The Switch has received it’s first major indie title of 2019, and it’s Wargroove.
When it was revealed just before the Switch launched in February 2017, Chucklefish described
the game as a mix of Fire Emblem and Advance Wars.
It turns out that analogy was apt.
From a visual style and presentation standpoint, Wargroove bears a strong resemblance to the
latter, with colorful, cute 2D art and skirmishes happening in these in-screen cutouts that
provide a much closer, more detailed view of the action.
The game’s setting, however, is all Fire Emblem, trading rifles for swords and tanks
for horses.
And while it may sound from that brief description like Wargroove merely copies ideas from other
successful games in the genre, it actually boasts some great ones all its own.
To talk about what makes Wargroove different, first, we’ll have to talk about what makes
it similar to other strategy RPGs.
Just like most, if not all other games in the genre, Wargroove’s battles take place
on a zoomed out map dotted with buildings for you to take control of by either occupying
them or attacking them to wrest them away from enemy forces.
You’ll have a number of units under your control, each of which is either effective
or weak against different enemy units and has unique conditions under which it can deal
extra damage.
For instance, Harpies will deal a critical hit when they’re perched above a mountain,
and swordsmen can do the same when they’re next to their commander.
Commanders are much stronger than standard units and have unique skills, which in Wargroove
are called grooves.
Each commander’s groove is static and can’t be modified, and they vary in usefulness.
For instance, Mercia, the main character’s groove restores 50% of a unit’s health back
to them over a wide area.
It’s a ridiculously useful ability, but not all grooves are created for equal, such
as Koji’s, which deploys two remote bombs that do very little damage to most enemies.
You’ll need these grooves, too, considering how hard Wargroove can be.
As early as the first few missions of act one, things can get to be pretty tough, and
the challenge only continues to ramp up steadily as you progress through to the seventh and
final act.
Speaking of the final act, Wargroove’s story is a bit of a slow starter, but it’s a fun
ride.
You start out as Marcia, the Queen of Cherrystone, whose father is murdered by the Felheim Empire.
In your quest to avenge him you meet several allies along the way.
While I didn’t become super invested in the characters as I do in a typical Fire Emblem
title, I found them likable enough and as I neared the end of the story I found myself
getting sucked into it, playing through missions long after I told myself I would stop so I
could find out what would happen next.
Which was time-consuming, considering how hard this game can be at times.
You may have noticed I keep saying the game “can” be difficult, and that’s because
it neither is nor isn’t.
At its default settings, Wargroove provides a steep, but surmountable challenge and in
a genre known for making games challenging, that’s a good thing, but it can come at
the cost of accessibility.
I think most players have hit the proverbial wall in a game like this and wanted the story
to just continue, and fortunately, the developers at Chucklefish came up with a clever solution
to this problem.
Difficulty settings are nothing new to games of all stripes, but the level of granularity
you have available to you to customize your game in Wargroove is impressive.
Instead of just providing easy, normal, and hard options like most games, here you can
choose to tweak your damage received, income, and groove charge rate to effectively influence
the difficulty of the game.
If you choose to go too easy, however, you’ll only be able to earn one star per mission
which will affect your ability to see the true ending in the epilogue, which requires
100 stars.
The customizations don’t end in the difficulty department, either.
There are a ton of little tweaks you can make to the game.
For instance, those cool little combat animations?
You can turn those off if you’re tired of seeing them, or you can disable them on your
enemies’ turns, or you can set it up so they only show when a commander is involved
in the fight.
You can also have the grid lines show at all times on the map to give you a better idea
of where to move, and you can even replace the numeric display of your units’ remaining
health with a health bar, which is one I opted for.
Speaking of customizations, Wargroove has some of the deepest customizations I’ve
seen in any game, period.
You can create both custom maps and custom campaigns using what the developers tell me
is the tools they themselves used to create the main campaign, and based on what I’ve
seen, I believe them.
This review’s intro was made on the Switch using the built-in customization tools.
The interface for creating content could certainly use an explainer, as I found myself lost initially
when trying to design some content, but once you get the hang of it, it’s pretty simple.
Fortunately, the Switch supports USB keyboards in docked mode, so if you plan on typing out
anything longer than a few words, you might want to hook one up.
Once you create a map or even a full campaign you can share it online and it’ll be available
for players on Steam, Switch and Xbox to check out.
The same goes for stuff players on other consoles make too, meaning if the game picks up a good
community on almost any platform, Switch players will get access to tons of new content.
If you’d rather play some official content, there’s also Puzzle Mode and Arcade Mode,
both of which are unlocked early on in the main story.
Arcade mode plays sort of like a mashup of Street Fighter and Fire Emblem.
In it, you pick a character and play through a series of five battles against pre-set opponents
with short conversations before and after each battle.
Arcade mode didn’t hold much interest for me, but PUzzle mode is another story.
In Puzzle Mode you have one turn to win a match, and there’s only ever one right way
to do things, meaning you have to figure out exactly where each unit needs to be placed
and in what order to get the correct combination of attacks and moves to wipe out the enemy
forces on the map.
It’s a fun little distraction, and I haven’t made nearly as much progress as I’d like
to it in it, but I keep finding myself returning to it when I have a couple of minutes to dedicate
to the game.
On top of all this, there’s the one thing that’ll likely keep me coming back to Wargroove
for months, if not years to come: multiplayer.
I didn’t touch multiplayer until late in the review process, but it defined what this
game is for me.
The story mode is fun, and I’m looking forward to user-created content, but Wargroove’s
implementation is multiplayer is near perfect.
The thing that excites me the most about Wargroove’s multiplayer is the fact that it’s asynchronous
multiplayer, meaning you don’t need to actively be on your console to play a game with someone
else.
On top of that, it’s cross-platform and it works incredibly well.
All you have to do to start a game is give your friend your game’s code, and regardless
of whether they’re playing on Steam or Xbox or another Switch, that same code will just
work.
Then you each play a turn whenever you feel like.
You can play a turn against your friend and go play a different game and come back when
you feel like checking back in, or you can play the whole match live and watch everything
unfold as it happens, and I couldn’t be happier about that.
There are a few caveats to this mode: PlayStation fans can’t partake in the cross-platform
play aspect of Wargroove because Sony is still not allowing cross-play on the PS4 for most
games and on every platform but Switch, you’ll get a notification when your friend has played
their turn because the Switch doesn’t have a built-in notification system, meaning you’ll
have to manually login to the multiplayer portion of the game and see if there are any
turns waiting for you.
Even with the notification issue in mind, I’ve never had more fun playing a strategy
RPG than I have with Wargroove’s multiplayer.
The Switch has developed a reputation for being host to some of the best indie titles,
and Wargroove is no exception.
Its fun art style, likable characters and deep customization are great, but it’s the
multiplayer that really puts it over the top for me.
I like Wargroove a lot, even though I don’t play a whole lot of strategy RPG games.
If the trailers hold even the slightest bit of interest for you, I recommend you check
it out.
Thank you so much for watching, and make sure to subscribe to GameXplain for more reviews
just like this one.
Until next time, bye!