Brigandine: Abyss Review
Continential Conquest
It can be a tough line to draw between entertaining and well-crafted. The level of polish can make or break some games, but for others, that altered level of brokenness is a part of the charm. This charm can be called “jank” and is often thrown out as a negative, but sometimes, especially when it is still so much fun, jank can be sweeter than sugar. Brigandine has always been a franchise that is beloved in spite of its faults, forever making them guilty pleasures. Adglobe’s Brigandine: Abyss has all the makings of an instant guilty pleasure. Substantial issues hold it back from being a universal recommendation, but it won’t stop tactical RPG fanatics from loving it.
The continent of Meltitea was once embroiled in a long-spanning war that was only ended when the Abyssloa Empire was quelled by sorcerer-forged brigandine strong enough to overthrow the emperor’s ambitions. Two hundred years later, and the war general Chaossolus overthrows the kingdom of Solginat and declares that the Abyssloa Empire has returned. This upheaval allows other nations to renew rivalries and establish that their philosophies are right by force, thus sweeping up the peaceful nations into another continent-spanning war. Plenty of colourful personalities emerge that are at odds with other enjoyable character designs. Ultimately, these ideologies are a pretense for the war, and the plots feature some enjoyably B-movie-level cheesy melodramas as the continental conquest continues.
Brigandine: Abyss is split into two different modes, mission and story. In both of them, players start with a castle and a few knights that serve as leaders of their army of bound monsters that are available for a monetary cost. Leaders have an attribute that grows with each level and determines the maximum amount allocated to monsters. Each monster has a different total, and as long as their command points permit, a knight can field up to five monsters each. Any monster class upgrade causes their command points to increase, which makes it difficult to keep some armies together and can lead to some tough decisions. Mercenaries can also be purchased, but when these knights lose in combat, they are gone forever, making them perfect quest fodder while the important plot-relevant knights keep gaining levels and acclaim.
Such a gorgeous view of an upcoming battlefield.
Knight and monster classes all gain an upgrade at level ten, with most gaining a second one at level twenty, provided that players find special class change items through quests. Building these armies up and sending them out to take out other nations’ strongholds makes up the basis of Brigandine: Abyss‘ gameplay structure. Strengthening the army involves plenty of pieces and splitting time between quests to gain new equipment, building resource materials, collecting class-changing items, and training – are all necessary to success and a lot to take in at once.
Every new stronghold taken is another place that can provide many resources to add to the burgeoning army. These resources come in the form of additional knights that can join when a nation is conquered. Strongholds also have their own set of quests that are dependent on their level, which can be built up with building materials. Each rank adds a new option for a set of equipment or building materials that improves with each level, up to three. There is a main objective in both mission and story mode that can provide a solid foundation of what to focus on. As long as players are improving their army, success can be found against whatever the computer sends after them. Although, it doesn’t hurt to keep multiple save files, as building countermeasures to difficult fights doesn’t happen quickly.
Saya taking exception to the enemy’s Unicorn unit.
In Brigandine: Abyss, the mission mode is where any of the whopping twenty-four factions can be chosen to begin their quest for success. Players begin with one base, and each nation undergoes a different task, be it domination, strengthening strongholds, or even monster collecting. Players are given free rein to complete these objectives within ninety-nine seasons. One round of questing, base building, and attacking takes up a season, and ninety-nine turns is a lot more than it feels like. The chaotic nature of the nations fighting, mixed with the various starting points that give different knight and monster choices based on strongholds, all give an enjoyable boost to replaying through other campaigns.
There are six different factions that players can follow in Brigandine: Abyss‘ story mode. Each of these stories dives deeply into one of the nations affected by Chaossolus’ continental upheaval and follows a personal story that brings in other nations. Story mode plays out very similarly to mission mode with a few additional changes. Some party members join automatically over the course of the story and plot-relevant nations cannot be attacked until certain points of the story have progressed. There are also event battles that play out at specific seasons that take everything over, as players cannot quest or attack other strongholds until the event is completed. Event battles can impose restrictions on what knights are used based on plot relevance, as well as potentially showcasing unique combat objectives not seen elsewhere. Altogether, story mode is a bit more focused, and event battles keep players on their toes, which can be exhilarating when successful but also very frustrating when players hit a wall due to enemy strength.
