[b]TL; DR[/b] [i]Mercenaries Saga 1[/i] is an alright strategy RPG it can be quite fun, but it also incentivises grinding to acquire better equipment and levels which gets boring and tedious. I certainly enjoyed a lot of my playtime, but this is no masterpiece.
[b]Note[/b] This was originally a mobile game, and it is keyboard only.
[h1] Story [/h1]
In the south and west a powerful kingdom is aiming to unify the continent, many monarchs are fearful, and your sovereign in his unending wisdom has decided to invade a neighbouring state as a show of force. It has not gone well, but this gives ample opportunities for mercenaries, however, you and your band the White Lions, are far from the front preferring instead odd jobs like taking care of bandits, escorts, or monsters but eventually you are thrust into the halls of power.
The story is very simple, and on the derivative side. Nothing surprising happens, it is rather straightforward, and a bit contrived, but it is serviceable for what it is and sometimes it can be nice to play something with a predicable plot.
That is not to say that I do not find it disappointing. Frankly I thought that a lot of things could be done with the premise, but they sort of ignore all the interesting bits and quite uncritically support your warmongering liege lord. The dialogue is also not amazing most of it boils down to restating their character trait(s) or giving some exposition. There is nothing wrong with that and it can be somewhat endearing but at times the conversations can feel repetitive.
The nicest thing I can say is that I am really glad that the game splits into two routes a third of the way in. I think it is fun to form different relationships with the supporting cast depending on the situation you find yourself in, and it is nice to see that some of them are more multifaceted than they might have first appeared.
[h1] Presentation [/h1]
The store page reflects the visuals of the game well enough and while it is not particularly interesting or stunning, I find the small snapshots of villages, roads, and other locations appealing. They are generally nice seeming places with a cosy rustic charm. Of course, there are less “nice” looking places, but the art style still gives them that same cosy air, which can be somewhat jarring in a ruined village, but I did not mind.
There are also the character portraits, they look fine, but it is hard not to notice that they all have the same face or at least that several characters have the same mouths. I do not particularly care, but they always have the same expression, so they never convey any emotion, just this abject emptiness.
The only thing I think is bad that bears mentioning are these frames of white that appear when you get a critical hit or when you change classes. It happens frequently, and if you are aware of it, you might have time to shield yourself but sometimes you cannot since it is RNG, in other words, your eyes might suffer.
Another smaller issue is how (de)buffs are displayed. These appear above a character so once people start getting bunched together, such as on a bridge, and you cast a few spells things will get really cluttered. I have had it so that I literally could not see someone under HP-bars and icons, it is not a massive problem since you can still see who is who by highlighting their tile but it is still a problem since you cannot tell much of anything at a glance.
In regard to the music, and the audio of [i]Will of the White Lions[/i] it is of a similar quality, somewhat generic and not very memorable but still competent enough so that nothing stands out as bad. I like the soundtrack, but it is repetitive, it is background music, and even after just a few hours I started listening to something else and neither my experience with the game or its atmosphere changed very much.
[h1] Gameplay [/h1]
[i]Will of the White Lions[/i] is a turn-based tactics game, you fight short scenarios on small maps either in the campaign, or standalone missions. Typically, you have six, but sometimes five or less, party members against an array of monsters, bandits, soldiers or undead. You should utilise positioning and items to even the odds and pick up all items you can since they will come in handy.
While I did find a number of missions fun, and challenging, they can feel simplistic. Your objectives are always defeat all enemies or defeat the boss, but if they felt creative you have special loss conditions such as protecting a temporary party member or taking ages to finish a Chapter.
I think they are fine for what they are, and being given the option to sometimes, twice, choose the map you play is cool, but there are issues. At times enemies spawn in but you cannot always predict it and even if you can it is not always apparent where they will show up. They can show up in the middle of a room instead of near one of the several doorways, which can be annoying since you only have one quick save, and there are no autosaves.
There is also the issue of grinding, [i]Will of the White Lions[/i] really wants you to grind because otherwise you will struggle especially on higher difficulties and that feels very tedious since the most efficient way is using multi-hit attacks, or spamming buffs, or replaying the same map to refresh the store hoping for better magic items to appear.
So, you will be playing the standalone scenarios, but they are simply repeats of campaign maps but with a different set of enemies, therefore each run of these scenarios will be roughly the same. The more interesting ones are limited to NG+ and these are basically challenges, I especially like the two that let you use your full party instead of the usual six mercenaries, it takes a while to play but, in my opinion, it is always cool to use every companion for a single monumental fight, I would have liked one of those in the campaign as well.
[i]Will of the White Lions[/i] also heavily incentivises you to take things slow through different mechanics, your characters have low base movement so the small maps feel long, and there is directional damage, if you expose your back you will take massive hits but you can do the same to enemies, poor positioning means you get hit by area of effect attacks and more.
When you are in-between missions you can upgrade your characters, switch equipment, classes and combine new magic items. It is during this time that another aspect begins to show itself. There are “puzzle-pieces” special items that can be traded for Special Classes, or powerful rare equipment. On NG you can only obtained these by looting chests, beating bosses, stealing from certain enemies or finding hidden pieces in the campaign.
You have a limited number of them, so they need to be rationed. This seems like a premium item, meant to give you power boosts, and stave off grinding. It is easy to manage without it, but everything you can acquire with them is useful, and necessary if you want certain item sets, your alternative is replaying the same missions to get the magic items you want which is boring.
Overall the gameplay is quite fun, but it is simple, and has some annoyances. I found that enemies increased in level very quickly, and while it is easy enough to catch up since you gain more experience from higher level targets, it is also a bit annoying since it never feels like you surpass them, you are always slightly behind. Unless you grind or know what the game expects from you.
One thing that I will call irritating is how the basic resurrection spell works, it always has a chance to miss, which is annoying especially on higher difficulties, but when you upgrade, it gets an area of effect, which is awesome. The chance to miss works great when you are targeting multiple people, but it is the first resurrection spell you get. Which means that you are stuck with have an inconsistent skill and are better off just using an item until you have it upgraded, and that feels like a waste.
