ARMELLO Review for Nintendo Switch

Recently, I had the opportunity to play the game Armello. Initially released on September 1^st, 2015 for PlayStation 4, Microsoft Windows, Xbox One, Android, iOS, and PC, the game was developed by then up-and-coming independent game developer League of Geeks, and is the first title officially released by the studio. The game accrued positive critical acclaim, with many citing its fine-tuned strategy gameplay, diverse character and environment designs, and solid presentation as highlights. The game was so well-received, in fact, that recently the game was also ported to the ever-popular Nintendo Switch, and that’s where I come in.

So as the game starts, you’re immediately thrust into the action as a wolf character named Thane, without any sort of story or exposition before gameplay. And that’s because…there is no story! The only cutscene in the game occurs after you finish the prologue, but it doesn’t really tell the player much of anything, instead highlighting the main character traits of the four characters you’re introduced to: Thane of the Wolf Clan, Mercurio of the Rat Clan, Amber of the Rabbit Clan, and Sana of the Bear Clan. Overall, Thane was definitely my go-to pick for his high amount of body and dice rolling options, as well as his good equipment drops making the game a breeze. The true objective of Armello is not concrete, instead being based on one of four win conditions, all of which involving the once good king. Now a warrior of the Rot, an ancient corruptive substance that has now begun wreaking havoc on Armello, the king sends his guards after you in an attempt to hunt you down to reaffirm his dominance, aiding or opposing said guards with Rot Bane creatures from the depths of the earth. With that said, the four conditions are

-Prestige: Be the character with the most prestige by the time the king dies. Prestige signifies your rank in the game. The more of it you have, the more likely the king will call upon you for advice when issuing royal decrees. These documents can have astoundingly transformative effects on the battlefield, be they putting bounties on character’s heads, increasing the rate of guard patrols, or installing Perils onto certain spaces(more on that later). Prestige can be taken away either by getting killed or killing a king’s guard. It can be gained either by royal decree, saving innocent towns, or by claiming a bounty, which also gives you extra gold. Finally, you also get it by completing quests, which also boosts your body, or health, and may even give you an item. The item is dependent on whether you choose the safe quest, or the riskier version. The safe version will always give you a prestige and body boost, while the riskier version possibly gives you both, plus an item. The way to make it more likely you complete the risky quest is to boost your Body stat, with each fight point boosting your chances by 10%. Fail, however, and you get nothing, or sometimes even worse, so choose wisely.

-Kingslayer: Pretty straightforward. Simply kill the corrupted king yourself, and you win. Granted, this is not as simple as it sounds, as you will need to win using the game’s combat system. Essentially, you use dice, with each face offering a different effect. The sword lets you attack once, the shield lets you defend once, the rot counts as a miss, the moon lets you attack only when it’s night, the sun lets you do the same, but for daytime, and the Wyld acts as an attack die and lets you roll again. If you roll more attack die than your opponent rolls defense die, you’ll be allowed to deal actual damage to their body, or health. Drain it completely and they’ll die, forcing them to respawn at their initial point. To help with the combat, you can also use two different types of cards. Item cards offer passive bonuses, such as giving you two extra defense die, increasing or decreasing the number of dice you roll, or increasing your amount of attacks. To equip items, you need a certain amount of gold, obtained by saving towns and then waiting for daybreak, getting them from random coin tosses, or exploring dungeons scattered across the map and hoping you do get gold. Spells are cast with spirit, which is basically like a magic meter, and consists of things like healing, or other mage fare. Finally, you can burn your item cards in order to use up one of your dice as a guaranteed roll for the insignia on the card, making it easier to get what type of fighting moves you desire.

-Corruption: You get this by killing the king under the influence of the Rot. Essentially, whenever you die to a bane enemy or use a card that says as such(like Dark Chips from Battle Network), you gain 1 Rot. Whenever you have Rot, you lose one point of body each turn. You’re safe from corruption until you reach 5 Rot, at which point you turn to the dark side. Now whenever you enter a spirit stone sanctum, you get damaged, and you still lose one body each turn, but you also have access to far stronger cards which overall make combat and traversal easier, acting as a risk vs reward type scenario.

