Yeah, I actually bought it already on Amazon for the 20% preorder discount.
I’m 9 hours into this - my party at level 9. I just finished the 2nd dungeon.
I think my opinions are similar to what has already been mentioned. The art is beautiful, the colors used and just the way they made the environments - it’s really nice to look at. The story so far is pretty simple, but it makes for a good reason to hang the gameplay on.
I like the combination of overland map and dungeons / exploration areas. It gives a good feel for exploring the world and getting to the different environments, making it feel like an actual place.
The combat is pretty cool, but too easy so far. I played the first dungeon on ‘normal’ difficulty and the second one at one harder. I’ve had one of my guys go unconscious 1x. I’ve never really been pressed. The mechanics are good, but I wish there was less easy combat and some challenging encounters. Based on some comments on the Steam forum, it seems like that will change later on. There is a lot of combat so hopefully I still enjoy it by then.
I like the steady trickle of acquiring new combat abilities. Since the enemies die pretty quickly so far, I don’t use some of the abilities as much as I’d like to because in many cases it just makes sense to do the most damage I can to take out an enemy. I don’t need to wait for things like bleeding, because while that causes more damage over the long run (and can set up combos) I can just hit them and make them die. There have been some more hardy enemies, but they are the exception.
The perk points are a nice way to customize the characters to match how you want them to play, and you can adjust them at any time so their usage can change.
So, I didn’t need to let the JRPGness scare me away. It’s a pretty good game. I just hope the combat becomes a little more tense and that there isn’t so much of it that it gets old. So far, a good purchase.
I’m at level 17 now, with the golem dude, redhead, and warrior as my party. I struggled in the last dungeon, but I made it. Things were several levels above me and it showed. I’m now in the 5th dungeon - Deadwatch. I think I’m about midway through the game. The enemies seem to be 2-4 levels above me (playing the dungeon on hard). The enemies just seem to hit too hard and are able to take too much damage. I wonder how much easier it would have been on normal.
I don’t want to replay the dungeons to grind, so if I can’t keep up I may be done. I’ve gotten a good 20 hours out of it, so no complaints. I can play the dungeon on normal difficulty and if I fall behind in the leveling curve after that, then quit.
I finally uninstalled it. Was barely playing it, decided to try it again.
3 minutes later I was done. Grinding just isn’t all that fun and you basically have to do it because everything is so gear dependent. And gear is very RNG. Meh.
Still pretty as all heck though.
If anyone is looking forward to this on Switch, it finally has a release date of May 15. And if you don’t mind the physical version, Amazon has it for 26 bucks right now.
I bought this on sale last week. It is… not good. Graphics are amazing but as an RPG it is so boring.
Unfortunately, it has a bit of a slow start. Have you unlocked the rest of the characters yet? It’s one of those games that doesn’t reveal itself until you’ve paid a few hours in gametax.
-Tom
No I’m in the first dungeon, iron fortress or something. I’m just collecting crap and fighting the same thing over and over by pressing A repeatedly.
I played for an hour or 2 then went back to Divinity.
Played the first 5 hours on the switch on a plane today. Really digging it so far. My take is very different from @Wallapuctus . I really like the battle system so far, especially the speed system and the way overcharge works. Am I making more use of abilities than I really needed to thus far? Maybe, but I expect things will get more difficult, so I’m taking advantage to learn the finer points.
How’s the Switch version compare technically, is it a compromise in any way compared to the other console versions?
Can’t speak to the others. Load times were a bit long, especially into and out of the one big dungeon I’ve been in. No other issues I’ve noticed.
I’ve not played it on any other platform. There was a lot of talk in Switch reviews about frame rate drop and load times in comparison to PC. I’m not too far in, but I personally have not noticed frame rate issues (even in the rain which was called out by one review). Maybe it is a PC master race thing that needs everything to be at 120 FPS always? Not sure. The game does have “long” load times (probably just <10 seconds, but it FEELS long) when moving into or out of major map changes like a dungeon. Once in the major map changes there are much briefer load times between tiles/zones.
All that said, I’ve waited a long time for Battle Chasers on Switch. I could have bought it on any other platform awhile ago, but I wanted it portable and pauseable. I’m enjoying the game so far. It’s quite visually stunning and a fun little crawler.
I am finding it (so far) a bit “too little to do”. There is not a lot of equipment changes and no decisions at leveling, but I am dabbling with For the King on PC (totally will rebuy for Switch later) at the same time so maybe it is just a comparison feeling. It could also be that I am too early in the game at this point. The battle system of balancing overcharge, attack delays, and mana supply is cool.
Above all, it is a great fit for the Switch. I love the portability and being able to pause at any time. I can pick it up to finish a fishing hole, play a single dungeon tile, or soak up a whole dungeon run. Whatever, wherever, and at my pacing. It’s a great platform fit for a dungeon crawler. Even some of the reviews that were harsh on frame rate stated that the Switch was the preferred platform.
