BRIGANDINE ABYSS

This may get verbose and it's going to look misleading due to my Steam time not reflecting the actual time I played. (Or my achievements being mismatched for those on my friends list that can see it.) I review this from a perspective of a non-Brigandine fan and just as an SRPG player in general. I'd give the game about a 5 out of 10 IF I had to rate it this way and in terms of Steam, that puts me in the Not Recommended category. Setting aside the description already expressed in the store page: Things I enjoy: #A1: The strategy on the greater scale of how you resolve each Story Mode, Mission Mode, and the battles presented within. Though on Hard difficulty, this may favor a very aggressive and more optimized level of play such as invading 2~4 bases per season, positioning troops just right to mitigate casualties, leveraging the element weaknesses, leveraging the Rally mechanic, taking advantage of the Zone of Control mechanics, safely milking EXP where you can, but sometimes mitigating risk to your units by taking out a leader sooner. As a benchmark, I play without mods. #A2: The potential for a lot of character and faction lore with events. These get filed away in the game's gallery/extras section. #A3: Unreal Engine 5 letting mods mostly get plopped into the PAKS folder, whether that's language translation or fixing some issues with the English localization (e.g., Expunging Execution or not having troops in the base during a Quest screen), adjusting the enemy's auto level EXP, opening access to the shop, or adjusting the story mode's event calendars (however, at present, requires a follow-up to patch the save). #A4. Can save in battle and have 20 slots before messing with your AppData. Things I mostly didn't enjoy and/or thought could be improved: #B1: The writing. This isn't an English localization thing, it's even in Japanese. There's a lot of exposition inserted in there for the reader's sake that is unnatural in the scope of the characters. And there is writing that just looks and sounds bad. The equivalent of: "As you know, I am your descendant. So it's my responsibility." (And you'd think the person they're talking to knows that?) "We have to save Y! She's my girlfriend, you know?" "Do your worst, Garnet! GAAARNEEET!!!" (This isn't a separate dialogue beat where they've clashed in combat yet or charging up a special move. They're still talking and screaming each others' names.) #B2: Mixed voice acting performance despite their work history and experience. Some of this marred by the writing like the screaming Braen and Garnet writing. Some is from questionable voice direction given to an actor for how their character should present. On the up side, you have characters like Largo and Weiss that do a great job. Then you have the narrator and Chaossolus who have seen much better days. #B3: About 1100ish spoken lines (not monster grunts or wordless screams) in the game that do not have subtitles. #B4: 80+ characters with unique portraits. 25 of them are faction leaders. Out of them, 12 of those characters have 3D models that look like them. The other 60+ use generic models, including the faction leaders. And they share the same palette colors as the generic mercenaries you can hire. #B5: A lot of the character development and lore is disconnected from the playthrough itself. Characters who know each other or have backgrounds that could be explored do not interact with other. And you may not necessarily know it unless the CPU is having those characters butt heads or reading the Bios or gallery afterwards to discover the connections. #B6: The CPU's battle tactics could have used some work. For a player trying to win, this can be exploited to some degree. You have units that are immune to status effects or can make their commander immune to status effects. And then you have the CPU who instead of using a high damage magic attack against a low defense unit, they decide to afflict a status effect that has 0% chance of landing. Or similarly, you have enemy commanders who are healers or casters rushing ahead of their units to expose themselves. And if they're defeated, they and all their troops will flee, so it's a reckless move. #B7: Invasion and defensive battle loops coupled with CPU operating under different rules + Story mode time limit + CPU auto leveling. The first two alone suck, combined with the last three, it's a miserable experience. For example, if you are invading two bases that belong to the same faction, if you kick the snot out of the first base's heroes, you can see those same heroes show up in the second base with all of their troop that you defeated in the first invasion. But if that happened to the player, your monsters would be dead without a chance to reassign them. Or you try to invade an enemy base and they're invading you. On Hard difficulty, they have +20% more stats, so they tend to win the right-to-attack you instead. But defeating them doesn't set them back enough for you to win the right-to-attack next turn/season. Even if you surround the base, the game only let's you invade from one angle. So you're failing to invade them in the meantime #B8: CPU can spontaneously invade you without warning. During the game, there are lines that indicate the likelihood of a CPU invading your location. The CPU can ignore that and spontaneously invade you if the base's defenders change during the invasion phase. e.g., if you're invading a territory, if you retreat/fail, the CPU doesn't invade, because your invading party is back at the base. If you succeed in the invasion, if the remaining defenders are too weak, the CPU decides to invade at that point. #B9: Story and presentation overall, I thought was fairly weak, especially in the Mission Modes I've played so far. Things I didn't mind by itself: #C1: The CPU auto levels. I expect this in an SRPG with factions like this. There's a mod on moddb to address this as of patch 1.01. And even though I made the mod, I chose not to play with this just to see where I would end up with the default rules on Hard difficulty. #C2: Story Mode on Hard difficulty seems to favor the player being aggressive on multiple fronts while having minimal to no casualties. It's not for players that want to take their time to figure things out, experiment and expect success, or players that don't actually want story to determine what places they can or can't conquer. #C3: I didn't mind the turn limit / season limit for Story Mode. And Mission Mode gives me a chance to play as some of those factions without the same base / fort restrictions. For others, 30 turns (minus 5) to conquer 28 bases is going to be a lot. And this is where I reiterate, it is very possible to maintain a pace of conquering 2~4 bases / forts per turn depending on how many bases you have access to that turn. Or essentially, conquering the non-story part of the map within 10 turns or in Mission Mode, the whole map in under 15. #C4. Certain event battle balancing. Other Issues/Concerns: #D1 Cannot change keybindings / controller bindings. #D2 Some bugs such as untranslated text for Expunging Execution (and if you're reading this, it's supposed to be "damage +50% vs. humans"). Or other bugs like the event battles crashing when you reload them after mid-battle events occur. Or if you Rally a unit whose movement is zero'd out, you cannot Dismiss the unit. Or not establishing a loss condition that if you go beyond Turn 99 in battle, you lose the battle also. ---- Having said all this, I do wonder if Steam will let me still refund the game since it says I have 8 minutes on it (and definitely had more than 8 minutes of things to say.) But in doing so, I wouldn't be able to maintain any of the mods effectively. If the library icon disappears from my name on the message board, you'll know why. Consider it me fleeing from the Empire of Abyssloa as a stowaway on one of Arcus Air Caravan's airships leaving the continent.

