Battle Chasers: Nightwar

Battle Chasers: Nightwar is an amazing effort, if anything made more impressive by virtue of being a Kickstarter-funded indie game, and is a testament to what a dedicated and talented team can accomplish. It may not lead the pack in gripping narrative, but presents its comic book license in such visually and aurally impressive ways that other games would do well to pay attention. However, its true star is its deep combat system, which offers so many ways to tinker with and improve party efficiency that it just doesn't get old, provided players are up for a traditional turn-based JRPG designed by a western team. It's a game that shouldn't be missed by any fan of the genre, and is sure to attract a whole new wave of attention to its underlying license.

It can be extremely difficult to introduce a new game into a genre long dominated by one company and franchise, but Battle Chasers: Nightwar is a modern and expertly executed take on everything turn-based RPGs introduced to gamers so many years ago. It’s a reminder that old ways don’t have to die away; they just need the right people to hone in on what made the genre work in the first place.

Battle Chasers: Nightwar is a grand achievement from a small studio that needed a big win. It’s not everyday you get to play a game that tends to reward you for everything you do. Great combat, fantastic dungeon exploration, incredible visuals and a great soundtrack. Battle Chasers: Nightwar hits all the marks.

Battle Chasers: Nightwar will conquer you from the beginning with its mix of JRPG combat-system, western aesthetics and gameplay for all tastes.

Battle Chasers: Nightwar shows what an independent studio that cares about their graphic novel IP can do.

An RPGwith an old school RPG spirit, that may not be the best choice for those used to more modern RPGs because of its rhythm. Besides that, it's an excellent game.

Battle Chasers: Nightwar represents a fascinating blend of comforting tropes and freshly-broken ground. Blistering, brainy combat is tucked into a gorgeous package rife with excitement and fun. Regardless of your spot on the RPG spectrum, Battle Chasers: Nightwar is one game you won’t want to miss.

Gorgeous to look at and packing some seriously satisfying dungeon dust-ups, Battle Chasers: Nightwar is a great RPG. Its story may struggle to surprise and its pacing is a little on the slow side, but stick with it and you'll get lost in a deep and rewarding adventure.

Marvelous under all its aspect, Battle Chasers: Nightwar is a pure JRPG gem. Beautiful to see and awesome to play this game deserve a place in your library!.

Battle Chasers: Nightwar is 40-or-so hour JRPG experience that’s well worth the time invested. Although its storytelling likely won’t inspire anyone but diehard fans of the comics, it has enough clout to keep franchise newcomers motivated, and importantly, it’s accessible enough for those unfamiliar with the source material to jump in too.

Thankfully, the game is adamant about auto-saving constantly, so it helps circumvent some of the frustration. Even with all these issues, I still persisted in playing because beneath the technical problems that hopefully get ironed out over time, this is a gem of a turn based RPG and I recommend, even with its faults, fans of the genre need to give some attention to Battle Chasers. It might come from a small development team, it might be rough around the edges, but it’s could be one of 2017 most unexpected RPG hits that more people should be aware of.

This is an excellent turn-based RPG, and even if it doesn't really bring anything new, it's has a lot of quality to compensate for. Without a doubt, an exciting surprise for RPG fans.

RPG adventure inspired by the Joe Madureira visual novel of the same name and the classics RPGs from the 16 bit era.

The return of Joe Madureira to the videogame industry comes with a great game. Amazing visuals and artistic style that match perfectly its great gameplay mechanics.

Battle Chasers Nightwar is a great game. It has an excellent art style with some wonderfully detailed characters and environmental features. The combat is interesting and provides a different take on turn based battles. Whilst it isn't a massive game there is more than enough to do with a variety of distractions along the way. Overall this is a very easy game to recommend.

We fell in love with Battle Chasers Nightwar for its character design and wonderful illustrations, but we stayed for its combat system, lengthy campaign and clever New Game Plus mode, which allows us to begin anew and experience a different dungeon layout.

