Back in the Wargroove

Mr Smurf's first pick to land him points in Fantasy Gaming League comes to Switch, PC and Xbox One tomorrow. I see it's been reviewing well and I've even been playing as I was sent a review code yesterday for the Xbox One version, which I think I must be the only one playing looking at the rarity of the achievements along with trying to find a game online.

I might be on Xbox One but Wargroove has cross-play with a code system, that if any of you do pick it up I can still play with you I'd just need your game's code, also it has asynchronously mode but I feel I could forget to take my turn.

So far I've played the prologue and all of Act 1, I've got to say it's great at the moment with some really neat characters. There's also an arcade mode which is sort of a mini five battle campaign for each character, I only have the one character unlocked at the moment which I got from finishing Act 1.

Meaning plenty of content with a 6 Act story mode and 12 Characters all having a Mini-Campaign in the Arcade, without touching any multiplayer for the likes of Balla.

There is also something called Puzzles which I've not unlocked yet and a Map Editor which I played around with but not really something I can see me using. I did download a 1P campaign someone had made in a haunted house and that was rather good. Could see someone whos a bit more creative making a GNamer Gaming Projects Using Forumite Names Campaign as you can individually name the characters.

I've not played much Advance Wars, that I can't really compare but I have played some Fire Emblem and it's rather close just different system on what can beat what and it's not an individual unit but a group of swordsmen to move.

Got to say this might be best on Switch due to the aesthetics and it's homage plus IF it uses the touchscreen that is a handy way to move units and make maps. I am going to try it out with a mouse and keyboard on Xbox One as I can see that being another good way to play the game.

This is gonna be the first eShop game in a while that I'll actually play when it's downloaded instead of leaving it for months and months, hoping it does well and Nintendo take note and bring out a new Advance Wars.

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I hear yah as I'm yet to play Pikuniku on Switch.

On Wargroove, I've finished Arcade Mode with Mercia which is a fun little mode and I'm thinking stories will intertwine but I would guess like the Dog will have a silly one.

I finally found a online game with a PC player, which I won and ran well which you'd be the case with a game like this.

Lastly I did play with a mouse and keyboard (mainly mouse) which worked great that I'm not sure for someone like Mr Bob which version is best, Switch he could play on the go and may have touchscreen but I think mouse overall would be easier to use especially if you were going to make maps plus can still play everyone.

masofdas wrote:

Could see someone whos a bit more creative making a GNamer Gaming Projects Using Forumite Names Campaign as you can individually name the characters.

That was my thought when I saw the level creator mode!

I'm excited for this one - I have been since its reveal, to be honest!

Why I brought up with Mr Bob as I remember his City he made in Cities Skylines that could see him doing that again here.

Mas wrote:

Meaning plenty of content with a 6 Act story mode and 12 Characters all having a Mini-Campaign in the Arcade, without touching any multiplayer for the likes of Balla.

Balla to play a TBT game? Thats a good one.

Anyhow, I was surprised we didnt have a thread for this already since a few of us have been excited about it for a while.

I'm slightly worried about playing this now after playing the excellent Into the breach recently, I think the tactical side just wont be as good by comparison (hopefully I'm surprised) but the one thing this does have over ItB is a more linear campaign mode.

I'm not really a strategy game person - I never played Advance Wars or "that gay one with the swords that you like" - so, although I do love Chucklefish's output (I've played Starbound regularly with a pal for months now - and oh wow those are Florans in Wargroove) I'm probably going to skip this. But I look forward to someone sending GNamerians out to die horribly .

The_Jaster wrote:

Mas wrote:

Meaning plenty of content with a 6 Act story mode and 12 Characters all having a Mini-Campaign in the Arcade, without touching any multiplayer for the likes of Balla.

Balla to play a TBT game? Thats a good one.

...Jas is dead right. The few I've tried just haven't worked out for me. But like Jim, I'm heavily up for watching digital Balladeer being decapitated by cute fantasy soldiers.

I do fancy the look of this but I just recently started Banner Saga and there's no way Ill want two on the go. And by the time I'm done with that, we'll be looking at Fire Emblem I expect.

What would people like to be if you were made into this game? Mage, Knight, Turtle Warship?

Anybody who doesn't answer the last one has something wrong with them to be fair.

However (sigh) I suspect my personality's more mage than GIANT ARMOURED TURTLE.

Is there some kind of barbarian or beserker? I wanna be that.
Unless there are samurai, natch‥

I've played a fair wee bit of this now - I'm really enjoying it! I'm plugging away at the campaign right now and I'm reaching the end of Act 3. The game's doing a good job of introducing new units and concepts at a fairly decent pace whilst sprinkling in a few side missions so it doesn't feel like a long tutorial. One of the side missions in particular was a tense siege mission where you play as best boy Caesar defending a town against a horde of outlaws. It was a long mission but never felt dull - if this is what the game feels like when it's ramping up the difficulty, then I think this could be a proper winner.