I love the Brigandine series, and I was stoked for this new one, but I *can't recommend* it in its current state, let along its current price. If future updates listen to and address the community's concerns, I'll be the first one back. When Runersia came out, I jumped on the bandwagon to see what it had, and loved its take, accepting the good and the bad. I just can't do that here. The good parts ARE good, and I can readily get behind some of the added elements, for sure. First and foremost - individual fights are back! They're small and quick, but I'm so happy to see them. Rallying seems like it has so much complexity and fun behind it as well. The bad though? This game is missing key Brigandine features that add complexity to gameplay, unit development, and tactical engagement. The decision to remove turn order is a fundamental blow to the tactical decisions required in every battle of the previous games. No more planning units' individual placement for 5 turns again - now its your go, their go, etc, meanig you can absolutely target a single unit with the entire force. Additionally, loss of environmental specialties (forest, mountain, swamp) further kinda sucks for the maps. Secondly, loss of evolution options for all but fighters and dragons really simplifies this game in a way that I can't get into. It feels like half the monsters (exaggerated) of previous titles. And instread of all the weird and colourful supporting characters for each nation, there are... bland mercenaries, also with fixed classes, so say goodbye to fun and quirky builds, now it's just leveling a person. Speaking of the people, I'm sad that the stillframes for characters are less varied that Runersia. Someone'll have a portrait that shows their personality, and that'll apply to all dialogue - picture a flamboyant grinning character delivering a "...they're dead, I'm sorry for your loss."