Routine is kept at bay through the variety of knights and monsters to tinker with. Throughout the course of a campaign, some favourites are maintained; restarting with another nation gives a lot of variety to work within their subsection of the world. Some classes are restricted geographically, so entire sections of the map may go unseen in a playthrough lasting twenty-five hours, which gives plenty of incentive to replay as a different nation to see the war play out very differently.
Sanity was always overrated anyways.
Training is essential to make sure the player’s nation isn’t left behind and isn’t easy to take over by enemy nations. Enemy nations train as well, and unlike the player, they don’t lack the class change items that players need to make the strongest characters a reality. This improvement doesn’t occur overnight, so looking at strongholds to see their strength is important. Balancing all of the mechanics in preparation for a fight can be daunting at first, but becomes addictive with each new strong piece of equipment or class change item that is found, as they become available for purchase afterwards. Big gaps in levels are difficult to overcome, but being a few levels lower won’t be the end of a campaign.
A lot of preparation goes into fighting before combat begins. The positioning that the armies are deployed in factors into the strategic preparation. Some battlefields isolate one of the groups from the others, which is possible on the offensive and defensive fronts. Turns occur with all allies going first, then the enemies. This allows for strategic retreating to create defensive lines as well as bait enemies forward. Spells and other special abilities cannot be cast for many classes if they move, which keeps magic users close to the front lines but need protecting by other units, as they can’t take many hits. Spells are free hits, but many basic attacks cause a counterattack from the enemy. Hexagon tiles also make it so some front lines are left open to multiple attacks, so it is important not to leave many holes while also exploiting enemy positioning.
In Brigandine: Abyss, having enough characters surround an enemy causes them an encirclement debuff where they take more damage, accuracy bonuses, and a higher critical rate. Sometimes, encirclement feels necessary as accuracy is an issue; even attack rates as high as 75% feel like they have a tendency to miss more often than connect. Plenty of classes are quite mobile and a lot of the heaviest hitting units have trouble landing accurate hits. It isn’t always easy to encircle, though, because an enemy’s zone of control prevents many units from going around the front lines until those enemies are defeated. Balancing this is the enemy AI’s lemming-like lack of self-preservation. They’ll often charge straight into the player’s waiting army, sometimes with healer and leader units leading the way, making them easy to exploit. Keep in mind, though, it won’t work all the time, as enemies do work in tandem, and a group of fifteen means that even the worst optimization still affords some protection. Taking out enemy monsters also weakens nations for future attacks, while the sting of losing ally monsters is taken away by being able to resurrect them again for a monetary cost after the battle is over.
Taking the fight to the enemy is always a good strategy.
Another way that combat is affected is through the rally and dismiss system. Knights can rally a monster into their space and gain a passive trait they possess at the risk of losing that monster if the commander loses all their health. Dismissing sends a monster out from the knight and though it counts as movement for spell casting, it does still allow for strategic attack placement. These mechanics make combat feel genuinely strategic, while the unpredictability of the AI and accuracy system adds an element of chaos. Even the best-laid plans can go awry, leaving players holding their breath to see whether everything goes well.
Brigandine: Abyss uses some beautiful animations for its climactic story mode moments, which unfortunately are quite sparse. Each stronghold has a unique battlefield that is a joy to experience and makes combat look climactic from map design alone. Combat can look routine by comparison as individual fights are viewed from a distance, which doesn’t catch minute details, opting for broader basic animations instead. Outside of a few nation leaders, there’s also no visual difference between plot-relevant knights and mercenaries that were hired, as each member of a class will look the same. The soundtrack in isolation is well-crafted, with triumphant trumpets highlighting orchestral arrangements, but befittingly they settle in the background as there is a lot to factor when building an army. The voice acting is in Japanese and fully commits to overacting and melodrama, much to the player’s amusement or annoyance depending on how much they enjoy cheesy storytelling.
Brigandine: Abyss is not a perfect game by any means. The wonky AI, accuracy frustrations, and sheer volume of non-combat mechanics to peruse is a lot. Combat is still a climactic showpiece befitting the beautiful background maps, melodramatic stories, and engaging army raising. The amount of variety put into building an army through questing and training means that every fight feels engaging. This is not a title that will reach everyone, but for those it clicks with, it is an instant guilty pleasure that will keep them coming back time after time for just one more campaign.
Disclosure: This review is based on a free copy of the game provided by the publisher.
Building an army and going on quests is addictive
Stronghold battlegrounds look great
Ton of variety in monsters and knights to take into combat
A lot of non-combat mechanics to get used to
Bad enemy AI and plenty of low accuracy units missing can feel painful to deal with
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