-SpiritARMELLO Review for Nintendo Switchsavior: Finally, you can become a spiritsavior by collecting 4 Spirit Stones, and then cleansing the king. Spirit Stones are scattered across the map, and all you need to do to get them is walk over their space. Once you have all four, simply go to the space next to the king and use the stones to cleanse him, saving his life and winning the game.

So, now that that’s done, might as well get to the smaller stuff. Another mechanic you can use is hiring other fighters to help you. Be they fighting companions, mercenaries, or spies, they’ve got your back as long as you’ve got the gold. You can also use certain cards to place Perils on certain spaces, and if others land on said peril they’re required to roll a specific combination of dice, or face a negative consequence, although the Peril is removed afterward regardless.

In order to move across the board, you have to spend one AP per space, and the amount of AP is dependent on the character you choose, with 3 being the general amount. Some spaces, however, are different, such as swamp spaces sapping one body upon entering, forests providing camouflage at night, and mountains requiring 1 extra AP with the benefit of providing extra defense die.

In terms of the presentation, the music is pretty solid all around. It’s nothing especially memorable, per se, but it does a good job providing atmosphere while being nice to listen to in the game itself. The game also has some voice acting, but only for the king. Considering it’s an independent project, that’s not really surprising, and at least the king’s voice does sound good for the few clips that he does have. In terms of the graphics, the in-game graphics look about on par with the 3DS Fire Emblem games, which is a little disappointing considering it’s on the the Nintendo Switch, but the game was released 3 years ago and it’s an independent project. By those standards, I’d say the game looks pretty good, and there was very little in the way of lag during my experience. Also, the animated intro cutscene looks gorgeous and really highlights the fantasy nature of Armello and its characters. I wouldn’t mind seeing a proper cartoon in this style, honestly.

Aside from the characters I mentioned, you can also play as River of the Wolf Clan, Barnaby Screwloose of the Rabbit Clan, Zosha of the Rat Clan, and Brun Oakbreaker of the Bear Clan. In future versions you could also play as Elyssia of the Rabbit Clan, Sargon of the Rat Clan, Magna of the Wolf Clan, Ghor of the Bear Clan, Hargrave of the Rabbit Clan, Griotte of the Rat Clan, Yordana of the Bear Clan, and Fang of the Wolf Clan. Plus, there is DLC including Twiss of the Squirrel Clan, Sylas of the Otter Clan, Scarlet of the Fox Clan, and Horace of the Badger Clan. Admittedly, most of these characters play roughly the same, but the amount of cosmetic difference is nice and I appreciate it. It does help somewhat mask the fact that this game is very light on content. The singleplayer is a bare bones one round match against CPUs to take the king with no sort of story around it, so clearly the focus was on the multiplayer. And admittedly, this was fun! I got together with some friends and had a rockin’ good time outsmarting them and claiming victory through the art of strategy. But ultimately, even this grew somewhat tedious considering the map’s layout very rarely changes and the characters have so little in the way of concrete gameplay differences. You can of course make custom rulesets for your game if you so choose, but the options don’t really add enough to make it worthwhile all over again. This is all compounded by the egregious lack of online play. I do understand the game is meant to be a tabletop experience, but in the age of 2018, not being able to play this game online severely cripples it, especially since multiplayer is such a big focus. I suppose you can try getting new achievements and filling up the card gallery, but this requires playing the same map over and over again to fulfill mindless tasks I honestly couldn’t finish.

Overall, Armello is a game that has a lot going for it. It’s got good presentation, the gameplay is complex yet easy to learn, and there is a healthy variety of options to choose from. But all this belies a greater truth: the game simply doesn’t offer that much in terms of content. If this was a 20+ hour RPG adventure like Fire Emblem, I’d be all for it. But that is sadly not the case, and ultimately it’s the game’s biggest flaw. I’d say if it goes on sale for a very cheap price, like 5 dollars, or if you have friends to play with, then pick it up. Otherwise, I’d say this is one fantasy adventure you can pass on.

6/10

Check Out the Armello Nintendo Switch Announce Trailer:

To learn more, visit Armello’s official site, follow the game on Twitter,and like it on Facebook.