Art is cheaply made — the cutscenes look so bad they're almost like a parody and many of the leaders don't even have unique models in-game. Enemy AI is really bad. Story/writing is absolutely terrible and seems like it was purposely made to be the most generic slop imaginable...

TLDR Version: Everything about this game was half-assed, from research into what it is supposed to be, to the graphics on upgraded units (look, the graphics in general are passable, but when an upgraded version looks identical except for an extra pauldron... It's half-assed.). Feels like a side project made by a bunch of cheap interns fresh out of college. The Rant Version: I have very mixed feelings about this continuation of a franchise that I love. I really didn't want to give a negative review because I love the franchise itself. The original Brigandine and Brigandine Legends of Runersia were both great games that I spent 200+ hours on. I really wanted to leave a positive review just to promote the franchise... but ultimately, this entry steps too far in the wrong direction to even be considered a Brigandine game anymore. It has the same units and battle system, but that is where the similarities end. Maybe some big names stamped their name on it, but it's clear as day that this is a side project taking advantage of old fans of the franchise. The irony is that you are more likely to enjoy this game if you AREN'T an old fan of the franchise. I think if I came in with no expectations, I might have had a better time with it. Let me outline the biggest issue with this game. Brigandine has always been known as a tactical war simulation game. This game has completely ripped the heart and soul out of the franchise by removing the 'simulation' part. In a simulation everyone is expected to play by the same rules, a harder difficulty setting should mean the AI controlling your opponents is smarter and tougher to cheese. This game half assed it on the AI part, massively. They half assed it so bad that in order to allow the AI to stay competitive with the player they give them a free level on all their units and monsters EVERY turn. I was pretty bitter when I discovered this, but I was able to swallow that pill. What really pissed me off though is when those free levels got their units to level 20 they ALSO get free tokens to turn them all into their champion tier 3 forms! This was massively frustrating to me, because it is geniunely a hassle to get the tier 3 tokens, especially for all your different units, and the computers just don't even need them, they just get them for free, no big deal. I was thankful to discover that to beat the story mode, I didn't actually need to conquer all these bases full of tier 3 champions get there with no effort. That would have been such a slog. Fortunately you just have to get one maxed out or at least close to maxed out squad, then wait for the final event battles. Once you beat those you're thankfully finished, and I feel like they should be up front about what you're getting into when you start, because that is NOT the expected Brigandine experience. Like I said earlier, you are more likely to enjoy the game more if you don't come in with expectations from the previous entries in the Franchise. The art is also Half-assed. Tier 3 units look almost identical to Tier 1 units. You can see all the corners they cut making this game, they're just so obvious. I was super excited to see they made another one after Runersia, and I honestly hope they make another one in the future... but don't do it like this. It should be easier than ever to build an AI that can play your Brigandine game, so don't just give them free levels and call it quits. Now, I don't mind the starting with one base instead of a nation. Brigandine is ultimately a series of 3 on 3 battles, and I don't mind that I only have 3 'main' characters with faces and the rest are 'mercenaries'. In fact I liked that because I typically liked to just make one overpowered team and have the rest be just 'defenders'. I was genuinely pleased with this game and even excited to continue playing it right up until I realized that their is no AI and the computer controlled nations just get free levels to make up for it. My face fell so hard when I realized that was happening. The only thing that would make this game a true Brigandine game is if they release a DLC that gives us the Simulation War Mode we were all expecting. One where the computers have a decent AI that is able to work for its levels and resources the same way the player has to. If they do release that, I'll be genuinely happy I bought this product, and even change this review to positive (if the DLC is free, if they do it and try to charge for it... likely will stay negative)... but with how half-assed the rest of the game was I can only assume all their interns unpaid time is almost up and this game will probalby never see an update, much less a DLC. Yeah... PC controls are half-assed too by the way... and I didn't even mention how the first time I tried loading the game I got 'Fatal Error' until I updated my Intel NPU Driver... well I guess now I did... whatever... the whole thing was so close to being great, but just ended up leaving a bad taste in my mouth.

