd. You’ll see a ginger Schwarzenegger wanna-be swing a giant wooden mallet against the armor of a professional samurai. It’s absolutely insane and I love it.

The Kvetch

I really dig the art style and graphic styles, don’t get me wrong, but some of the models were made poorly. Ballistamen for instance don’t have heads. They just sort of have faces sticking off their necks. And the proportions of some models are cartoonish at best.

Some of the campaign maps are broken and there are a few that present a brick wall of difficulty. Enemy bases are generally built as actual towns and thus sprawl across the entire map and as such you need to scour the whole area to ensure that no structures are standing — if a single peasant escapes they may be able to rebuild. And anyone who has played the game remembers the siege of Serpentholm as a totally unfair 2 on 1 battle.

First things first, this army looks awesome. Second thing second the whole north half is filled with enemy buildings.

The Verdict

Battle Realms is a slim $10 on Good Old Games and I’d say that’s more than enough for the sheer experience of the story campaign and the pure gameplay. That being said GOG is working on providing servers to get multiplayer back online. Play with your friends! Get totally smashed by strangers on the internet — It’s great! If lightning shooting Warlocks or comically large swords played straight interest you in an RTS then this game might be up your alley.

Next Week: Armello