Battle Chasers: Nightwar proves to be a solid turn-based RPG with polished mechanics, interesting dungeons, beautiful artwork and animation, and a lot distractions to keep you entertained. Despite some UI and performance issues, fans of the genre should still find it to be a game that is worth their time.

Overcoming Nightwar's most challenging battles is a thrill, but only if you're willing to put your nose to the grindstone.

Battle Chasers: Nightwar makes an awesome first impression and features solid dungeon crawling gameplay. However, the campaign gradually turns from fresh and exciting to a chore about a dozen hours in so don't expect it to be the next must-have RPG.

I ended up finding Battle Chasers: Nightwar to be a bit of a mixed bag. I love seeing the concept of Battle Chasers come back, and I think Nightwar does a pretty good job of continuing the Battle Chasers story. I absolutely love getting more of Joe Madureira’s character designs and artwork on display here, and I think the classic turn-based RPG approach makes a lot of sense. But there is definitely room for improvement here, and unless you’re petty enamoured with the classic style of RPG mechanics, you might burn out a little too soon with Battle Chasers: Nightwar. Ideally some things will be fixable by patches, but this wasn’t quite the home run I was hoping for.

While not without its fair share of problems and technical issues, Battle Chasers: Nightwar still manages to provide plenty of tense battles that challenge players. It’s a shame that the characters never get to show their full personalities throughout, and that dungeons lack the personality of a truly great role-playing game, but even these issues can’t hold it back from being a worthwhile time for players.

The story's not great, but the battle system behind it is carefully thought out. [Dec 2017, p.87]

Sporting more interesting mechanics than you can shake an oversized sword at, Battle Chasers has a little bit of everything from classic turn-based JRPGs for everyone. Even though it loses the wow factor on subsequent runs, the dungeon delving has a lot to offer and can hide some rather sneaky secrets. Not a bad title by any means, only a little repetitive, despite its efforts to be otherwise.

Battle Chasers: Nightwar is a quality JRPG throwback. It's grindy and can be difficulty, but for people looking for a more casual experience the lower difficulty settings are a good introduction to the genre as a whole. With plenty of lore and heritage behind the game to further build it out, it's a fresh new franchise and a good proof that western developers can emulate the JRPG style when they want to.

I’m sure a patch will fix the crashes soon, but otherwise, Battle Chasers: Nightwar is one of the few RPGs I’ve played recently that respects the player’s time and rewards them with story beats, smart dungeon designs and great characters. It may not be perfect, but when it comes to RPGs, it’s a step in the right direction.

Battle Chasers: Nightwar delivers a satisfying game, but it really shines in moments where it blends a comic book with an RPG seamlessly. Fans of the series will fall in love with it, but it doesn’t revolutionize the genre or come close to reaching the upper echelons of it.

There is so much to love about Battle Chasers’s take on the JRPG. Its strategic elements, well-crafted characters (although the attempts at self-referential humour with Red Monika’s physique are not always successful), brilliantly judged battle system, and satisfying crafting all combine with a good, albeit not groundbreaking, fantasy narrative. Sadly it’s plagued by frequent crashes which impact the score at launch, but this game is otherwise easy to recommend for fans of the genre.

A beautiful JRPG throwback with deep combat, held back by punishing difficulty spikes and far too many technical issues on PS4.

Battle Chasers: Nightwar ends up being a solid RPG with some deep combat systems and interesting components, in a lovely universe. But beware of the fact that it needs you to grind a lot, and so accept redundancy and a few huge breaks in the progression, and that some crashing issues and bugs can truly poison your experience on PS4.

If, however, grinding and repetition mechanics do not work for you, then we advise you to look elsewhere.

Despite these issues, Battle Chasers is sustained through the strength of its story, a rollicking tale that takes our heroes literally to hell and back. It's bolstered by some sharp dialogue, gorgeous artwork, and an ensemble that plays extremely well off of each other. It's also a long game, but considering its relatively few major beats, it feels unnecessarily drawn out. It's too bad, because Battle Chasers is otherwise one of the rare comic-based games to have this many pieces in the right place.

Fails to capture the imagination. [Issue#193, p.84]