The Nephilim Saga is a breath of fresh air for those of us who've spent the past three decades wishing and hoping that turn-based tactics games like Ogre Battle and Fire Emblem would make their way to our beloved PC gaming platform.
PC has long been a platform dominated by real-time strategy and turn-based strategy, but woefully bereft of quality entries in the turn-based tactics subgenre of strategy games. While consoles and handhelds saw the fantastic Fire Emblem, Ogre Battle, Tactics Ogre, and Final Fantasy Tactics series flourish, we watched from afar. Total War, Starcraft, Command and Conquer are fine games, of course, but there's just something about a good turn-based tactics game that scratches the itch like none other for those of us who love the subgenre.
Enter Symphony of War: The Nephilim Saga. This game brilliantly blends Ogre Battle's classic squad-based unit formation with Fire Emblem's general aesthetic and grid map, and it does it wonderfully. There is something superbly satisfying about building your squads and then watching them in action. If you've played a Fire Emblem game before, you will more or less know what to expect here. If you haven't, but you're looking for a solid turn-based tactics game, The Nephilim Saga will be a good place for you to start.
There are a number of complaints I have with the game, though. This game is the first in a new series by a small indie developer, and it shows in some respects. Although the sprite art in the combat screens is absolutely fantastic and certainly inspired by the old GBA Fire Emblem games, and the Sage Frontier-esque super-deformed narrative sprite art is quite compelling, there are certain instances in which the art direction of the game falls well below the standard set by many gorgeous indie titles of the modern day. A prime example is the character portrait art that pops up during narrative scene alongside speech boxes. It is so amateurish that it looks more like a Playstation-era render of a player character; very plain, very wooden. It pulled me out of the narrative so strongly that I wished I had the option to turn off the portraits and just leave a plain speech box, so I could instead focus on the sprite characters. I hope there eventually is an option to turn them off, or a mod to replace the character portraits with better art.
Although the sprite art in the combat screen is really phenomenal and gives you a distinct appreciation of promoting your units, the animation is unfortunately quite limited. Fire Emblem had a real weighted feel to its animations; watching a General attack in the old GBA Fire Emblem games led you almost to feel the weight of their armor and the power of their swing. Unfortunately The Nephilim Saga lacks this same sort of satisfaction; it settles instead for flinging its characters across the screen and having them whack lightly at their enemies, which is a bit disappointing considering how good the sprite art is otherwise.
In addition to this, the user interface is really poor. It's extremely ugly and very clunky to use. There is no option to set resolution, leaving the player only fullscreen, large window, or small window. Additionally, there is no way to rebind keys, which is unfortunate. But even more damning is that there is no way to view keybinds at all, leaving the player to blindly stumble their way through what the controls are in the first place. It took me ages to figure out how to scroll down the right side of the screen in the Tutorial screen, for example. The mouse wheel being functional would be another nice thing to see.
I would also like to see some achievements added. This is a relatively minor complaint, but the achievements we currently have are rather limited and bland, and having some quirky ones thrown into the mix would be a delight for a game as challenging as The Nephilim Saga has it in itself to be.
Despite these complaints, this game has it where it counts. It's got a lot of heart and it gives you the strong dopamine kick that comes along with turn-based tactics in the form of building your units, promoting them into utterly bad-ass looking high-level sprites, and granting you the satisfaction of a proper strategy working out well. There is also the option to turn on permadeath, a la Fire Emblem, should one prefer it.
This is a fantastic first effort and I look forward to future developer support in the form of patches to smooth out some of the rough edges, and I sincerely hope that this series sees some sequels down the road, because this is a greatly enjoyable game once you get past some of its quirks. Rejoice, turn-based tactics fans, the subgenre has finally come to PC!
Enter Symphony of War: The Nephilim Saga. This game brilliantly blends Ogre Battle's classic squad-based unit formation with Fire Emblem's general aesthetic and grid map, and it does it wonderfully. There is something superbly satisfying about building your squads and then watching them in action. If you've played a Fire Emblem game before, you will more or less know what to expect here. If you haven't, but you're looking for a solid turn-based tactics game, The Nephilim Saga will be a good place for you to start.
Although the sprite art in the combat screen is really phenomenal and gives you a distinct appreciation of promoting your units, the animation is unfortunately quite limited. Fire Emblem had a real weighted feel to its animations; watching a General attack in the old GBA Fire Emblem games led you almost to feel the weight of their armor and the power of their swing. Unfortunately The Nephilim Saga lacks this same sort of satisfaction; it settles instead for flinging its characters across the screen and having them whack lightly at their enemies, which is a bit disappointing considering how good the sprite art is otherwise.
In addition to this, the user interface is really poor. It's extremely ugly and very clunky to use. There is no option to set resolution, leaving the player only fullscreen, large window, or small window. Additionally, there is no way to rebind keys, which is unfortunate. But even more damning is that there is no way to view keybinds at all, leaving the player to blindly stumble their way through what the controls are in the first place. It took me ages to figure out how to scroll down the right side of the screen in the Tutorial screen, for example. The mouse wheel being functional would be another nice thing to see.
I would also like to see some achievements added. This is a relatively minor complaint, but the achievements we currently have are rather limited and bland, and having some quirky ones thrown into the mix would be a delight for a game as challenging as The Nephilim Saga has it in itself to be.
Despite these complaints, this game has it where it counts. It's got a lot of heart and it gives you the strong dopamine kick that comes along with turn-based tactics in the form of building your units, promoting them into utterly bad-ass looking high-level sprites, and granting you the satisfaction of a proper strategy working out well. There is also the option to turn on permadeath, a la Fire Emblem, should one prefer it.
This is a fantastic first effort and I look forward to future developer support in the form of patches to smooth out some of the rough edges, and I sincerely hope that this series sees some sequels down the road, because this is a greatly enjoyable game once you get past some of its quirks. Rejoice, turn-based tactics fans, the subgenre has finally come to PC!
⭐⭐⭐
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