Customer Reviews

Battle Realms

5 star:		(30)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

What a fantastic game -- I am a die-hard fan of the real-time strategy genre, and never thought I'd ever match the goosbumps I got the first time I played Warcraft years ago. Starcraft came close (I still play that game with my brother-in-law online...timeless), Kohan and C&C Red Alert 2 were fun while they lasted, but Battle Realms really does take the cake. Who'd have thought that Ubi Soft, notorious for releasing horribly untested games, would make something as great as BR? True, the game does have a slight tendency to bomb occasionally, but a patch should fix that shortly. BR's 4 clans are extremely well-balanced and unique with special "battle gear" that improves combat acumen. Populations are limited to 30 -- including your peasant class -- and there are built-in discouragements to the rush tactic. I know you don't know me, but trust me: it you've ever liked an RTS game, you owe it to yourself to check out Battle Realms.

First, the game is great. Incredible graphics, superb sound, easy to use interface. The real thing that sets this game apart is the need for real strategy. The landscape makes a big difference in a battle. Archers see farther when on a bluff. Units can't be seen very well when in the forest (although disturbing the birds can give you away). The limit for units is small and the more units you have the slower they are generated (all units start as peseants spawned from their huts) So, unlike other RTS games where even a unskilled player can throw alot of units at an opponent, this game requires you to plan your units and upgrades for maximum effect. The game makes me leave the computer in frustration on occasion, but it keeps calling me back. The sure sign of a great game.

I am amongst the few lucky who are part of the beta. I was expected a lot from this game and it seems that I was expected right!! With its user-friendly interface, its ressources management system, you enter into the game without any headache to learn how to do things. The unique training system of Battle Realms put a versatileness never reached before. All in this game is made to put the gamer in the center of action with ease and INSTANT FUN.
A fun enhanced by the high quality of graphism, the smoothness of the animation full of imagination and by the living world of Battle Realms which adds this precious "touch" that makes great games.

Currently beta testing the game, and it's already great. It takes the base qualities of an RTS game and adds a completely new training and upgrading system that work together perfectly. Definately worth buying.

Okay, so you like Warcraft. No wait, you love Warcraft. You just can't help but smile with glee as you see your initial group of little peons turn into a massive army. You are a pro at these Real Time Strategy (RTS) games. You know all the strategies. If that is so, this is game worth looking, especially at the low prices selling nowadays.

If you are not a real big fan of this genre, like me, it's still worth looking at considering the price. I highly recommend you download the demo (it's out there somewhere). It has the tutorial, so you don't really need the manual, and it has some skirmishes so you can see if you're really into this. Try it out.

I thoroughly enjoyed this game, even though I think it's fairly difficult for me. I don't have the fast clicking fingers and the fast acting brain that some of the my friends have. The idea is that you choose among 4 different clans, each having it's unique units and heros. There are a lot of oriental themes here, like geisha's, monks, and samurai's. So it's a welcome change from the fantasy-style RTS. But like any other RTS game, the premises is still the same - to survive while wiping out your opponents.

All the well-known tactics in RTS will work in this game, so if you're a pro, you'll excel in the skirmishes. You can do the infamous "rush" (very early rush attacks to cripple opponents); or the Zerglings-style tactics (Starcrafts players should know this); or the blitzkrieg assault (remember to save the game before doing it). There are many ways to win the game and many different variation to make the game fun.

The computer AI is pretty smart, especially in large maps. It knows how to use decoys, stealth and multi-directional attacks. Graphics is okay, a lot of vibrant colors, but some of the buildings look too alike that I don't know which is which. Character animation is smooth, but battles can be a bit of a frenzy. Too many times I don't know what is going on until it's too late, but that is the nature of RTS. My biggest gripe about the game is that a (strategic) retreat is too hard to pull off. Too many times, the characters have a "battle to the death" mentality (probably following the samurai's honor code). Otherwise, this game is great and a worthy addition in your RTS library.

Excellent game, great graphics, great sound affects. I also bought empire earth and have yet to play it because I cannot stop playing this game. In addition its very challenging to stay alive. Its not the type where you build a huge army and just rush in. You need to develop a stradegey or you will get killed.

Hello, I am yet another very lucky beta tester. As soon as you enter the game you feel as if the world is alive. Horses run in fear as your units approach them, birds float around, and frogs hop along around streams, ponds, and rivers. The fluidity of everything is overwhelming. Your soldiers do many different attacks that link together so they never stop. The unit acknowledgements are very amusing at the least. Everything is just so different between each clan. The new system of training units into higher 'tiers' is no less than unique. The 'particle effects' are the coolest thing about some of the units. By far the best feature about this game is the 'battle-gear.' Battle Gear is special equipment that units use and have a dramatic affect on their effectiveness against other units and buildings. The second this game is in stores i'll be at home playing it.

I'm not a strategy gamer per se -- I enjoy *some* strategy games, but also play games from other genres. So I don't approach this game the same way someone who has mastered Warcraft does.

I like this game for several reasons. First, it isn't difficult to pick up; the training missions teach you how to play the game in a short amount of time. Second, while learning the game is simple, there is plenty of depth and strategy to be found. I like the idea of "unit alchemy", where different units can be trained in other skills and become other units. But training all of your units to the highest attainable type is NOT the way to win -- you must balance your troop types. Third, I like the asian setting and themes (the main menu even displays the 5 elements of traditional chinese medicine and philosophy). Fourth, though challenging, the game is not overly difficult or too easy.

A great game. I wish they'd make a "Battle Realms 2". I have not tried the "Winter Of The Wolf" expansion, but have heard that it was not nearly as good as the original game.