It's definitely not sparse on content, like Mas has said. The campaign seems reasonably lengthy, there's what appears to be character centric story chapters and a puzzle mode, which I guess must have you solving each stage in a certain number of turns, perhaps? I've not unlocked that one so not a clue as of yet.

Still not there with Wargroove yet, the missions seem to go on too long for my liking (I’ve had to turn the battle animation off to save some time) and if you die (which so far have been caused by surprise attacks from the enemy captain) it feels like you’ve lost a lot.

I’ll stick with it but so far I’m leaning towards Not A Banger

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Drunkalilly wrote:

JayMoyles, but also coincidentally all of my girlfriends wrote:

reasonably length.

I should proofread my posts - that should have been "lengthy", natch.

Crumpy Andy wrote:

Still not there with Wargroove yet, the missions seem to go on too long for my liking (I’ve had to turn the battle animation off to save some time) and if you die (which so far have been caused by surprise attacks from the enemy captain) it feels like you’ve lost a lot.

I’ll stick with it but so far I’m leaning towards Not A Banger

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I think the overall game pace could stand to be a bit quicker, so I'll agree with you on that one. To their credit, the devs have acknowledged that and are putting out some improvements to the game speed in a future patch, seemingly. I don't mind how long the missions are though - it makes each battle feel suitably tense as you find yourself slowly but surely stretched thin as the battle rages on.

The latter half is definitely an "Andy is bad at games sometimes" moment though - I haven't died once yet! I treat my commander like the protagonists in a Fire Emblem game. I'll use them to mow down some of the mooks, but as soon as a nastier enemy draws near, I'll back them away. They're pretty tanky, so it's easy enough to get them to a village to heal up if things get dicey. The alchemists help for an emergency heal too, especially as they can heal multiple units at once.

I'm happy with how varied the campaign has been so far! I was expecting a string of similar missions, but the most recent mission where you play as the mage fella and have to lead only four other units around a map, fending off enemy ambushes as you go, was a real treat. Balancing where to position my units, when to push up with the commander, when to use his defensive ability and when to use the limited number of heals you're given all added up to some brilliant strategy and some dicey moments. This is a strong recommendation from ya boy so far.

I played the Arcade for Caesar on a friend's switch and it was a lot of fun so I bought it for myself and the campaign feels like a lot of tutorials for what is a relatively uncomplicated game. For instance, the stage early on (maybe the third one) where you are rescuing the villagers and Emeric guides you painstakingly through the process of loading, oving and unloading wagons where a much nicer "this is a wagon it carries units real far" would have done the job just nicely. I've been having fun though so I guess it must be at least good. As an aside, I appreciate that dogs never die but instead just run away

The tutorials really ease up after that - you get a line or two about new units, but nothing as in-depth as the opening chapters.

I like to imagine all the dogs run off to cry to Caesar, who is the best boy.

masofdas wrote:

What would people like to be if you were made into this game? Mage, Knight, Turtle Warship?

Do you get to choose races? I wanna be a Floran, like my Starbound character, Planty Jim

My problem was I didn’t know they were drawing near as they’d killed my dog and the fog was too thick...

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Buy more dogs, then.

The fog of war was nasty, mind you. I found having dogs on mountains effectively acting as watchtowers helped me out immensely.

More like dog of war amirite guys haha

That was released last year, Duck.

Am I the only one playing this?

This has fully opened up now - I've got aerial, naval and land warfare in each map and I'm in what seems to be the final act. For anybody wondering whether to go for this based on how much content it has, you'll absolutely get your money's worth here.

I do have a couple of negative observations. The game speed is a bit slow with each map taking up a fair chunk of time. I'd recommend turning off battle animations after a while. Thankfully, the Switch is the perfect console for Wargroove as you can always pop it into sleep mode. The game does a good job with suspending progress too if you quit out of the game fully.

The second issue is more of a problem with strategy games as a whole in that dying is so punishing that it ends up discouraging further play. Lose your fortress or have your commander perish and it's right back to the start of a chapter for you. Considering some of the maps can be pushing an hour long, this really sucks. There's plenty of difficulty options - a slider for enemy damage, income and player damage - so you can always lower the difficulty if you're having real trouble, at least, but after playing Fire Emblem Echoes with its wonderful turn rewind mechanic, I feel spoiled when it comes to other strategy games.

How's everyone else getting on with this? If you're playing it right now, natch.

I'm going back to it soon, retro week was messed up with Apex Legends and I'm currently still playing Luigi's Mansion this week, soon as I finish that then back to Wargroove and Kingdom Hearts.