Love Brigandine, was a game me and my mother bonded over when I was a child, but the lack of knight diversity, no unique sprites in battle for the leaders and clear graphical downgrade, I can't reccomend anyone this game, even though I personally will still probably play it eventually.

ストーリーモードをハードで１勢力クリアしたのでレビューします。 まずストーリーモードはイベント戦闘が一定の節毎に入り、一定の節が経過すると強制的にラスボスと戦うことになります。結局、後半に加入したキャラを強化してボスに挑むなどの楽しみ方がまったくできませんでした。 戦闘は前作のルーナジア戦記と同様楽しめましたが、近接攻撃が回避されるケースが多く威力も低い為、結局は魔法で小隊長だけ攻撃して倒すという流れになってしまいます。またクラスチェンジ先が固定となり、キャラビルドの組み立てがなくなったのも非常に残念でした。 違う勢力で２週目をやろうと思いましたが、秘薬系の引継ぎなどの特典が一切ありませんでした。これでは周回意欲がまったく湧きません。次の周回で使えるキャラが増える、秘薬でステータスアップできるなどが無いと、１勢力のストーリーをクリアして終わる人がほとんどになるのではないかと思います。 総括すると全体的に薄味で、すぐ味の無くなるガムを噛んでるイメージです。 フルプライスで購入する価値はないので、半額セールか90％オフになった時に買うことをおすすめします。

フルプライスで買ったけど後悔した。 3,000円前後なら買ってもよいのではないでしょうか。 良かった点 ・1周目は試行錯誤しながらまあまあ楽しめる ・1周目は最適解がないため、ラスボスが鬼強く感じた ・相手もそれなりに強くなるので、同レベル同士の戦いなら1戦ごとのSRPGの歯ごたえはある システム面 ・防衛するにしても3名は訓練すらできないのに相手側だけレベルがあがる ・相手側は資源かなり有利、ランクアップアイテム使い放題 ・お互い攻めるとき、こちらのほうが戦力高いのに攻め負ける意味わからない仕様がある ・高低差があるマップで非常に操作しづらいところがいくつか ・勢力ごとの個性がほとんどない ・ストーリーモードが30ターンのためやることが限られるため、結果単調になり周回が億劫 （資源探索→ランクアップアイテム探索→武器探索） ・ストーリーモードで帝国に人材が流れた場合、その周回では二度と仲間にできない ・人材の雇用費が序盤からばか高い（そのうえ、雇用しないと帝国に流れたりする。） ・ストーリーモードは30ターンなので育成は限定的になり、やることが単調で前作以前のような育成して比べて編成しなおす楽しさもないため周回が苦行 ・ストーリーモードのミスティアインで最後で主人公の育てた技がレベル１に戻る。（嫌がらせか？） ・ノーマルでもフェアじゃない相手、ハードは運ゲー ・明らかに格上だらけだと運ゲーになり、かなり戦闘がだるい

I love the Brigandine series. The first game is a core memory from my childhood, and Runersia was really great. But this is a step back for the series, in so many ways. I can't recommend it until the devs fix a few things. For one, you can't see the location a faction occupies when you're starting story mode, something that I always loved in the previous two games. You can't attack any faction you want in any order you want in story mode, which is a change that feels like it takes away player freedom without adding anything meaningful to the experience. The map is quite a bit smaller than in Runersia, as well. Down from 41 bases to capture to only 28. The enemy units level up very quickly, so if you don't plan out your moves, you get overleveled very quickly. There's also a lot of QoL features from Runersia that are not present here, like leadership bonus aura. Having units near their squad leader gave a bonus, and it make strategizing a little more important. I can say one thing this game is really good at is making me want to go back and play Runersia, so I think I will. I really hope the devs take these reviews to heart.