Live By The Sword: Tactics Review (Xbox One)

STAFF REVIEW of Live By The Sword: Tactics (Xbox One)

Tuesday, December 6, 2022.
by Adam Dileva

When you think of Tactical RPG’s (TRPG), I bet you the first that comes to mind is Ogre Battle, Fire Emblem, Disgaea, Banner Saga or Final Fantasy Tactics, still the benchmark of the genre in my opinion. While there’s a decent one every so often, it’s not a generally overcrowded genre, so when a new game does release, I tend to take notice. Developed by Labrador Studios, Live By The Sword: Tactics is attempting to recreate the classic retro style of TRPG’s, but they’ve actually tried something new, adding their own spin on a tried and true formula. While some might not agree with the design and mechanic choices, I can appreciate that they’ve done something different and not necessarily the norm.

There’s a serious conflict breaking out, and it falls on a pair of brothers to do what they can to defend their lands and do right by their young King. With a campaign that only lasts about 4 to 5 hours or so, I really can’t speak much more about the narrative without fear of spoiling the thin content as it is. It sounds like a cliché trope we’ve all played countless times before, and while it’s somewhat interesting in the beginning, the gameplay is so slow that you’ll eventually just want to get through the missions to get it over with.

I initially was intrigued by the story, but there’s really not much there aside from ‘fighting the bad guys’. This would have been a pass if the cast of characters was interesting and had some development, but there’s really only one or two with some semblance of a personality. Near the end it does wrap up a bit better, but the big middle portion is generally forgettable when it comes to story and characters, especially when you can see a twist coming well before the reveal. After each mission you get a new cutscene and that’s really your only reward for being successful. Because there’s no leveling up, gear or any other sort of progression, that’s where my biggest concern is when it comes to longevity and replayability.

The opening tutorial does a decent job at explaining the basics, teaching you all of the core mechanics, how you can only go up or down one level at a time on the grid map, and that you’ll need line of sight to launch your attacks and abilities. There’s no difficulty options as this is a more ‘hand-crafted’ experience, battles designed specifically for each encounter. Naturally battles become slightly more challenging as you progress through the three chapters, none of which were all too challenging.

Did you notice above that I mentioned that there’s no experience gain or gear? That’s right, there’s no traditional progression in place here. This is one of its main selling points, and I never really thought anything about it, but then it got me thinking because I am exactly the type of TRPG player that would grind for hours to level up my characters and get gear to make the latter half of the game easier. Here, you simply have to be reliant on your strategy and skills. No relying on overpowered gear or levels, forcing you to think strategically instead.

This also means that your characters have set skills, attack power, abilities and health. There’s no way to improve these in any way. I’ll admit, it’s a drastic change that I didn’t initially realize the weight of the design decision. Some will enjoy this element, but without any progression aside from story, there’s not much in the Story mode to keep you coming back.

That said, there are some other modes to help with its longevity after the brief campaign; Adventure Mode and Tactician Mode. Adventure mode is the more interesting of the two. Here is a roguelike take on the genre where randomness is a constant. You start with three random characters, random abilities and are tasked with trying to defeat enemies in increasingly harder challenges. Winning battles earns you treasure which can be used to purchase new characters, power-ups, swap skills and more. Oh, and death is permanent, so might want to use some of that to heal up between fights too. Tactician Mode is basically preset battles with interesting map layouts or win objectives, almost like a puzzle to solve.

Most battles take place on a 10x10 grid, having your team of 3 or 5 taking on generally an equal amount of enemies. You’ll only have a couple party members in the beginning, eventually unlocking more for a total of 7. Most battles only allow you to take 5 party members into battle, so you’ll need to decide which are best for the situations and map layout. Each unit has a basic attack and 6 other abilities, though you’re only able to choose four of the abilities for each battle.

The 7 classes are Warrior, Archer, Alchemist, Medic, Wizard, Brawler and Assassin. There’s no leveling up remember, so their abilities are already set, you’re simply choosing which 4 they each can bring into each battle. Certain maps are better suited for specific classes. For example, the Archer and Wizard can attack from range, good if there’s some different heights on the map they can perch on. For a denser map with trees and rocks, keeping line of sight might be difficult for them, so the more melee based characters might be a better choice.

Each character is unique in its own way with their abilities, and once you figure out how to best utilize them, it becomes much easier to win battles. For example, I hated using the wizard because even though he is able to attack areas at once, he can also hurt your team as well, so I found it difficult to use. Also, no one character or class is overpowered. They seem quite balanced. Even though the Assassin can deal more damage, they have less health to make up for it.

Every ability also has a cooldown period, usually two or three turns before it can be used again, so you can’t simply spam the best attacks each turn. Even though you can end your turn early, this won’t move you up the turn list, instead healing you for 1 health if you don’t attack or use an ability. With most characters only having a dozen health or so, this is substantial.

As for enemy variety, there really isn’t any. You’ll face squads of the same bandits, pirates and thieves over and over again. There’s the odd special ‘boss’ now and then, but for the most part there’s only a few types of enemies, adding to the repetitious nature. Where I find a big gap is that you go into every battle blind. You don’t know what abilities or skills enemies have, making it impossible to strategize how to place your characters and such without trial and error.

The largest frustration is simply how slow the gameplay flows. There’s no fast-forward and each animation takes a few seconds to finish each time before moving onto the next character’s turn. Eventually the amount of strategy simply comes down to ganging up against one enemy at a time to dwindle their numbers. The AI is seemingly random, moving from beside my character with only 1 or 2 health left and go attack someone elsewhere that’s full health.

Surprisingly, there’s also a multiplayer mode included as well. Here two players can compete against one another in local or online battles. These are simply just skirmishes, but simply having the option to battle against friends online is welcome and might be just enough to keep it installed after the quick Story Mode.

The sprite work is pretty decent for its aesthetic. Trying to recreate classic TRPG style, there’s no doubt of what genre Live by the Sword: Tactics falls into. Each character also gets a drawn character panel when it’s their turn, but for the environments, there’s not all that much variety, using the same tiles repeatedly. There’s some subtle details I enjoyed, like having characters kneeling when very low on health to indicate so. The repeated enemies make it feel tiresome though.

The music and audio is decent even though there’s no voiced dialogue. While the soundtrack is decent, there’s simply not enough variety, and because some of the levels drag on, you’ll surely hear them on repeat over time. With some variety and more tracks I probably wouldn’t have even noticed. While developers have been upfront about the content roadmap of what’s being improved and added, I have to base my thoughts at the time of writing. There’s some good additions coming though, like the ability to create custom battlefields and battle speed increases.

The design choice to not have any character progression is an interesting choice that I’m not sure if it’s paid off or not. While it is a unique way to force players to play more strategically, you unlock all the characters quite quickly, and from that point on there’s no more variety really, as I simply stuck with the same 5 characters basically every battle. The current asking price of $29.99 CAD feels a little steep given the brief Story Mode and lack of any character progression, but those looking for a more streamlined TRPG might enjoy the forced strategic play, even if there’s not much variety overall.

**Live by the Sword: Tactics was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**

Overall: 6.0 / 10
Gameplay: 5.0 / 10
Visuals: 7.0 / 10
Sound: 6.0 / 10

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STAFF REVIEW of Live By The Sword: Tactics (Xbox One)

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