Don’t tell this Tale
Wartales is an open-world, tactical RPG when players will create and take control of a party of adventures. At the onset, players will choose their party’s background as well as each of the four characters classes. I thought this was really neat, because the customization goes deeper than looks. Players will choose why their band is together from a list of options that include things like running from a evil army commander or escorting a group of farmers to a new land. Each of these questions help to build the back story for your party of adventures but will also apply a buff and debuff to them as well. The debuffs mostly include things like movement speed, and carrying capacity and are easily overcome with some creative skill building.
MSRP: $39.99
Platforms: Switch (reviewed), Xbox, PC
Price I’d Pay: $19.99
After building your group, players are dropped into a pretty expansive world with no real goal. I don’t mind having complete freedom in a game, in fact I rather enjoy it but Wartales fails to explain quite a few of its complex gaming systems which add to frustration later in the game. For what felt like a lot more than my first few hours of gameplay I felt like I was just stumbling around in Wartales much like the Walking Dead’s er…Walkers. The lack of direction really hurts for those that aren’t accustomed to these types of games, but I will say that if players can survive the games systems will slowly but surely open themselves up to them, but I think this is a terrible practice. I shouldn’t have to play a game for 4 hours in order to understand the basics of said game.
Once players are in game and have adapted, they will find that Wartales has a lot of cool things going for it. Players are given a lot of choice to how encounters turn out, and at times it makes Wartales feel very reminiscent of a Dungeons & Dragons session. Not all encounters have to end in a test of strength either, in fact many of my encounters I choose the more diplomatic option simply because the rewards were greater. In one particular encounter my team stumbled across a plot to rob a nearby farmer. I could’ve chosen to join them, fight them or convince them to not go thru with the plan. The fact that joining them is an option is cool af honestly, but I chose to convince them otherwise; but this is just a small example of some of the quandaries that will present themselves to players.
Combat in Wartales is going to feel familiar to anyone who has played a tactical game like X-Com or even Baldur’s Gate 3. Players can move their units a finite number of spaces, and attack once per turn. There are bonus actions available just like in D&D which work off of Valor points. This shared resource can be replenished by meeting criteria in battle or by resting at an inn; again, similar to how a long rest in D&D will restore spells. Just like in most tactical games, positioning is going to be important here so having a tank character drawing aggro while a more attack focused combatant moves in for the flank is usually going to win the day. Party members will learn various skills and moves that can aid in combat as they level up; all in all, Wartales borrows things from tother games in the genre but ads in enough unique systems to make the combat feel its own.
Yall know me, well at least you do if you listen to the podcast (and if you’re not, you really should be because we have fun on there) so you know Wartales sounds like a game that I should love and I think if I played it on PC I would. But like I said in the beginning this is a game that the Switch is struggling to run. I ran into many, many crashes to the Switch dashboard which usually happened when I entered a new area for the first time. There is loads of stuttering as I move my troops across the world, which is surprising because the graphics seem paired down enough to be considered ‘switch friendly’ but these issues are nevertheless present. Even the load times into and out of combat will force players to look at a black screen.
The Nintendo Switch is an amazing system that can do some pretty amazing things, but at 6 years old it is struggling to keep up with modern games. Looking at recent releases like Mortal Kombat 1 and the state in which it launched is a great example of even with the best studios and intentions, sometimes the Switch just isn’t up to it. Sad to say that Wartales has also fallen victim to the aging system. As I said I think if I played this on PC my thoughts would be very different but as it stands no matter how much fun the actual gameplay was, dealing with all the issues that the Switch version has just makes it not worth it. Long loading times, unstable framerates and constant crashes managed to steal all the fun out of this one, Wartales is a story best left untold.
Review copy of game provided by publisher.