A combination of good graphics and well-defined, cool-looking characters -- I'd say better than WarCraft III. Creative Japanese theme... you harvest rice and collect water as resources.

Has MANY well-thought of features and game-play details. For example:
Peasants gather resources faster if you place one of the Masters in the ricefield, or a Kabuki warrior (historically Japanese entertainer).

Every character has multiple moves and circle around each other during battle -- unlike WC3 -- this gives a very fluid feel to the fights.

Learning curve is low as everything operates on mouse with few keyboard shortcuts to remember.. WITHOUT sacrificing variety of possible strategies. Basically User Friendly interface.

So let's pose the question: Which of the following is most interesting in Battle Realms...
- visual effects
- simplicity of the gameplay
- variety of strategies that are available
- online play
- story line

Answer: YES!
If you like RTS, you'll enjoy this one...There's a reason it's got nearly 5 stars with close to 50(!) reviews~

One IMPORTANT thing... download the BattlePacks (patches)...BattlePack3 makes it so MUCH more challenging.

Graphics: VERY NICE, full 3D environments and characters. Beautifully rendered waterfalls, terrain with various slopes and elevations, and forests that hide units and buildings by utilizing fog of war. Units actually have several animations of attack, as opposed to the zealots in StarCraft (SC) which run at 40 mph at their target, only to repeatedly "one-two" punch them when they close in. Units also appear 2.5 times larger than many other RTS games, so you can appreciate more realism there. Pyrotechnics, fires and explosions look great as well, although there are very little of them compared with other RTSs.

Sound: good. Sound FX, and music are nothing spectacular in my opinion but really compliment the game. Most of the music has Asian themes either majestic, tribe-like, or even ominous. The sound of waterfalls running, horses galloping, and faraway birds squawking add to the sound quality.

Interface: This takes some getting used to. Hotkeys are quite important, as even when I was directly observing a battle, I always thought to myself at the end "what the hell just happened?". In such chaos, it's difficult to even select the units you want and time will be wasted moving your cursor around. Unfortunately, very few are displayed during game play, so many of them need to be looked up and memorized in the help menu. Those such as locating idle peasants, goto battle location, and certain buildings will be handy to know. The game lets you group units for quick reference and imposes no limit per group, but anything more than 8 and you'll need to access the rest by scrolling. Hotkeys are provided for using battlegears as well and the interface was intuitive enough to allow you to access a specific unit's battlegear within a group or all of them with the push of a button. Again with 8+ unit groupings, selecting specific unit's battlegear is more cumbersome. There are improvements that could be made. First off, there are no formation controls. Second, many of the units, even healers and peasants get "trigger-happy" and will attack enemies out-right. Commanding them to hold position or to flee without attacking won't always work, so you're then forced to micromanage.

Gameplay: granted that many of you may have seen screenshots beforehand, this is one area I feel I should elaborate more on. Peasants (the lowest tiered units) are auto-generated. They do their resource gathering and building, then they're sent into certain buildings to be trained. They could then be sent into more buildings to train into generally better units. In addition to creating different units in this matter, many units can also equip one battlegear at a time giving them different abilities and spells, some of which take stamina, others may only be used a certain number of times per re-equipping and others may hurt or kill the unit using it. Like previous RTS which incorporate spells, they range from defense/attack/range/speed bonuses and even provide different abilities such as fire arrows or teleportation.
One aspect that gives "building AND resource managing RTS" a lot of strategic depth (at least what I've noticed) is a motivation or strategic reason to build lesser units over high level units. Battle Realms (BR) seems to have gotten that down pact. For example, veterans of SC will understand why creating a victory fleet of capitol ships will seldom work against good, experienced players. In BR, All units inflict certain types of damages (blunt, cutting, pierce, explosive, magic, fire) and have strengths and weaknesses against certain types as well. For example, samurai, the Dragon clans 3rd tier units are extremely weak vs. explosive damage, and a cheap 1st tier unit like a Serpent musketeer can wipe it out in 2 or 3 hits. Musketeers however have good defense vs. cutting damage inflicted by samurai. In another case, archers may gain the upper hand with attack and range bonus as well as security when perched on top of high cliffs, and will be able to butcher missile units and especially melee units. Another nice aspect about this game is that even with multiple races (clans in this case), all the units of the same designation across all 4 clans don't succumb to the "same unit different name" syndrome. An example to illustrate this would be the 1st tier missile units. Even without battlegear, archers, crossbowmen, hurlers, and leaf disicples have different weapons, ranges, weaknesses, rate of fire, etc., unlike what happened in Star Trek Armada, where all units of a certain level are armed with phasers. Several places in where Battle Realms is different from many other RTS is where upgrades are handled by yin/yang points, earned ONLY by defeating enemies. Heroes can be summoned for the price of yin/yang, many of which are rather unique, NOT just regular units with upgraded stats. Resources are nearly infinite, as water never dries up and rice can grow back when watered. There is a unit cap of 20, 30, or 40 and a tower (the game's defensive building) limit of 4 per race.

Replayability: If you like the game for what it is, you'll come back to it as people do with SC and any other RTS. Multiplayer adds more dimension to the game, although there aren't as many players as there are for other PC RTS. The skirmish mode is like a single player version of multiplayer. Both of the previous 2 have different modes of play and options, such as starting army, resource growth, weather, where players start off, and how fast yin/yang is earned. Finally, there are 2 campaigns, one for Dragon clan and one for Serpent clan, and each has its own set of heroes to unlock.

Bottom line: Although SC is my all time favorite RTS, I can definitely see myself going back to this game, more so for the multiplayer. I also eagerly anticipate any new add-ons and expansion packs.