Battle Chasers: Nightwar

While Final Fantasy and Fallout may have abandoned their turned-based roots in favour of real-time alternatives, there's still something alluring and timeless about classic turn-based RPGs. Airship Syndicate's Battle Chasers: Nightwar works to tap into this golden era of gaming whilst also introducing elements of exploration and dungeon crawling. The project spanned from the classic 1998 comic of the same name, shattered its Kickstarter goal of $500,000 USD in 2015, and is out now on PC, PS4, and Xbox One (with a Nintendo Switch version on the way).

While it has been adapted from the comic of the same name, Battle Chasers is self-contained with a story completely independent of its source material. This presents no barriers to newcomers and also brings to life an iconic cast of heroes and a stylised world many older fans are deeply familiar with. You start by commanding three characters - Garrison, Gully and Callibretto - who find themselves separated after their airship is shot out of the sky.

You'll advance to new dungeons and towns by traversing a board game-like overworld map, which is divided into individual tiles. The map is presented in a hand-drawn style and spans across multiple locales such as deserts, forests, and snowy peaks. Instead of encounters happening at random, you're shown which creatures you'll face if you're to stand on that particular tile. Knowing what faces you can be advantageous as paths are often branching, so you can choose what you'd like to face to earn valuable crafting resources. Along the way there are also hidden chests and loot stashes as well as optional objectives to complete.

Dungeons are randomly generated and brimming with swarms of enemies, deadly traps, and heaps of loot. Rotating blades and poison traps can reduce your health and also inflict status conditions which carry over to battle. It's here where you characters' dungeon abilities can be used. Garrion, for example, can sprint out of the path of projectiles; Gully can smash through obstructions; and Calibretto can heal your entire party. These moves only have a limited use and you'll find little opportunity to replenish them, so using them at the right times is crucial.

If you've already played a turn-based RPG you should know what to expect with regards to combat. Characters take it in turns to trade damage by dealing physical and magic attacks, working to slowly whittle down the other's health. That's not to say that Battle Chasers doesn't introduce its own share of mechanics, though. Overcharge is additional mana that expires beyond the current battle and is earnt by executing certain moves. There's also the burst meter, which lets you unleash game-changing abilities and is built up by healing, attacking, and by using consumables. Using your burst attack at the right moment is important, as it can completely sway a battle in your favour and requires a lengthy wait to replenish.

Battle Chasers: Nightwar also places a heavy emphasis on time. Physical attacks will allow you to strike instantly but have limited damage, whereas magic abilities can be more potent, but require time to charge. Along the left-hand side of the screen it displays which characters are set to attack and you're offered visual cues as to when your opponents are planning a powerful move. Essentially, combat boils down to reading your opponents; looking for opportunities to exploit their attack strategy and prevent yourself from getting into a vulnerable position.

There are also beast perks, which will give you advantages such as receiving extra damage resistance when fighting against a certain creature type. Within the Bestiary, the title's internal encyclopedia, it'll inform you what you need to achieve before receiving a certain perk. The more you defeat the more you'll learn about a creature's specific stats, weaknesses and resistances. The bestiary can also be accessed at a push of a button during combat, so there's no need to memorise all key information.

Leveling up your characters grants you perk skills, which can be assigned to your team to improve specific abilities. There are general upgrades you can employ like enhancing your base attack and crit stat as well as standalone abilities like receiving HP at the end of battles. You'll also unlock new abilities, dungeon abilities, and burst attacks by levelling up, so there's a constant sense of progression with your character. What's disappointing though is that once you've switch out a character they won't receive XP and level up outside battle. This either means that you'll have to constantly switch out members to ensure all they are all at a similar level or just abandon one completely.

Another difficulty that we encountered was that fleeing from battle felt near-impossible inside of dungeons. Battles are triggered by walking into enemies and after you've fled from battle they remain directly next to you. Not only that but loading screens before fights are often lengthy and kill the tension just as the battle music begins to gear up. Due to these flaws, we didn't see fleeing as a possibility and found ourselves trudging on through encounters trying to preserve our last scraps of health.

Battle Chaser's dazzling watercolour visuals are reminiscent of SuperGiant Game's Bastion and its cutscenes look as they were torn straight from the pages of the titular comic. The animations are also wonderfully detailed during battles; cave bats, for example, will drool and snarl their teeth at you, and your characters will become visibly more drained as they lose health. That's not to say that the presentation isn't without its flaws, however, as there are some cutscenes, usually with minor NPCs, where voice acting isn't present at all, which feels awfully jarring.

Airship Syndicate's debut is a stylish RPG which is lovingly crafted for fans of the '90s comic and is easily assessable for anyone unfamiliar with the source material. Battles are bracing due to an interesting emphasis on speed and the segments of dungeon crawling crossover wonderfully with the RPG-style gameplay. The frequent loading screens are frustrating as well as characters failing to level up outside of battle, but if you're craving a new turn-based RPG with plenty of personality, then Battle Chasers: Nightwar might just be for you.