I dropped Battle Chasers shortly after its initial release because it just felt painfully slow and while I liked the game as it is, it felt like wasting time. There is a reason that games like these get an optional speed up function these days. However, after picking it up again and using a little trick to speed up the game, I quickly realized what I have been missing out on.

As always, these are my own thoughts and opinions, please look at other reviews too before you make a purchase decision.

Let’s begin with my biggest problem; frequent battles who drag the games length out longer than it needs to be. While it was nice seeing those juicy animations the first few times, it quickly became a burden. This could easily be fixed with an optional speed up button, but so far they have not implemented one and I had to use Cheat Engine as a replacement.

The second problem I have has to do with the otherwise awesome crafting system in which you can only create one item at a time, making it a huge pain if you just want to craft a stack of potions for example. Also, your success chance gets reset after each crafted item and one has to to add materials each time when wanting to craft another epic potion, it’s annoying.

Battle Chasers’ combat offers a surprising amount of depth where each character has four primary attacks that are instant and generate overcharge, but what you build up is reset once the fight is over. Additionally, there are 12 primary skills per character that are much stronger but have casting time and need mana or overcharge resulting in a surprising amount of strategies at your disposal. Similarly to Final Fantasy’s limit breaks, Battle Chasers allows the use of three different Bursts per character that can be used as ultimate abilities for boss fights or quickly finishing of unpleasant foes, and they all share the same burst meter. You even have two skills for each character which can be used outside of combat to guard you from dangerous hazards or give you a buff for the fight you are about to enter. Furthermore, combat is done in a typical RPG manner but with not so typical RPG elements and the game combines all of them very well. Use status ailments like bleeding, chill, or haste that can positively or negatively effect combat and allow for some sick combos.

Battle Chasers offers a wide variety of interesting enemies even though most of them have, in typical old-school RPG manner, just different colors so one can tell them apart from each other. On the world map, monsters aren't encountered randomly like most RPGs do, they have fixed positions allowing one to skip some of them and you can even chose to skip lowly monsters entirely. While in exploration areas and dungeons you have the choice to separate enemies and fight them one at a time or rush in to take on the whole group at once. There are also fights with multiple waves of enemies which can be pretty harsh. This is used most notably in the arena where you have to fight many waves back to back until you reach the boss of that tier. Also, bonus streaks award more experience based on certain conditions met like one-hitting enemies or getting a double kill with one attack. Fights reward you with gold and crafting materials which are needed to craft, buy, and enhance equipment. Typical rarities often seen in RPGs, like uncommon, rare, epic and legendary, evoke the urge to constantly upgrade your gear and experiment with different stats.

Besides the deep combat, Battle Chasers utilizes a unique crafting system where you just have to get needed materials to craft something or simply take more materials from one component and increase your success chance without having all the materials you would normally need to craft it. You can increase your success chance up to 300% by giving it even more materials to craft rare or even epic gear, and the same can be done with weapon enhancements which grant passive bonuses to your equipment.

The bestiary rewards the player with passive unlocks for all characters by slaying monsters a given number of times and also provides information about health, attacks, and loot drops after a certain amount of kills which also changes the enemies health bars from ??? to their actual values and shows specific skills that they will be using next.

All of the six characters have two passive perk threes with 18 different passives each allowing for a specific role like tank, healer, or damage dealer, and you are free to mix between them. Moreover, customization towards your prefered playstyle starts to really open up mid-game where you have enough perk points to setup some nice combos. Perk points are earned through leveling or by buying/finding books that grant them.

There are eight dungeons stretched across the world map that may be played on Normal, Heroic, and Legendary, and they can be a real challenge the first time you visit them. While filled with loot and monsters, each dungeon also attempts to spice it up with puzzle elements here and there where you actually have to use your brain. A boss lies at the end of each dungeon and drops items that can be traded for tokens, which also come from a fun fishing minigame and bounties (“hunts”) you can take out on certain enemies. These tokens can be traded for many things like the perk books, random gear chests, or even different outfits for your characters.

While cutscenes are in 2D with awesome comic style drawings, Battle Chasers in-game visuals remind me very much of Torchlight but with way more polish and atmosphere. The world map is in a completely different style from the rest of the game, with a nice storybook feel to it.

Combat showcases gorgeous animations that feel both fluid and impactful, but at the same time tend to get old quickly and stay like that until later in the game. I do appreciate that each different weapon has its own unique visual style during combat and everywhere else, I just wish they would’ve done the same with armor.

While the story is alright as it is, I would’ve wished for far greater character development which was sadly lacking, apart from the little scenes while resting in an inn at night, that’s it. I do appreciate those little conversations though, they give you some sense of the characters’ personalities.

The soundtrack is beautiful, energetic and fits the tone of the game just right, often reminding me of Bastion’s greatness. I never got tired of hearing any of the songs over and over, they’re just that good!

Checkout the Bandcamp page for a preview![clarkpowell.bandcamp.com]

I can safely recommend this game to anyone who enjoys RPGs with a mildly challenging combat system and a simple but gripping story. Just remember, if it’s too slow for you, you can use Cheat Engine or similar software with twice the speed for a more tolerable experience until they finally implement a speed up button.

