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Symphony of War: The Nephilim Saga Review

Symphony of War: The Nephilim Saga Review

what is it? A novel strategy JRPG.

Expected payment: £15.49/$20

release date: come out now

Developer: dragon dance game

Publisher: free game

Comment on: AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT, 32GB RAM, AMD Ryzen 9 5900

multiplayer game? Do not

Association: Official website(opens in a new tab)

JRPG character customization has an easy fun. Extend it to entire character squads on the tactical grid? Now you have a classic strategy JRPG like Fire Emblem or Final Fantasy Tactics. Extend it to an entire army of dozens of squads? That’s the rework you get in Symphony of War: The Nephilim Saga. Setting up a custom buffet around your army and its generals is enough to shake up a genre that’s quickly becoming monophonic — even if other generic stories don’t do it any favors.

Symphony of War’s interpretation of a strategy JRPG is all about squads. Each squad consists of up to 9 units, each placed in a formation you create on 15 squares (and the boundaries between them) for about 15 different locations. While other games emphasize single player, only the strongest heroes can single-handedly take on enemy squads in Symphony. Instead of customizing an individual’s precise stats, you decide what squads to build around them, adjust compositions and classes over time, and continually improve their leadership stats to increase their maximum squad size. Gear is also owned by the squad, with powerful artifacts taking up limited gear slots and space available to soldiers.

(Image credit: Free Games)

But despite its complexity, it is very easy to grasp. There’s a decent in-game reference manual, and while the precise effects of some of the in-depth mechanics and stats — or how certain terrains work — aren’t very clear, you’ll never be put off by a lack of understanding.

#SquadGoals

All of this core gameplay is designed to make your army and its journey, rather than any one of its characters, the focus of your attention. Symphony of War feels like a truly new angle on the genre when it comes to building your squad and developing an overall strategy for your army, the only game comparable is the Ogre War series – both now 20+ years.

It’s satisfying to recruit promising rookies and mercenaries from the market, place them in a squad, adjust their stats as they level up, and push them up the larger tree of connected classes The core loop, with tons of strategy knobs to tweak and lever pulls. It’s also structured to encourage exploration, giving you the freedom to drop your character back into your class rank to try new things without any penalty.

Take the villain hero Stefan, for example. He is the natural leader of the light infantry squad, but can also lend his ambush expertise to the light cavalry squad. Knight Hero Barnabas is a pretty decent tank, but he also has some qualities that make his teammates better leaders: his squad is the perfect incubator for promising candidates to become future squads leader.

(Image credit: Free Games)

Some leaders are more specialized: General Lysander gets a discount on the Space Powder Force used in his squad. He was a great leader in dragoon or spear shooting. These leadership traits are not only found in your pre-made heroes, but also in the uniquely named mercenaries that appear in the shop between missions, and even sometimes from skill books that drop in the world.

All of this customization is limited by the gold you earn in quests and arena battles, which must be spent on the market to get new units and artifacts. (You’ll also need to save some in case you come across rare bazaars in your quests – they have the best stuff. Like dragon cubs. Always buy those.) More and more specialized units also need more and more The more specialized resources, which you have to buy from the market and retrieve from mines and villages during missions: gems for crafting mages, horses for cavalry, iron for infantry, and the rarer resources – sunstone, obsidian – you get the higher the career tree.

Apocalypse again

Nor is there a world lacking to explore. There are 30 core quests, a handful of side quests, an arena system to compete for rewards, and an endless training mode coming soon. There’s also an overblown bombastic tale that goes with it all: your classic half-apocalyptic apocalypse and the divinely chosen messiah stuff that comes with it. Your main hero talks between missions and forms family or romantic bonds, showing some personality, though this feature is pretty bland compared to other games. Don’t expect a full-fledged dating sim here in modern Fire Emblem, just a dialogue tree you can click through at your leisure.

(Image credit: Free Games)

The story isn’t too complicated or adult, but it’s not bad enough to distract from the actual play. It’s important to point out that this isn’t the genre that many players choose for fine characterization and poignant storytelling, and for all the mechanical innovations you won’t find here either. The loop is to manage your army, read some stories, fight, read more, then manage your army again.

