Reverie Knights Tactics Review (Xbox One)

STAFF REVIEW of Reverie Knights Tactics (Xbox One)

Friday, February 4, 2022.
by Adam Dileva

Depending on your age and era you grew up gaming, when a SRPG is mentioned, you probably have different titles that come to your head. Me, I instantly think of absolutely classics like Final Fantasy Tactics, Disgaea, Fell Seal: Arbiter’s Mark, Fire Emblem and Front Mission among others. The latest to enter the genre is Reverie Knights Tactics, developed by 40 Giants Entertainment and published by 1C Entertainment. While I may not have played every SRPG out there, the ones that I’ve enjoyed I’ve sunk countless hours into, so I was quite excited to see if Reverie Knights Tactics was going to scratch that itch.

Where’s there’s near endless games in the genre to play, each needs something special to stand out amongst the crowd. Reverie Knights Tactics has some interesting mechanics that we may have seen before, but puts together an entertaining SRPG game that I gladly saw the conclusion of, wanting more as the credits rolled. Depending on your skill, you can even make it very challenging, or enjoy a simpler story based mode instead that is much more forgiving in difficulty.

You are Aurora, a young woman who is on her way across the sea to the city of Lennorian, an elven city that was ambushed and taken over by goblins. The reason she sets sail into dangerous lands is because her father went there in search of something and has not made any contact in quite some time, so of course she becomes worried. You set forth on your journey alone, but will eventually have three other companions that help you along the way for varying reasons. It’s a tale that we’ve heard before, but the writing is decent enough to keep you interested until the credits roll.

Throughout your journey you’ll have decisions to make along the way, changing the outcome and relationships by the end. Instead of ‘Good’ vs ‘Evil’ choices, you have two different possibilities from Chaos and Order. Sure, it’s basically the same thing, but there are not only story changes that will happen based on your decisions, but skill unlocks as well.

Your party of four heroes are all distinct in their personality and skills, each fulfilling a specific role like tank, healer or dps. As you travel across the lands, each area will have different levels to take on enemies in battle, dungeons to explore, loot to find and puzzles to solve. There aren’t many puzzle sections, but most are a lockpicking minigame that was frustrating at times, but broke up the monotony.

As you win battles you’ll earn Cogni, a currency used to purchase certain equipment that adds bonuses to stats. The better items cost more obviously, and each character can equip four different accessories. Each battle has a side list of bonus objectives to complete that are optional, but give bonus XP and Cogni to make the effort worth it.

These pieces of equipment will be vital for surviving, because if you’re not playing on the easier Story mode your health doesn’t refill after battles, so you’re going to have to rely on cooking food and topping up whenever possible. I’m glad that there were two difficulty options, as I don’t think I would have enjoyed it as much if I had to constantly go back to camp each time to get more healing items.

Each character has three different stats that you can put a point into when you level up, customizing them however you want. Keep in mind though that you won’t be able to max out their stats, not even halfway, so choose wisely. You’re also unable to respec, so if you end up putting points into a stat you realize probably isn’t the best for that character, you’re basically out of luck. While there’s no skill tree present, certain levels will allow you to choose from one of two skills presented, allowing you to customize your characters to synergize with one another, but each is only able to equip three skills at a time. Later on, depending on your Chaos or Order choices, you’ll also get skill choices based on these that are more unique.

Battles take place on a grid with a typical isometric view that you’d find in many other SRPG’s and is turn based. Beginning of most battles has a preparation phase where you can place your units in their desired starting positions, but it’s only by a tile or two difference, so I don’t see much point in doing so other than who you want in the middle or edges of the starting spots. then comes the battle phase where the bulk of the gameplay will take place.

You have two Action Points (AP), so you can generally either move with one point and then act with another. Some abilities require two AP to be used or can be a stronger version if so, so there’s a bunch of strategy to be had based on what’s happening and your playstyle. Once each of your characters take their turns then enemy team gets to take theirs, rinse and repeat until there’s only one team left standing.

There’s a plenty of strategies to use that even revolves around how to use each battleground, as there are plenty of traps and other obstacles that can be used to your advantage if you’re clever. Not only are there exploding barrels, but poison, fire and other nodes that can be exploited to defeat your enemies. You’ll need to think ahead, not only of how to attack, but which direction to defend to prevent backstabs and to not be within trap distance if possible. This can be frustrating at times though without the ability to rotate the map in any way, which I found odd.

Each character has their own playstyles and unique special move once their Focus meter fills. These special moves are generally your most powerful moves, so it’s best to use them when needed or against a stack of enemies or a boss. If you happen to have two or more of your characters surrounding an enemy you can also choose to do a Team Attack, where both, three or all four will combine their attacks for extra damage. This adds another layer of strategy and planning ahead your moves if you want to be the most successful.

A few things that I found frustrating was that most moves don’t get explained the best in descriptions and the icons for status effects are so small it’s hard to tell what you’re inflicted with. Even worse, if you accidently move to a grid square you didn’t meant to, or miscalculated how far away to be for a certain skill, there’s no way to undo it or take it back. I can’t count the times I moved a character, thinking I was in range for one of my skills only to find out I was off by a square, so you don’t get that preview ahead of time.

If you don’t play on the Story Mode that replenishes your health after each battle, it’s quite a chore and pain to have to do so between each battle. You’ll need to craft and use items constantly to stay alive. Worse is you don’t even get healed for ‘free’ if you go back to camp either, so I found Story Mode much more enjoyable without the chore work.

Lastly, the animations and gameplay happens at a very slow pace, which I understand for a tactics based game like this, but it’s painfully slow. There’s an option to turn up the animation times by about double, but it’s something you have to remember to toggle every single battle. Why this isn’t simply a default or option that can persist I’m not sure, but it was annoying.

I quite enjoyed the hand drawn art and animations, along with the bright and colorful visuals, Reverie Knights Tactics has a great aesthetic that looks like a graphic novel come to life. Sometimes the maps can be a bit cluttered as I’ve not seen something behind an object or the tile I’m on shows that an attack is coming next move but I wasn’t able to notice it clearly. Sadly there’s no voicing for all of the dialogue, but the instrumental soundtrack is done quite well, especially the opening theme that’s beautiful.

The campaign took me about 10 or so hours to complete, and I did every side mission and quest that was available to me. There’s of course a second playthrough warranted if you want to see both outcomes for the Chaos and Order dialogue choices, and given the $31.99 asking price, it might be a good idea to get the most out of your purchase.

It’s been a while since I’ve had a great tactics style game that I couldn’t put down, but Reverie Knights Tactics did just that, having me wanting to play ‘just one more battle’. While not the most unique SRPG out there, it’s a solid experience overall and even leaves itself up for a hopeful sequel down the road even if its ending happens abruptly.

**Reverie Knights Tactics was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**

Overall: 7.8 / 10
Gameplay: 8.0 / 10
Visuals: 8.5 / 10
Sound: 7.0 / 10

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STAFF REVIEW of Reverie Knights Tactics (Xbox One)

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