We very rarely get insights into the characters and their motivations. Not really good for a genre that thrives on good stories and characters. Nightwar in contrast left me pretty cold. This feels like a lot of wasted potential, especially since the better JRPGs, like the Valkyria Chronicles, Final Fantasy X, or Legends of Heroes: Trails in the Sky have such memorable stories and characters whom one really grows to care about in the span of their stories. The protagonists also don't shine in the story, and the only character we really find about a decent amount about is Red Monika, who gets a lot of lore entries in the dungeon where she first rejoins her friends. The villains are much more interesting in their appearance than in their motivations or character. The story of Nightwar is pretty standard fantasy faire and is not particularly interesting or well written. They crash land, separated, on a strange island and find out that darker forces are behind the pirates. This story was probably well described in the Battle Chasers comic books, but I couldn't help feeling being plopped into the middle of a story without having read the beginning.Īs it is, Gully and her friends start together on an airship which is shot down by pirates. You occasionally get a vignette when resting at the inn, but in general their relationships and backgrounds or only hinted at.
Their interaction with one another is actually surprisingly limited. Unfortunately, I never really grew close to them. At first glance this would appear to be an interesting cast of characters. Filling out the cast is the rogue Red Monika, and Alumon, a templar devoted to destroying undead and demons. Her father's friend Garrison, a veteran warrior, acts as her mentor and protector along with the wizard Knolan, and Callibretto, the ancient war golem Knolan salvaged and rebuilt. Battle Chasers started as a comic book, and follows the story of Gully, a girl on the edge of puberty who has inherited the magical gauntlets of her father, a hero of legend. This seems like a good match for a comic book, since a comic book's appeal is in its story and characters. The advantage to this lack of choice and freedom is that we play well fleshed out characters with their own motivations, backgrounds, and relationships. We are presented with a predetermined set of characters and follow them through their adventure. There is no branching dialogue and no real choice in how the story is told. JRPGs present their story and characters like a storybook. The character's abilities are accompanied by cool animations Battlechasers presents some of the best comic book style art I've seen in a computer game. Since World of Warcraft we've seen a lot of comic style art, but few games actually seem to even come close to the quality of artwork of a modern comic book or graphic novel. The game's cut scenes also look like frames of a comic book. Even after you've seen Gully's quakefist or Red Monika's assassination attacks 100 times, they still look good.
Also the animations are dramatic and memorable. Story segments are presented in scenes that actually look like they could come from the pages of comic book, and both the character models and monsters are skillfully brought to life. The characters run across beautifully hand painted backgrounds. Whether one finds the comic book style appealing or not, its well executed. I've never been one to put all too much value on presentation, but Battle Chasers really stands out here. The painted landscapes your characters traverse are impressive And even though the game has procedural dungeons, crafting, and random loot, it is in many ways a nostalgic game. Battle Chasers disposes of the anime style art and child like characters of Japanese RPGsin favor of a hand drawn and painted comic book style which appeals to players like me, who play JRPGsdespite their art direction. Since JRPGsand comics are character driven, it seems at first glance to be a good fit. Battle Chasers: Nightwar is an interesting marriage of an obscure fantasy comic book with the sort of gameplay one sees in early Final Fantasy games.
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