Turn-based tactics, armoured space warriors, plenty of aliens to slaughter, and over fifty scenario campaign to keep you entertained. The game originally launched in 2015, which is reflected in the price tag. If you ever find the title on sale it is definitely worth grabbing.
The game is set in the Start Traders universe, a setting created by the developer Trese Brothers. You will find plenty of background information dropped throughout the game, though none of it is necessary to read, if you rather just concentrate on eternal slaughter. Basically, there’s war and ancient enemies, and your Templars are there to protect what remains of humanity.
This game is actually a re-do of the company’s original Templar Assault App for mobile devices. You can test the latter, though this more modern version is considerably improved.
Turn-based Scenarios and Unlockable Progress
The game progresses through a series of scenarios, with varying objectives. After each scenario you are given requisition points and exprieence points based on how well you did. There are three main factors here:
- How fast you complete the scenario. There is a turn limit, and you gain extra points for completing the scenarios faster.
- How many aliens you slaughter. This is not a total, but rather an average per turn. The higher the average, the more points you get.
- How many side objectives you complete. There are a handful for each mission, giving extra XP.
It’s worth noting that the number of aliens is heavily affected by difficulty level. This means that the harder the game is, the more aliens there are, and hence the more experience your soldiers get.
Every Move and Shot Counts
Most scenarios are about moving fast and completing your set objectives. These include capturing points, reaching extraction zones, defeating enemy units, or other such simple tasks. Often this means moving from one end of the map to another. Yet, the scenarios are small enough that this doesn’t become frustrating nor tedious.
One of the core design aspects is limited movement and action. Each Templar has their Movement Points and Action points. The latter are used on everything from using medikits to firing, setting up overwatch, or using buffs. Using action points also uses up movement points, but not vice versa.
This creates a necessity for planned and tactical moves. If you want to hit those turn limits you need to split up your troops, concentrate on choke points, place turrets and mines strategically, and so forth. Choosing between using your turn to fire at the enemy, or setting up an overwatch to clear the whole horde during their turn can make a huge difference in how the scenario proceeds.
The aliens also tend to keep on coming no matter what. You’ll never slaughter enough of them to win, and that is never the point. Rather than raking up individual kills, you often try to eliminate a group of xenos at one go, whilst moving forwards to clear the current objective, and activating the right buffs so that you can move ahead those two extra MPs that save you a turn.
Of course, on the easier difficulties you can just concentrate on the firefights. One of the key aspects is also controlling tactical points, which gives you supploy points to use on ordnances or bringing in more Templars.
Equipment, Talent and Dice Rolls
XP gained gives your Templars levels. These increase stat points, which affect things like area effects, chance to hit with projectiles or melee, evasion, hit points, and so forth. Usually, the best idea is to simply go all in on given stats.
Talents are…well, the skills you can use in battle. These inlcude the basic attacks, special attacks, and buffs. The more points you put in certain talents the better the effects. Just like with stats, you should always concentrate on one or two talents.
Each level gained also gives your Templar equipment points. Each new piece of equipment costs more gear points to field. This means that you often need to choose between different builds. Heavy armor or a killer gun? Melee weapon or ranged weapon? Artifacts and buffs, or better overall gear?
All of this creates a setting that gives way to untold amounts of different builds.
A Tech Tree of Sorts
Requisition points are used to unlock new equipment, skills, relics and even soldiers. You can think of it as sort of a tech tree.
Now the idea here is never to unlock everything. Doing just that will quickly destroy any chance of you to advance further. Rather, you should concentrate on just a handful of builds. Don’t expect to field Paladins, Berserkers, Neptunes (machine gunners), or Pyros on every run. More often than not, you’re going to pick just one of them.
This is also of course tied to how much experience your soldiers get. There is not point unlocking something that you can’t even use, as your Templars are not of high enough level.
A Good 40 Hours of Fun
Why did I write this review? Because I was looking for a good squad-based strategy game, and couldn’t find anything interestng. So I re-installed Templar Battleforce for the first time in nearly a decade, and replayed through the whole campaign in a couple of days.
It’s not the most beautiful of games, it’s not moddable, nor does it offer endless replaynility. But for the price tag it’s a superb strategy game that everyone should try. In theory, you can keep on playing as many times as you like, trying different difficulty levels and testing out new builds. But if you’re like me, you’ll probably get somewhere between 20 and 60 hours of fun out of this game.
There’s a demo available to try out too.
