Remember the first time you ever saw Battle
Chess? I recall fiddling with that game for hours to setup fights
between each unit so that I could see the animations for all possible
combinations of opponents. Eventually, though the game lost its allure
and was just another chess game. Fantasy Wars is much the same.
Fantasy Wars is a turn based strategy game set on
a traditional war gaming hex field. The combat area is further
comprised of terrain features like rivers and hills and plains that
impart specific bonuses or penalties to various units. For example
mounted cavalry do much better on the plains than they do in hills and
the scout unit, called Rangers, does much better in forests than out in
the open. As the overall tactical genius in command of your army you
are able to scroll the map and zoom in and out to make your plans.
Enemy units that are not in line of sight of one of your units, though,
are hidden from view.
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A computer golf style flyby of the battlefield before the mission begins
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My men! They are ALL giants!
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The visuals of the game follow a distinctive and colorful style.
Units and terrain both are rendered in bright almost cartoon like
vividness. Zooming out from the map your units take on the form of one
large character icon while zooming in shows you each member of the
squads in detail. There are a significant variety of unit types and
learning how to use them effectively is critical to succeeding in the
game especially at higher difficulty levels and towards the end of each
of the three included campaigns. Mounted units gain bonuses for
attacking and then retreating, halberdiers are better at defending a
position than trying to take a new one, and ranged units are terrible
when exposed to hand to hand combat but from the second rank can
support your other units with devastatingly accurate fire.
The
opponent AI is rarely a challenge for well thought out tactics. It was
not uncommon to finish a mission without having lost a single unit
while devastating the enemies. Enemy AI is predictable in which of
your units it will attack first and in what way – making it very simple
to setup traps to destroy them. When units are severely damaged or
frightened they will attempt to retreat from battle. Unfortunately,
the AI manages both player and computer retreats, often completely
boneheaded moves, towards another enemy units. Usually when I lost a
unit it was because of the horrendous direction they retreated in.
The
ambient sounds and music for Fantasy Wars are reasonably pleasant. The
hurrahs from victorious units are repetitive but not annoying. The
music is largely understated orchestral parts and is thankfully not
incessant. The soundtrack is primarily noticeable during the menus and
loading screens. Eventually, I turned off the games music and played
my own in the background. The voice acting for the campaigns is
nothing spectacular yet it also doesn’t detract much from the game.
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Zooming in shows each member of a particular unit.
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An army runs on its resources – in this case gold to buy more units.
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The tutorials are sufficient to teach you the basics of Fantasy
Wars and yet short enough not to get boring. Most of the missions are
interesting exercises in tactical deployment and movement – but some
missions are set up as puzzles where you have to reload the mission
multiple times to find the correct solution. One mission required you
to navigate eagles from one side of the battlefield to the other over
armies strangely heavy on enemy archers before you were allowed to
deploy your own troops and begin the mission. The few missions like
this detract from the overall quality of the game.
I found no
crash bugs and very few flaws. Some units are hard to locate and even
turned invisible a few times, but zooming in makes them selectable
again – or you can choose to select them from the game interface bar at
the bottom. Some of the scripted moments in a few missions were very
puzzling and left me wondering what the heck they were talking
about. The interface is a little confusing at first as you try to
learn how to recognize different units from each other and which unit
has a move or an attack still to use. It is also easy to accidentally
select the wrong unit or click on the wrong hex grid resulting in an
action you did not want.
One particularly nice feature of the
game is the auto save mechanism. Fantasy Wars will save the game at
the start of each mission, at the end of each mission at the start of
each round. In order to keep from generating millions of these saves
they are reused which gives you a save from the end of the last
mission, at the start of the current mission and the previous two
rounds you have just played. This gives you a nice option to recover
from misclicks or from minor tactical blunders. More serious blunders
will require you to start the mission over and try again. Fantasy Wars
also features an undo button that is sometimes selectable. This allows
you to recover from a move you didn’t mean to make, but it’s not always
available. Units that are too close to an enemy unit will not be able
to undo the move that brought them into contact and the only options
are to play it out or reload.
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The story is presented in pre-mission briefings and in occasional scripted moments.
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Eat fiery death goblin riders!
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All in all Fantasy Wars is a solid game.
It’s very pleasant to play, it’s easy to both play briefly and walk
away, or to completely lose track of time in the “just-one-more-turn”
scenario. The graphics are pleasing and enjoyable, the AI is
frustratingly dumb at times and nothing stands out as a jarring or
grating game. It’s solidly average. If you are looking for a fun turn
based strategy game pick this one up – it won’t change your world but
you won’t regret your time with it. If you are not a turn based
strategy fan give it a miss, Fantasy Wars isn’t going to make any
converts but it won’t drive away anyone who enjoys the genre either.
Top gaming moment: It’s an undeniable hoot to watch the little men attack the monsters in an epic version of the old Battle Chess thrill.