Thanks for the replies, I think I’m sold on the viability on the Switch.
But then I checked the price and realized it’s on sale for $15 on PS4 right now. I didn’t buy it, but it’s hard to pay $40 on the Switch when it’s a fraction of that on the PS4, so I think I’ll hold on for a while and see if it gets discounted on the Switch in a few months.
I just bought this on PC, and I honestly didn’t expect to like it. I bought it because a good friend was a big evangelist for it and I wanted to be able to talk to him about it.
And I freaking LOVE it.
I have to give some context: I am not really a big RPG player. I mean, back in the day I used to be, but nowadays very few of them feel like they’re worth the gobs of hours they require. I have played almost zero Japanese-style RPGs, as I missed their heyday on the consoles. RPGs I’ve spent more than 20 hours on:
- Ultima 5
- Ultima 6
- Torchlight
- Expeditions: Conquistador
- West of Loathing
- Cat Quest
But Battle Chasers is my kind of RPG.
First, the combat systems and equipment and advancement are character-centric. Please don’t give me a ginormous web of player abilities that I can customize to make a mage-assassin-priest-thief. Give me an awesome character (or five) who do awesome things specific to them using awesome equipment types specific to them and let me make them awesomer and awesomer.
The pacing of advancement and the introduction of new characters, etc, is, to my tastes, practically perfect. (I just found the fifth character.) And advancement never gets super fiddly. The perks system is nicely compartmentalized and intuitive. I don’t feel like I have to go into an hours-long torpor of staring at statistics to know what I want.
I have some criticisms of the fishing (unpolished and unfun–feels like a half-baked KS stretch goal) and crafting (hasn’t seemed useful yet, and it’s hard to set your sights on something you really want to make and then pursue that goal actively).
The story isn’t spectacular, but the world looks interesting and the characters are appealing.
I would not have expected a first project from a new studio based on a comic property funded by Kickstarter to be so polished or to include so many very elegant design choices. I’d expect a kinda sloppy mess of fascinating ideas that fail to propel me through the sludge.
Very glad I gave this a try.
Hmm, i picked this up on PS4 (half off right now) as many respected posters here seemed to like it. Also noticed it was an Austin outfit which helped tip me over. Seems like something outside of my normal wheelhouse i may enjoy for a change of pace.
Now have just got to find the time…
This is a great game, with a wonderful aesthetic. I love the levels where you can explore more or less freely, and how you have to make use of your character’s agility and abilities to dodge traps and so on. I also appreciate the fact that you can just run past battles on the overland map when enemies are way beneath your current level. Characters are likeable and interesting; story is forgettable fare.
The crafting is a bit hit or miss for me: some items seem like they need a ridiculous amount of stuff. (I’m not much of a fan of crafting in games, anyway!) And I’m currently about 8 hours in and I feel like I need to start to grind to keep up with the enemies, which is something reviews warned about (i.e. it gets rather grindy).
So far, though, recommended.
Finished through the second dungeon on the flight home. Just under 10 hours in, I think. Having a blast.
I do wish that when you go to enter a dungeon it would tell you the rough level equivalent of the difficulty options. I’ve only done normal so far, but it would be nice to know when it would be appropriate to go back and try a harder difficulty without having to load in, find out I’m not prepared (potentially) and exit back out.
Yeah, I just went into the fourth (fifth?) dungeon and I almost went with the middle difficulty, but I just wasn’t sure if I should. Turns out I probably totally could have. That said, I don’t know if level values are a good measure of that or not, so there might not be a simple way to convey the difficulty without you just trying and learning.
What I was a little disappointed in was that the loot is better in a difficult dungeon, but not fundamentally higher level, from what I can tell. So it doesn’t seem that you can really grind, say, the first dungeon after a certain point, even with the difficulty slider. Am I wrong?
Not sure, but I think the higher rarity chests are more liable to give higher rarity versions of the same items. Yes, that’s a thing. For instance, I have both a green and blue version of the same Calibretto weapon.
If you go to the vendor you sell the artifacts to, you can buy epic chests from the different dungeons and it says there’s a chance for epic loot. I bought one for Path of Fangs before I had even been inside and got the blue one (which was perfect because it was a well-out-of-date slot at the time) then got the green one in the dungeon.
So, I think one thing to do if you are below the curve a bit is to buy a chest or two from the hardest dungeon and hope you get a bit lucky (those chests had like 6+items, but some were materials…I think there were 2 pieces of gear).
In January, the devs removed level requirements for equipment:
The entire cast of Battle Chasers has wised up, and have learned how to use equipment that was previously beyond their skill level. This means: equipment no longer requires a minimum level to equip! This will improve the leveling curve, and make leveling up benched characters a smoother experience. To keep the game balanced, equipment drops and vendor inventories have been slightly readjusted.