In Battle Chasers, a group of fantasy adventurers looking for mana is shot down by pirates over a mysterious island. As they try to regroup, they soon discover villainy is afoot, and are dragged into a war. A Nightwar! Okay, lame joke. Let’s have a look at the game.
Plot
I think I pretty much covered this in the intro. The main character of the story is ostensibly Gully, who inherited a magic glove from her father and is on a trip with her friends Calibretto, a large robot, Garrison, a soldier with a magic blade, Knolan, a wizard, and Red Monika, a sexy rogue.
I say Gully is ostensibly the main character, because, really, it’s just a bunch of fantasy cardboard characters on a magic island doing roleplaying game stuff. Gully isn’t even in the picture at the top of this page. All characters in Battle Chasers have a backstory, but none of those factor into the plot, at all. I guess that story is for the comics.
I won’t spoil what is going on on the island, but it’s really not that complicated. There’s a very bad being trying to wreak havoc on the world. I can say that the ending is okay, but also a setup for a sequel.
Gameplay
I would normally say something about the characters now, but as they have almost no bearing on the story in terms of background, I’ll skip to gameplay. Because that’s where the differences between characters mostly come into play.
There are six playable characters in total, and your party can have three of them at a time. This is, of course, a staple of roleplaying games. Battle Chasers is no different, but that’s a good thing. Each character has unique skills and powers which grow as the character levels up, and you can mix and match until you end up with the party you want.
The game features an overworld where you move around along lines on a map. You randomly encounter monsters in the world, and will have to fight them — unless your level is high enough. There are certain places that transport the party to an isometric level. These include dungeons and special locations.
The dungeons are interesting: they play like a Zelda dungeon, with a map you can find, and a boss at the end. However, they are randomized, meaning you can replay them and they’ll be different, even with different puzzles. This helps for grinding. You can play each dungeon at different difficulty settings, and each run will give you a new experience.
Battle Chasers’ combat is turn-based. I like it. The various stats determine how often and quickly your character can act, but also how powerful attacks are. You don’t have to worry about positioning: your party is on the left, the enemy on the right, Japanse RPG style. You can crit, or make combos to do massive damage, and use items to increase speed, defense, and attack strength, and that keeps you on your toes. And sometimes, disaster strikes and the enemies can wear you down, or smash your healer to pulp with one blow at just the wrong moment. All in all, fun.
Verdict
Battle Chasers is a fun game. It has a really cool cartoon style, fun random dungeons and interesting combat. The story is a bit meh, meaning for me it was good, but not great. The story wasn’t horrible, though, so that’s good.
One thing I do have to mention: Red Monika? No. Just, no. Great character to play, but half-naked-big-breasted-pin-up much. She’s just… no. Unless you had Garrison in a similar outfit with his balls hanging out… but no, still not a good idea.
Mostly, Battle Chasers is just a fun dungeon crawling roleplaying game, perfect to while away a pandemic.
