Battle Realms could have been amazing with a better follow through.
User Rating: 6.8 | Battle Realms PC
Battle Realms looked like it should have had everything, from the awesome characterization to a sweet setting, Battle Realms seemed like the ultimate RTS to play before Warcraft 3. Sadly, it didn't live up to expectations, repetitive and too easy, the lasting appeal of Battle Realms is very low. That is not to say it doesn't have good points, however. Gameplay: Battle Realms attempts to give you many choices when you play as the different factions. These factions include the Wolf Clan, the Lotus, the Snake, and the Dragon Clans. They are all rather different, which is certainly a good thing, but unfortunately, even while the units are different, it all plays the same. The premise for Battle Realms is genious, something game developers should have thought up years ago- use the peasants to turn into troops, and continue upgrading. This was something I had really wanted to see in games for a while, but once I saw how it worked for Battle Realms, I'm not sure I ever want to see it again. What the system ammounts to is creating buildings to mass produce peasants, send the peasants to random buildings to upgrade them as needed, and repeat. This causes for massive lines and long wait times as you sit and wait for your more useful units to get trained, and it also turns the skirmishes into needlessly long outings. Another issue with Battle Realms is the horrifying lack of balance. Whilst at first it seems rather balanced, once you discover the secret of the Wolf Clan, that is, to mass produce wolves (just about every one of your soldiers can traveil with 1-3 wolves), you can easily overrun even experts of the other clans. This lack of balance is disturbing, and a massive flaw for an RTS game to have. The campaign is also dull and exceedingly, painfully long. While it doesnt involve all that many missions, the gameplay is so tedious you will want it to end as soon as possible. This is not to say Battle Realms does not have many interesting innovations. These include the ability for most of your units to upgrade individually to suit your needs, helping combat certain opponents, as well as the abillity to get into towers and use various attacks from them. Graphics: Graphically, Battle Realms was beautiful for its time, and is still rather appealing today. The units all look unique, and have their own unique fighting styles. Sadly, there aren't enough battle animations, and you will soon grow tired of seeing one attack animation over and over. Sound: The music is as forgettable as the sound effects, but it is not horrible, just... average. Value: The game will keep you entertained for a good period of time if you decide not to exploit the balancing weaknesses, but once you have played games like Warcraft, Starcraft, the Total War series, etc, all better RTS games, you won't be coming back. Tilt: Battle Realms could have been so much more. It should have been so much more, but it is not. With some more time put into development and the smoothing out of balance issues, Battle Realms could have been great, but as is, it's a diamond in the rough.
