(Updated from the May 11, 2018 review, I mean it's like 5 hours versus 500+ so it does need a re-review)

A fantastic freeware turn-based strategy game that still holds up since 2003.

Battle for Wesnoth is a freeware turn-based strategy game set in a medieval fantasy world released back in 2003 and has been updated ever since. Wesnoth iconically uses both terrain and RNG in it's combat to provide a scale of chance and strategy. While the game itself is free and can be downloaded straight from the website, the port to Steam in around 2017 unlocked memories of playing this game and I just had to get back into it again.

Gameplay of Wesnoth mainly revolves around turn-based tactical strategy, either playing a single player campaign or a multiplayer game, it's the core of everything. With a vast selection of troops/units, with many different races and factions each with their own advantages and disadvantages. Such being different kinds of terrain giving them more protection, resistances to different kinds of attacks, or passive modifiers such as skirmisher or regeneration. Combat attacks are classified as Melee or Ranged with further possible modifiers to apply a status effect or increase the chance to hit. The terrain is presented with a hexagonal grid with the tiles having stats that affect units, such as Grass, Forest, Castles, Water, and many more.

One big aspect of the game that I have a love-hate relationship with is the RNG centered combat. Simply enough even with the terrain bonuses and attack modifiers giving you a high chance to hit, there is still a chance you'll just miss all of your attacks and completely waste the unit's turn, which is quite annoying. This is why I prefer, in singleplayer, playing on Easy with manipulating Saves and only using Debug mode if necessary. Even with these difficulty assists you're still required to be smart about your enemy placements and your gold spending making it not pathetically easy. Speaking of Gold, Gold and capturing Villages is a huge part of the gameplay loop as well. You need gold to hire/recall units, which you have a set amount at the start and usually an income that decreases the more units in your troop. You regain your income and increase it by capturing more villages and getting health regeneration for units in the village. It becomes a game of capturing more while handling with the enemy to prevent going too far into debt and good Gold management leads to bonuses for the next scenario if you're playing a campaign.

Campaigns, going into the story aspect of the game, are a bunch of levels (called scenarios) strung together usually to tie together a story. Battle for Wesnoth itself has quite a bit of lore for a freeware game, with all the vanilla campaigns branching from the same continuous storyline just at different times or from different people. It's interesting enough to help push a narrative forward and continue playing to see what happens, though sometimes the design becomes a bit tedious to play and balance issues due exist but for the majority of the base campaigns it's been tuned very well.

Now for style, Wesnoth's graphics, music, and, etc. have aged super well. While it hasn't always looked like this, with the early version looking a lot like old DOS games. As of the artstyle now, it looks simply fantastic! Visually, it looks a lot model-like and with the variety of tiles in the base game you can create some extremely pretty results. Music wise, the vanilla soundtrack has some fantastic tunes that fit the fantasy medieval theme and is great background music with a scenario usually fitting the mood. Sound effects also sound pretty good with what seems a mixed between original and stock sound effects to make the combat sound pretty impactful. Artstyle for the units is pleasant, having a pixel art style with a slight anime-like aesthetic which helps distinguish each unit and helps to make them stand out from the tiles. However I will say the modern character portraits don't match the pixel art at all in terms of style and character design but it's just something you get used to.

Now to create such environments, of course the game has a level editor! Great for creating scenarios or entire campaigns to play on and share through Wesnoth's Addon List system. Which is where most of the UMC, or User Made Content, comes from and why I've spent so much time with this game as since it's Freeware, people are allowed to do practically whatever with the game and make new units, tiles, and full blown new scenarios to play!

Below are mini-review for UMC campaigns that were so outstanding, and impactful to either the game or me as a whole that I wanted to mention them in this review:

To Lands Unknown:

Simply, the best UMC campaign out there, or at the very least the most visually impressive campaign.

Created by inferno8, To Lands Unknown follows the adventures of Mehir in a completely new setting with disconnected lore from the main game and a quite hefty adventure to warrant. Easily the most eye-catching of this campaign is the use of pre-rendered backgrounds to create the illusion of depth and height completely foreign to Vanilla Wesnoth's mostly top-down look. With the Era of Magic addon included, you're given so many more new units to manage and fight along with new gameplay mechanics and surprisingly it's still well balanced and fun to play. One interesting problem that campaigns like this have is that, while they have impressive set pieces, story, characters, etc. A lot of the time it seems the creators didn't realize if the campaign itself is actually fun to play, however, TLU manages to not only introduce so many new concepts to the base Wesnoth gameplay, but also manages to make it still balance and fun and never once I felt like the game was giving me too much just because it could. Plus the dedication to the style with new music to fit the theme and even custom portraits to better match the artstyle of the sprites is just outstanding.

Overall, a simply fantastic campaign, on a technical, story, and gameplay level. Easily the one UMC campaign I would vouch for being added to the vanilla roster and a must play for anyone who's a fan of Wesnoth.

The Dragon Trilogy: (Song of Fire, War of the Jewel, and Aria of the Dragon Slayer)

A complete trilogy of campaigns that tells a cohesive narrative with time jumps between each one,

Created by revansurik. The Dragon Trilogy consists of 3 long UMC campaigns in the same narrative spanning years apart, following each protagonist as they have to deal with the trials placed before them and overcome them, making allies and enemies along the way towards the final conflict in the last scenario. The Trilogy mainly plays like normal Wesnoth just with occasional new factions to spice things up and new locations with new tiles. However, later on you'll get a few new mechanics to shake up your typical Wesnoth strategies. Easily my favorite part is the story, with how each campaign not only calls back to each other despite being decades apart on a timeline sense, but also incorporating vanilla Wesnoth lore without feeling self-inserted. This was also the first custom campaign I played with custom music, an entire pack for these 3 campaigns that help express the themes and give new background noise during gameplay.

Overall, The Dragon Trilogy is a fantastic collection of campaigns that have an amazing story, gameplay that is mostly consistently solid, and new inclusions to make it stand out from a vanilla Wesnoth campaign.

Overall, Battle for Wesnoth is a great time if you enjoy turn based strategy, a fantasy medieval setting, and not paying for anything! While I do have huge nostalgia for this game I've seen through it's faults and know what makes the best gameplay from it. Really it's impressive that his game has lasted this long, and is still frequently updated to this day, and yet is still completely free for anyone to pick up and play.