Battle Chasers: Nightwar for Switch - our review

Back to the 90's.

Today we consider the game developed by the boys of Airship Syndicate, whose studio was founded by two former members of the Vigil Games, the house that brought us the adventures of "War" and "Death" by Darksiders, and published by THQ Nordic.

The famous American cartoonist is part of the studio Joe Madureira (Joe Mad for his friends), who after having gained an extraordinary experience both in the artistic and video playful fields, has decided to throw himself headlong into this new project.

This allowed him to bring to the fore a very famous old work of his towards the end of the 90s, which unfortunately remained unfinished.

We are indeed talking about Battle Chasers, comic published by Cliffhanger (label founded by Madureira, Scott Campbell e Humberto Ramos) whose existence was troubled, which led to the premature conclusion with the ninth issue.

In fact, the series never really had an end, after a long time spent by the artist mulling over whether to resume or not, at that point our Joe has decided to translate subsequent releases into the world of video gamespicking up right where he left off.

Development

The guys of Airship Syndicate to finance their project they have partly resorted to a campaign Kickstarter, which allowed them to reach the figure of 856.354 dollars.

The game was released in'October 2017 to Pc, Mac, Ps4 and Xbox One. While Nintendo Switch version came out a couple of weeks ago (May 15).

Screen

The game is about the adventures of Gully, Calibretto, Garrison, Knolan e Red Monika.

The first is a young girl with two big magic gloves in search of her father, the second is a war golem with a heart of gold, the third is a swordsman.

The other two members of the team are a wise old wizard and a beautiful villain (defined by Mad himself as the Jessica Rabbit of that world).

While the crew was intent on continuing their journey, they are attacked by a group of bandits, the latter intent on finding a rich vein of mana around. Some of the protagonists are thrown from the aircraft and fall into one mysterious island.

gameplay

The game begins with the young woman Gully intent in the search for his companions, in the first minutes of the game we find immediately Bretto (nickname of Calibretto), kicking off what is in effect a tutorial which allows us to better understand the dynamics of the game.

Let's start with the aspect that certainly impacts at first sight: the view, Is in fact isometric, in Diablo style so to speak. However, this only matters when we are intent on exploring a dungeon, once outside, the group will move to a map 2D marked with various points of interest (villages, cities, camps, dungeons, etc.).

Combat

The fights can take place in two main ways, if you impact with the enemies in the various dungeons, or if in front of your path outside them you walk near a "cloud" that indicates an imminent clash.

The game like the majority of JRPG, provides for a turn-based combat, in fact you will have to face the enemies with the use of strategy, upgrades or at worst running away.

On your left you will see a vertical bar with the icons of all the characters participating in the fight that will indicate the sequence of turns.

As for our heroes, in the lower left you can see theirs health (green bar) and how much mana have available (blue bar). Each has magical and non-magical attacks based on its ability, each non-magical attack launched will produce a small red bar next to the mana, this addition is called (overcharge) and will allow you to use magic attacks without using mana.

Also at the bottom left there is a bar for the moves "Incredibly “, You will make it grow every time you land an attack. Each member of the group has his own move and launching one of these blows will also lead to an animation of sure visual impact.

As you can see from the image above, the item menu is easy to access and will allow you to use it promptly healing potions o other upgrades (logically this choice will cost you a turn).

Each character has their own skills, so during the fight you will have to use them like real strategists, for example Calibretto has healing abilities (or healing for purists) and will be of great help in very critical situations.

In case you don't have enough energy o mana to face a tiring battle, you can recover everything by resting in an inn. Among other things, choosing this option will unlock new interactions between the characters.

I can't grind more ...

You will realize after some time spent in the company of this valuable title, that the difficulty is excessively unbalanced, In fact you will soon notice to be unsuitable and weak.

This will lead you to resort to the practice of grinding and then you'll have to go back to complete gods again dungeon or defeat all the enemies who will have the misfortune to stand against you.

Among other things, by resetting and redoing the dungeons you can get great rewards for upgrading the equipment of your characters.

Perhaps it is better to give oneself to the fish?

The deliberately provocative title hints at the presence of one in every explorable place small area dedicated to fishing. In fact, the developers have introduced a mini game dedicated to this pastime.

This mini game will not be completely useless and fruitless, In fact you can use the fish as a bargaining chip or for other uses to which I leave you the pleasure of discovery.

The same fishing rods and lures can be upgraded by finding or buying new ones.

Aesthetic aspect

Battle Chasers unlike other titles it can count in a remarkable artistic sector, in fact it is visible from the first glance the mind and the pencil of Joe Mad, famous to the public for having given the touch of Japanese manga to western comics.

I dungeon which will be generated randomly, still have an impressive care, especially if we think about the fact that they are random.

Soundtrack

The good level audio sector is joined by an excellent soundtrack, which makes every clash epic and a dubbing definitely done by professionals. Among other things, the same dialogues despite being stereotyped offer funny ideas.

The audio has not been dubbed in our language, but you will be used to it by now, while the subtitles have been translated.

We leave you a nice gallery with the review.