Review: Reverie Knights Tactics

Developer – 40 Giants Entertainment

Publisher – 1C Publishing

Platforms – Xbox Series One,X/S, Playstation 4/5, Switch, PC (Reviewed)

Reverie Knights Tactics is a new tactical role playing game which was developed by 40 Giants Entertainment. You are Aurora, a young cleric of Tanna-Toh, who is on an expedition to the city of Lennorian to find her father. He was sent there to gather Elven knowledge but is stuck in the middle of a war between the Elves and Goblins. He has been missing for quite some time and there has been no contact with his group since they left. Through this coming of age journey, you meet 3 other companions who help you on your adventure. The game features interesting battles and a story that is affected by the choices that you make.

During conversations with your party, you can gain a shift to either Chaos or Order by your dialogue selections that will impact both your skills as well as the events of the story. After each conversation, you click on the next battle node on the map. Once the battle is over, you have another conversation and continue to the next battle. Every so often there are nodes that are puzzle areas such as picking a lock or solving a pattern that rewards you with items. In between fights you can go back to the town hub to craft different items or have more conversations with characters. The conversations are told in static images with text and very little voice acting with the occasional cinematic at key points of the game.

The battles themselves are a standard affair. Your characters have 2 action points to spend each turn that can be used to move, use an ability or item, and defend. Characters can move a certain amount of squares to position themselves within range of enemies and can perform backstabs if they are behind them. Different abilities can push and pull enemies into or onto hazards for an additional strategic layer. If more than one member of your party is surrounding an enemy, you can perform a team attack. These are more powerful versions of their basic attacks. Battles also have additional bonus objectives such as collecting all treasures, pushing enemies into hazards, and performing team attacks against an enemy. These bonus objectives provide you with additional experience and currency to buy tomes.

Upgrading your characters comes by leveling them up. Each character can reach a max of level 12. As you gain levels you get a stat point that you can allocate to one of three stats. These stats increase passive gains as well as increase damage of abilities linked to those stats. Each of the four party members fill specific roles such as a tank, healer, support, and dps. It’s fairly obvious which stats you should fill on each character and while it seems like you can have different builds, the character abilities really push for one specific stat per character. 

Besides skill points, every few levels you gain additional abilities that seem to be influenced by your team’s morale shift towards Chaos or Order. However, by the end of the game, I seemed to be getting skill selections from both sides of the spectrum. I’m not sure if it is a bug or that your balance just influences the power of these specific abilities. You can also equip tomes to your characters that provide bonuses to your stats as well as immunities to certain ailments. These are purchased with currency gained at the end of each battle or sometimes by finding them in a locked chest or story event.

One major difference with Reverie from most TRPGs is that you are not allowed to go back and replay battles that you have completed. There are no opportunities to grind for experience or items. You have to make the most of the time you are given in each battle and collect as much as you can as you move through the world. These limitations can make using healing items more risky because you can find yourself in a tight spot as you aren’t fully healed in between battles. The only way to heal outside of items is to level up or by using healing abilities in battle. If your characters die they are resurrected with a single HP, but you can use items before the next battle to heal everyone to full. If you do happen to find the battles a bit too challenging, there is also a story mode which should make things very easy for you to complete the game and see the full narrative experience.

The graphics in battle are very well done and they are nicely animated. You can also speed up the battles if you feel they go a bit too slow, which admittedly I did. The environments at town hubs are interactable which is an interesting addition. For instance, you can pick mushrooms and herbs from the map and they become usable items. This was much like a Scholastic Hidden Image picture from my childhood. Outside of battle, everything is just a little too static. You can move your view in hubs and also click on characters to talk, but there is a just a lack of energy and life to these moments.

Overall, the game took me about 12 hours to complete. I finished all bonus objectives for each battle except the final two. I had already obtained the max level for my characters and bought the best tomes, so there was little incentive. While there are interesting concepts such as puzzles and dialogue choices, this game might be a bit simplistic for veterans. Players looking for a game such as Final Fantasy Tactics or Fire Emblem might find Reverie Knights Tactics lacking. If you want a story that is focused and you aren’t seeking a ton of customization options this might scratch that itch!