This doesn’t always execute perfectly. Sometimes the story steps in, taking away units for some quests or limiting how much power you can take – which is well done here, but a minor issue for many. There’s also a glaring failure to fuse the story and mechanics across several parts by employing a similar strategy game trope. Things like using boring goals in forced-fail missions, or forcing you to perform extremely one-sided missions that you can’t fail.

It’s all reflected in bright, cheerful pixel art in combat, and softer static portraits in dialogue. The pixel art is actually particularly good and really packs a lot of character and energy into a very small space. On top of it all is a cheerful soundtrack, and while it’s a bit thin, the tracks are really good – they capture the mood pretty well.

turn to tactics

But you’re here for tactics, and that’s where Symphony of War: The Legend of Nephilim shines. Built an army with what you can and can’t afford, using the commander you have, you must now bring it to the battlefield. Each mission has a squad deployment limit, usually ranging from 5 to a total of 20 in the late game. On the battlefield, you have targets to capture, challenges to try, and resources to loot from mines. Adhering to strict turn restrictions, eliminating key enemies and completing these bonus objectives will allow you to increase your faction rank – more on that later.

(Image credit: Free Games)

On the surface, this is very simple grid-based combat. A square is a move vertically or horizontally, there are no diagonals, and each squad’s move is determined by its majority composition. A squad of mostly light infantry can ignore terrain penalties and attack from cover for an ambush bonus, while cavalry can charge in open terrain to inflict a morale-shattering shock, while heavy infantry don’t do any good, they do provide the back The units provide additional defense they are on the squad layout grid…

Oh sorry, we’re talking about squad building again, aren’t we? no way. These two parts of the symphony are so thoroughly and happily connected.

As your squad attacks enemies on the battlefield map, we jump into close quarters combat with two rounds of alternating attacks: attackers first, defenders second. Attacks like ambush rob the enemy of their first attack. Most mages’ attacks take time to charge, so they do nothing in the first round and unleash a powerful explosion in the second. Gunpowder units fire in the first round, but cannot fire again in the second round. In short, it’s an automatic battle where your melee units attack enemies in front of them on a grid, ranged units choose targets of opportunity, and specialized units like healers, dragons, rogues, and mages take turns doing their thing.

Notable Battlegrounds

A wider range of tactical options come into play in combat, revolving around terrain, unit types, and morale. You might attack from the hills to extend your range, stay in the woods to provide cover for the archers, or stick to the open to avoid ambushing enemy light squads. I’m a big fan of using tough knight units in the open, only two spaces from a forest or hill, and then when the enemy puts themselves between my knights and the terrain, they’re ambushed by light squads attacking from the woods. Of course , I have to pay attention to the morale of those knights, because the low morale of the surrounded unit will cause it to take more damage, and the high morale will sometimes give the unit extra attack.

(Image credit: Free Games)

In addition to basic combat, you can use specific tactical choices: attack styles, such as attacking to deal more damage but take more damage, or target enemy leaders to damage their morale. They’re all interesting choices, a strategy game’s bread and butter, but the funniest of them all opens up missions that allow you to try and force your enemies to surrender.

Enemies with low morale, while at a disadvantage, can be given this option. If they accept it, they’ll be wiped from the battlefield instantly, and you’ll get extra faction rank and gold after the mission, no matter what HP. If they don’t accept you will be caught, they will attack first and you will lose the following round. This is absolutely brilliant, not just mechanical, but storytelling: you’re good people, you fight mercifully, and you get a mechanical reward for it.

(Image credit: Free Games)

Between missions, you are in charge of all squad building and management, but you also build your army in other ways. Faction XP Stars allow you to unlock new technologies that can be as mundane as killing enemy leaders to increase morale damage, as well as having gunpowder units fire twice in a battle or unlock new units like dragon knights Just as revolutionary. If you’re like me, you’ll easily spend as much time adjusting, planning, and optimizing your army as you would actually fighting it.

This is excellent. At the heart of the genre is enjoying the subtle interactions between game mechanics, customizing characters, and tweaking their equipment lists. When I’m halfway through the game thinking I’ll explore some build options next time, it doesn’t matter if the story isn’t the best. I’m not even done, I know I’ll play it again.

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Bart Thompson
Bart is esports.com.tn's List Writer . He is from Houston, Texas, and is currently pursuing a bachelor's degree in creative writing, majoring in non-fiction writing. He likes to play The Elder Scrolls Online and learn everything about The Elder Scrolls series.