OVERALL IMPRESSION (Reviewed on PC):
Every action you take matters in Redemption Reapers. Number wise everything has a small value such as your allies health and the damage they deal. This in turn means that every single point of damage or health can be the difference between victory and failure. The degree of challenge in this game will highly depend on your understanding and execution of the core game mechanics combined with your personal strategy and experience in this genre. Meaning that this can be an extremely difficult challenge or a moderate challenge and one you may or may not find enjoyable to overcome. Redemption reapers is a heavily team focused tactical strategy RPG, drawing inspiration from classic tactics games mixed with a souls-like difficulty level. The simple but satisfying squad based mechanics are fairly easy to understand but rewarding to execute. This game will appeal to veterans of the tactics genre or those who are looking for a challenge.
GAMEPLAY:
Core Mechanics
At the very core of this game is the squad based combat mechanics. One of the unique features of this title revolves around counter attacks and follow up attacks. Attacking a unit, gives them the ability to counter attack after the initial hit. This mechanic operates for both ally and enemy units. In addition, if an ally attacks, a teammate may perform a follow up attack (if that unit is capable of it and within range). Much of your tactical strategy will revolve around these 2 core gameplay mechanics. This system allows for much more attacks and damage that you may initially consider is possible within a turn. A majority of the tactical gameplay revolves around this core system.
Like most tactics games this means that your squad positioning is critical for both offense and defense. You’ll need to carefully consider your plan of attack to decimate the enemy on your turn while taking zero or minimal damage in return. On top of that, since all the numbers in this game are relatively low, the margin for zero is also quite narrow. One misstep can turn an encounter from moderate challenge to overwhelmingly difficult. On the reverse side, with careful planning most battles can be overcome with moderate or relative ease. The difficulty range can be quite wide depending on your approach and your understanding of the fundamental mechanics. This makes each turn in combat exciting, but can also be equally frustrating if you don’t pay attention to all the details. Furthermore, combat uses an action point system. This flexibility allows you to use a combination of offense or defense options as well as move before or after taking action. Altogether this gives a wider range of flexibility in strategic options that the player has at their disposal.
Team Dynamics
This is a team focused tactics game. As you progress, you’ll add to your roster. Everything you expect in a traditional RPG is here with specific class roles. This includes: tank, DPS and support units as well as hybrid combinations. Each unit in your small team has a purpose. Skill kits are quite well designed with interesting synergies. There’s nothing extremely flashy here. Instead this is more akin to chess. Characters have fairly straightforward skills but each has value. Understanding class roles and how to get the most out of the entire team is a critical key to success. For example, you can pull off a chain of follow up attacks because you positioned you’re entire squad strategically. This is very satisfying to pull off. You’ll see your small squad be able to destroy an army even though initially it may not even seem possible.
Progression System
There’s also an RPG system to power up your team. Units can level up, gain skill points and equip weapons and accessories. Because every point of damage matters, leveling up feels significant. Knowing which units to level up to fit your strategy will make a big difference in battles. Being able to deal that extra 1 point of damage or move 1 extra space or heal up is essential. Every unit also comes equipped with a potion they can use 1x in battle. There are also various power ups on the field that can heal a unit and re-fill their health potion.
Enemy AI
Enemy AI can be quite brutal. They will go after your weakest and least protected units. You’ll quickly learn that you have to keep your DPS units protected from attack by positioning them to do their damage and get out of range for the enemies turn. Conversely, there are some missions where you have to escort an ally and that ally is AI controlled. The ally AI is not intelligent. It will get itself killed and position itself in dangerous areas that will make your team need to adapt and deviate from your original strategy in order to protect them.
Maps
Battle fields are quite large compared to most tactic games. This also means that fights tend to take much longer to complete with many intense moments where your team is often facing much larger armies. Positioning is highly reward in this game as in most tactic games. You can easily see enemy movement ranges. On top of that there are various treasure chests around the map that can reward you with much needed equipment upgrades and accessories. This makes battle a balance of taking out the enemy and also making sure you don’t complete the map objectives before you loot the chests that are available. Lastly, a large battle field means that you do have quite a lot of room to maneuver compared to other tactics games. However, often there will also be surprise spawns on the map leading to small squads of enemies units that can ambush or flank you. These elements keep things interesting throughout a fight. Overall, the combination of simple but satisfying team based tactical combat and challenging encounters makes for intense battles and rewarding victories.
STORY & ART DESIGN:
The story is quite simple and mostly focused on plot. The main story focuses on your squad and their encounters against the Mort army. There are animated cutscenes and some dialogue scenes before battle. It’s clear that the team did value and put effort into the creation of the world and story. However, it’s heavy plot focus and cast of characters that don’t really get to showcase unique or memorable personalities makes the overall vibe of the narrative feel a bit lacking. It’s a shame, but this developer is capable of telling a simple story as evidenced in their other work in Ender Lilies.
The art design overall is well executed, but feels similar to what you’ve seen in a dark medieval fantasy RPG. There’s nothing that quite standouts as unique or innovative nor are there any glaring deficiencies. The visual design feels like it fits into this world and overall looks great. The missed opportunity here is seeing a unique vision carried out in the visual design and narrative. Having said that, I do hope this team gets a chance to revisit this title in a potential sequel or spinoff. The base gameplay experience is interesting and would be taken to another level with a more focused (less ambitious) narrative that matches the scope of what the current team is capable of achieving.
CHALLENGES:
Although every single encounter in this game will be a challenge, once you get the hang of combat, most fights feel like a similar battle. This is due to a combination of factors. Even with a mix of enemy types, maps and fights still lack diversity.
Most maps lack distinct features that transform encounters. In addition, maps are large enough that you can be fairly safe as long as you carefully plan your steps. And despite very deadly enemies, some that can 1-shot you, you can navigate it with ease if you’ve built your team correctly and position strategically. This means that long battles, although challenging don’t present enough diversity as you would expect. A good tactics experience should be akin to a good puzzle where a variety of strategies and tools are employed to keep things fresh. This critique will be highly dependent on your own personal play though. As discussed previously, the actual difficulty of the game can go from feeling relatively easy or moderate once you understand the mechanics to extremely difficult if you try to brute force your way though and don’t implement the core follow up attack or counterattack mechanics.
The other missed opportunity we’ve already touched upon is in the art direction and narrative. We’ve seem the incredible talent and imagination of this team in their previous titles (Ender Lilies). We know they are capable of building unique worlds, memorable characters and simple but heart touching stories. Unfortunately, that same charm is missing here. Even though the level of execution in quality is high, the uniqueness and personality seem to be lacking.
CLOSING THOUGHTS:
Redemption reapers is a challenging tactical strategy RPG with simple but satisfying combat mechanics. It’s focus on team dynamics and follow up attacks with heavy emphasis on positioning make most moments in battles intense. Although there are issues with the overall narrative and lack of encounter variety, there’s still a lot on offer here. The combat system alone is different than most tactic systems out there leading to battles that are often challenging and require careful planning. If you’re a tactics veteran or enjoy challenging gameplay, this may a title you want to check out.
GAME DETAILS
PLATFORMS: PC, Nintendo Switch, PS4
RELEASE: 2023
DEVELOPER/PUBLISHER: Adglobe / Binary Haze Interactive
GENRE/TAGS: Tactics, Tactical Strategy RPG, Single Player, Souls-like Difficulty
TARGET AUDIENCE: Experienced tactics fans or those looking for a challenge
THANKS:
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