Developed by 40 Giants Entertainment and Published by 1C Online Games 505, Reverie Knights Tactics is the new strategy RPG on the block. Having played a few other 1C titles like Fell Seal which I loved, Deep sky derelicts which was ok and Kings Bounty 2 which I didn’t get on with I was intrigued to see this offering. I am a big fan of tactics based games from the highly tricky Xcom to lengthy final fantasy tactics and this resembles a lighter version of the latter.
The Story centres around Aurora who is a devout follower of the god Tanah-Toh. They focus on history and magical artifacts but are about sharing knowledge and wisdom. Their followers are often sent on dangerous quests/pilgrimages to recover lost knowledge. News that the Elven city Lennorian has been sacked and overrun by the goblins the elves once coexisted with but were since warring with after they were banished, has reached other lands. The goblins have captured the elven princess and taken over the city and slaughtered the elves. The followers of Tannah-Toh are sent to scout the city to recover what elven knowledge is left. The first party sent contains Aurora’s father and it is discovered they are captured by the goblins. So Aurora then sets up her expedition to rescue her father’s expedition and that is where you must decide the outcome.
You are given a nicely drawn intro followed by a decent tutorial of how the game is played. You play on an isometric grid and your movement and skills come at the cost of action points which each character always has 2. Movement can either consume one action point or two depending on how far you want to move. Some stronger skill moves cost the whole two action points to use. It is turn-based and your party will always go first unless you are ambushed which doesn’t happen often. The game has a difficulty option to choose from and doing so will be the difference between your party auto-healing after every battle or not and you have to use all healing items you can find to restore mana and health. There is also decision making elements in the game that have a small influence on how the story plays out but it does make for some intrigue on how the story plays out on the other options for some replay value.
There are also some minigames/puzzles that are scattered around which seem a bit out of place and I found some quite annoying. There is a lockpick puzzle that reminds of the game lights out where you have to get all the locks the same height but each button you push moves different pins so you have to work out the pattern which can either take a long time or you might just fluke your way through it. There is a memory pattern minigame which wasn’t too bad and there was a right stinker towards the end of the game where you have direct magical currents to form a certain pattern but there was little to no explanation to what you had to do. Some people like these kinds of challenging puzzles but it probably took me about 40 minutes just to do this puzzle which felt unnecessarily tricky and out of place to the rest of the game.
As for the characters in the game they are quite nicely drawn but nothing breathtaking. The different areas are quite nicely drawn too but some areas do look much better than others. The main characters are uniquely different and seem interesting enough but there isn’t much fleshing out of their backstories. You have Aurora who is following in her father’s footsteps as a servant of Tanah-Toh, Brigadine who seems like a clumsy knight but is Auroras best friend. Fren who joins your party early on who is your elf guide hellbent on revenge on the goblins and Hellaron which is a living automaton artefact of Tannah-toh who joins you about halfway through the game.
The game interestingly handles progression. Aside from normal experience which you gain by winning battles, there are objectives on each battle to help you earn a type of knowledge called cogni. These objectives can be from killing an enemy in a certain way, opening chests or breaking some of the obstacles on the field. When you level up from experience you sometimes get to choose between 2 skills so you can choose what suits how you play. You also get to put an attribute point against the 3 main stats might, finesse and defence which influence your skills and how much damage you give or receive. The cogni you earn can be used to craft equipment which can be placed in each of any characters 3 equipment slots for some boosts. Weirdly there is a very minor hidden objects element of the game has you visit different screens you can click on certain items to collect them like mushrooms and other items which restore your health and mana in some way. There is also a crafting element for healing items which if you play on the standard difficulty you will have to make the most of as this game does have some mean difficulty spikes. Mainly because Hellaron the automaton is the healer of the group and he doesn’t come until a bit later in the game.
In total, the game has about 10 hours worth of content which is a nice size for a game like this. The battles are sometimes not different enough and can get a bit repetitive so a shorter length probably helps not overstay its welcome. The story choices do happen quite a bit in the game but I am not sure of the impact they have on the game and after about 75% of the game, it seemed my personality choice was fixed and I couldn’t select any other option. But it does still seem intriguing and offers some replay value.
Conclusion
Reverie Knights Tactics is a decent attempt at a strategy RPG. I found the combat quite similar to the publishers other game Fell Seal but not as complex or interesting. The story had potential but it lacked too much content so you didn’t get the background of the setting or the characters. But for 10 hours it’s still a fun playthrough if you enjoy this style of game but those puzzles will frustrate you.
This game was reviewed based on Xbox One review code, using an Xbox Series S|X console. All of the opinions and insights here are subject to that version. Game provided by publisher.
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