[i][b]Symphony of War: The Nephilim Saga[/b][/i] is a turn-based tactical game in a fantasy setting. The protagonist is the Chosen One and aims to stop an evil god and a politician who double-crossed them with the Power of Friendship and military might, while [strike]conquering[/strike] liberating everything on their way.
[h2]"One more turn" can easily last 5 hours - the character development and combat systems are deep and engaging enough to forgive the numerous shortcomings of the story and writing, while the QoL features make the experience more enjoyable. [/h2]
The campaign consists of 30 main and 6 side missions of variable length and complexity, most taking about an hour on the default difficulty. The maps are reasonably large and provide optional, more challenging, objectives. Most allow to use between 12 and 20 squads which consist of up to 9 units. Once a squad engages in combat with another squad, each unit acts automatically based on their stats and traits, including Morale (more actions and higher damage if high). Everyone's areas of reach are clearly marked upon hovering over them with the cursor, while positioning and terrain can provide advantages, so planning is crucial to success. Thus, in the later chapters, turns can easily take 10 minutes, even with the sped-up animations. The full playthrough without the DLC took me 30 hours.
One of the more unique features of the game is having squads, rather than individual characters, on the battlefield. Each of them can have different classes and several custom passive abilities (Traits), while the equipment is used per squad. Each of the starting classes can branch into different combat roles as they gain experience. The main characters usually make for better leaders due to the higher squad capacity, but almost any unit can be a squad leader. Additionally, the army-wide Tech Tree upgrades provide access to new classes and abilities.
Between missions, the new recruits and items (both are randomly chosen from a pool) can be purchased for gold, the above-mentioned Tech Tree technologies researched, and the conversations between main characters listened to. The Marketplace having randomised selection was fairly unpleasant, as the more powerful mercenaries, trait books, and artefacts provide a noticeable advantage, while the weaker units benefited from having certain elemental affinity (stat distribution) and traits as well.
The story can be considered either endearing or ridiculous (or both) - there are logical gaps, inconsistencies, and hard-to-parse sentences, yet it is delivered at the face value with some attempts at reflection, and the characters' manner of speech is varied enough to distinguish between a farmer and a general with an academic background. Some aspects can be more annoying, such as the heteronormativity and the attempts to write misogyny - most of the characters are heterosexuals and, if "bonded", their endings consist primarily of breeding (there are 3 bisexual ones and, for the male option, it could be read as "best friends and roommates" without quotation marks; the "romance" dialogues overall were painful to read), with a few exceptions. For the Veridian (the Europe-inspired starting state) side, the dialogues use "men" instead of "people", while in the very same location the most powerful warriors (Paladins) are mostly women. In the neighbouring state of Sayunaa (it does not have a clear inspiration and little context is provided for its culture, beyond being old), the local swordmasters, including a general, are women. The units can easily change their gender based on the class, so the writing choice is all more puzzling. The generous take on the lack of Black characters is that the story takes place only in these two countries and the travel in the setting is severely limited (with the airships and teleportation costing a fortune), but then you get a cat-folk mercenary from the south, so humans are less inclined to travel to or settle in war-prone areas than the cat people.
The hilarious parts come closer to the end of the campaign (late-game spoilers), when [spoiler]the archer companion, who had been raised in Veridia and had never been to Sayunaa before invading it (because there is a story McGuffin under the palace), becomes the king due to his amazing qualifications of being the lost grandson of the last king. Then he promptly provides all the state support to the protagonist in their war against the evil emperor. To reiterate, the archer has no experience in government or administration and is not familiar with the country at all, but all the same gets put on the throne by his grandpa's fans and the MC.[/spoiler] The end-game spoilers: [spoiler]the main antagonist being also the richest person in the country could be read as an attempt at anti-capitalism, but I could not figure out what his problem with the gods' reincarnations was, or what the gunner general companion's philosophical monologues were about. That the church is good because it makes the population more predictable? And both were relatively long. The ending has a hook for a sequel.[/spoiler] However, there are some noticeable highlights, such as (very late-game spoiler) [spoiler]the MC remembering that the civilians in the capital cheered for their execution (because they definitely knew that the MC was framed) and going on a rampage. Considering how the protagonists are usually written in similar stories, breaking the stereotype is refreshing, even if the lack of choice on the matter is unwelcome.[/spoiler] The story overall is linear, with the options limited to the side quest completion and character relationships.
The visual style for the majority of the game is clean and expressive pixel art, with the character portraits using a more generic semi-realistic style. With the Classic Portraits, the styles between them clash more strongly - the MC's face looks like a poorly-peeled potato, while the main boss of the prologue has a ridiculous amount of details. The sprites are well-animated and it is easy to tell what each one represents.
The sound design is present, the music is not annoying, and the VA is contained to the combat barks.
There are several saving options, including manual "hard" saves any time out of mission (99 slots), single quick-save during missions (and the ability to redo the last turn or restart the whole encounter; each has a confirmation prompt), and auto-saves. The game can be played with the mouse only and it is very comfortable to do so. The tutorials are helpful and all information can be accessed in combat. The depth of combat and UI make it almost impossible to tell that the game was developed with the RPGMaker engine. The only bug I've encountered was a UI element clipping through a character portrait in 1 cutscene.
Overall, it was a very enjoyable experience which I might replay.
