Developer: Tortuga Team
Publisher: Tortuga Team
Rrp: £3.29 (Gog.com), £3.99 (Steam)
Released: 17th March 2014
Available on Steam and Gog.com
Played using: Mouse and Keyboard
You are a peaceful farmer when your village is attacked by brigands! Thankfully you survive the ordeal and start on a path of vengeance that is probably longer than you expected.
Welcome to Braveland, a turn based strategy game with RPG elements… Is there anything without RPG elements anymore? Anyway, Braveland is a mobile port, but thankfully it’s a mobile port without any micro-transactions in sight.
You start on a world map and move from point to point to progress, encountering friend and foe alike. As you wander the world map you will find several types encounters, these range from combat to shops and unit camps. Combat and its difficulty is indicated by a pair of crossed swords, ones that have a green glow mean they are easy, red with a skull means extremely difficult.
While on your travels you will be able to buy equipment in shops that you can equip to your character, this equipment will increase your stats and in turn make your units stronger.
In many ways this game attempts to ape the Heroes of Might and Magic series especially in the way it deals with its turn based combat. When in combat the map is has a overlay of hexagons which dictates where units can movement to. Each unit takes up one hexagon and can fight others in adjoining hexagons using normal attacks or special attacks (once they’ve been levelled up enough to use them). The exception to this rule is any ranged combatant who can shoot at anyone on the map.
After a certain point the game gives your character the ability to cast spells in combat. These spells can really change the tide of a battle but in order to power them your units have to sustain damage, so it’s a little bit of a toss up. Allow your units to suffer and cast high damage magic or avoid taking damage and keep your units healthy.
Like experience, money is gained through combat (although sometimes you can find chests around the world map with money in) with the amount varying depending on how difficult the battle was. At the end of every battle a screen will appear which will show you how much experience and money you’ve earned (after deducting the cost of reviving any injured units automatically).
The experience you acquire will level up your character increasing a stat such as Leadership or Fury, and giving you a choice of two stats to increase which will add a bonus to your units in combat. An increase in your Leadership means that the number of units your character can command has gone up. If Fury increases you start combat with more magical points to spend.
You can only have five active unit types in combat, as you progress through the game you will find further unit types and will need to swap out some units for others. There is a catch to this however, each unit is given a power rating (a little star on their portrait) and you can only allocate fifteen points. This means you can’t have every unit you find in your active army.
The aesthetic of the game is clean, simple and strangely childlike, there is something a little strange about seeing you units smiling even as they get cut down. It’s a very serviceable design choice which shows its mobile roots. Not a bad thing especially as the are no micro-transactions.
The game is very short with myself completing it in just over four hours overall, this is somewhat expected though as the game is a mobile port and they don’t exactly DO long games. There is a survival mode (unlocked once you’ve completed a set amount of the campaign) but even that doesn’t add much to the replay value. So yeah, it’s a recommendation from me but only to those who like their strategy games.
If you liked that then perhaps try;
The Heroes of Might and Magic series
Endless Legend
The Banner Saga
