I'm not going to be doing the normal daily posts during weekdays for a little while. There may be the occasional game review post, but I don't have time right now to do more than that.
Regular posts should resume in the second week of March.
Monday, February 11, 2019
Monday, February 4, 2019
Game review: Wargroove
So there's three sentences that I think have to be included in any review of this game, if some of the other's I've read are any indication:
It's basically Advance Wars with a swords and sorcery theme applied to it. But that's okay, because Advance Wars was awesome, and this game is just as good. Also there are some very cute dog units (but they run away instead of dying, so don't worry about having to kill them).
Which is really all that needs to be said; if you liked Advance Wars, you're probably going to like this one too. With that out of the way, I'll go ahead and talk about some of the differences, since there is a new critical hit mechanic and changes to the capturing rules that will be new to veterans of that game.
The critical hit mechanic basically rewards the player for putting their units in exactly the right position. They're not random; each unit has specific criteria which allow it to score a critical hit (such as standing on the right type of tile, standing next to a specific unit type, or moving a certain distance before attacking). They're also very thematically appropriate, such as pikemen gaining bonuses from standing shoulder-to-shoulder with other pikemen or knights charging through their full movement before attacking. It's an interesting additional layer of detail to have to worry about, although it's rarely necessary to get every critical hit possible.
The other significant difference is capturing structures. Garrisoned structures start with half the HP of the unit that captured them and slowly regain health. On one hand, it's possible to capture even with low health units... but the enemy can just destroy your garrison immediately if you do that. While any unit can attack a structure, only infantry can capture a neutral structure - and if the structure survives an enemy attack, it'll shoot back, so taking out a structure at full health is actually kind of difficult (and will leave the attacker with plenty of damage) unless you have some fairly powerful units.
There are some other minor changes (unit repairs, commander units), but they don't affect the experience as much. The other big detail is the amount of stuff in this game - the campaign mode is impressive, each commander has their own arcade mode, there's a bunch of puzzles that challenge you to win in a single turn, and there's a system for sharing custom maps and online multiplayer. I've played for hours and I've barely scratched the surface of it all.
On the whole, Wargroove is definitely worth buying.
It's basically Advance Wars with a swords and sorcery theme applied to it. But that's okay, because Advance Wars was awesome, and this game is just as good. Also there are some very cute dog units (but they run away instead of dying, so don't worry about having to kill them).
Which is really all that needs to be said; if you liked Advance Wars, you're probably going to like this one too. With that out of the way, I'll go ahead and talk about some of the differences, since there is a new critical hit mechanic and changes to the capturing rules that will be new to veterans of that game.
The critical hit mechanic basically rewards the player for putting their units in exactly the right position. They're not random; each unit has specific criteria which allow it to score a critical hit (such as standing on the right type of tile, standing next to a specific unit type, or moving a certain distance before attacking). They're also very thematically appropriate, such as pikemen gaining bonuses from standing shoulder-to-shoulder with other pikemen or knights charging through their full movement before attacking. It's an interesting additional layer of detail to have to worry about, although it's rarely necessary to get every critical hit possible.
The other significant difference is capturing structures. Garrisoned structures start with half the HP of the unit that captured them and slowly regain health. On one hand, it's possible to capture even with low health units... but the enemy can just destroy your garrison immediately if you do that. While any unit can attack a structure, only infantry can capture a neutral structure - and if the structure survives an enemy attack, it'll shoot back, so taking out a structure at full health is actually kind of difficult (and will leave the attacker with plenty of damage) unless you have some fairly powerful units.
There are some other minor changes (unit repairs, commander units), but they don't affect the experience as much. The other big detail is the amount of stuff in this game - the campaign mode is impressive, each commander has their own arcade mode, there's a bunch of puzzles that challenge you to win in a single turn, and there's a system for sharing custom maps and online multiplayer. I've played for hours and I've barely scratched the surface of it all.
On the whole, Wargroove is definitely worth buying.
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