[h1][Introduction][/h1] I dropped Battle Chasers shortly after its initial release because it just felt painfully slow and while I liked the game as it is, it felt like wasting time. There is a reason that games like these get an optional speed up function these days. However, after picking it up again and using a little trick to speed up the game, I quickly realized what I have been missing out on. As always, these are my own thoughts and opinions, please look at other reviews too before you make a purchase decision. [h1][Negatives][/h1] Let’s begin with my biggest problem; frequent battles who drag the games length out longer than it needs to be. While it was nice seeing those juicy animations the first few times, it quickly became a burden. This could easily be fixed with an optional speed up button, but so far they have not implemented one and I had to use Cheat Engine as a replacement. The second problem I have has to do with the otherwise awesome crafting system in which you can only create one item at a time, making it a huge pain if you just want to craft a stack of potions for example. Also, your success chance gets reset after each crafted item and one has to to add materials each time when wanting to craft another epic potion, it’s annoying. [h1][Gameplay][/h1] Battle Chasers’ combat offers a surprising amount of depth where each character has four primary attacks that are instant and generate overcharge, but what you build up is reset once the fight is over. Additionally, there are 12 primary skills per character that are much stronger but have casting time and need mana or overcharge resulting in a surprising amount of strategies at your disposal. Similarly to Final Fantasy’s limit breaks, Battle Chasers allows the use of three different Bursts per character that can be used as ultimate abilities for boss fights or quickly finishing of unpleasant foes, and they all share the same burst meter. You even have two skills for each character which can be used outside of combat to guard you from dangerous hazards or give you a buff for the fight you are about to enter. Furthermore, combat is done in a typical RPG manner but with not so typical RPG elements and the game combines all of them very well. Use status ailments like bleeding, chill, or haste that can positively or negatively effect combat and allow for some sick combos. Battle Chasers offers a wide variety of interesting enemies even though most of them have, in typical old-school RPG manner, just different colors so one can tell them apart from each other. On the world map, monsters aren't encountered randomly like most RPGs do, they have fixed positions allowing one to skip some of them and you can even chose to skip lowly monsters entirely. While in exploration areas and dungeons you have the choice to separate enemies and fight them one at a time or rush in to take on the whole group at once. There are also fights with multiple waves of enemies which can be pretty harsh. This is used most notably in the arena where you have to fight many waves back to back until you reach the boss of that tier. Also, bonus streaks award more experience based on certain conditions met like one-hitting enemies or getting a double kill with one attack. Fights reward you with gold and crafting materials which are needed to craft, buy, and enhance equipment. Typical rarities often seen in RPGs, like uncommon, rare, epic and legendary, evoke the urge to constantly upgrade your gear and experiment with different stats. Besides the deep combat, Battle Chasers utilizes a unique crafting system where you just have to get needed materials to craft something or simply take more materials from one component and increase your success chance without having all the materials you would normally need to craft it. You can increase your success chance up to 300% by giving it even more materials to craft rare or even epic gear, and the same can be done with weapon enhancements which grant passive bonuses to your equipment. The bestiary rewards the player with passive unlocks for all characters by slaying monsters a given number of times and also provides information about health, attacks, and loot drops after a certain amount of kills which also changes the enemies health bars from ??? to their actual values and shows specific skills that they will be using next. All of the six characters have two passive perk threes with 18 different passives each allowing for a specific role like tank, healer, or damage dealer, and you are free to mix between them. Moreover, customization towards your prefered playstyle starts to really open up mid-game where you have enough perk points to setup some nice combos. Perk points are earned through leveling or by buying/finding books that grant them. There are eight dungeons stretched across the world map that may be played on Normal, Heroic, and Legendary, and they can be a real challenge the first time you visit them. While filled with loot and monsters, each dungeon also attempts to spice it up with puzzle elements here and there where you actually have to use your brain. A boss lies at the end of each dungeon and drops items that can be traded for tokens, which also come from a fun fishing minigame and bounties (“hunts”) you can take out on certain enemies. These tokens can be traded for many things like the perk books, random gear chests, or even different outfits for your characters. [h1][Graphics/Presentation][/h1] While cutscenes are in 2D with awesome comic style drawings, Battle Chasers in-game visuals remind me very much of Torchlight but with way more polish and atmosphere. The world map is in a completely different style from the rest of the game, with a nice storybook feel to it. Combat showcases gorgeous animations that feel both fluid and impactful, but at the same time tend to get old quickly and stay like that until later in the game. I do appreciate that each different weapon has its own unique visual style during combat and everywhere else, I just wish they would’ve done the same with armor. [h1][Story][/h1] While the story is alright as it is, I would’ve wished for far greater character development which was sadly lacking, apart from the little scenes while resting in an inn at night, that’s it. I do appreciate those little conversations though, they give you some sense of the characters’ personalities. [h1][Music][/h1] The soundtrack is beautiful, energetic and fits the tone of the game just right, often reminding me of Bastion’s greatness. I never got tired of hearing any of the songs over and over, they’re just that good! [url=https://clarkpowell.bandcamp.com/album/battle-chasers-nightwar-original-soundtrack]Checkout the Bandcamp page for a preview![/url] [h1][Conclusion][/h1] I can safely recommend this game to anyone who enjoys RPGs with a mildly challenging combat system and a simple but gripping story. Just remember, if it’s too slow for you, you can use Cheat Engine or similar software with twice the speed for a more tolerable experience until they finally implement a speed up button. [code] Enjoyed this review? Curious for more recommendations by Excurious Curations? Check it out over [url=http://store.steampowered.com/curator/28338439]here[/url]! [/code]