Do you like your Advance Wars-style game with a healthy dose of anime? Warborn‘s space mechs stomp onto PC/MAC, XBOX, PS4, and Switch on June 12th. Is this indie worth a look? Here is one gamer’s humble opinion.
The first thing you notice about Warborn are its crisp anime cartoon graphics and its dramatic music. The animations are fluid and you definitely hear audible “stomps” as your mechs run around the map. There are no pixels if that concerns you, so in essence, the presentation is effective in conveying its anime cred. You can imagine the characters in the mechs screaming in Japanese as they take a blow from another mech. It works.
There are slight variations on the Advance Wars formula. As you can see, the map is hex-based instead of square blocks. The difference is slight and doesn’t really change much, except making it slightly more confusing lining up your mechs. However, the hit indicators are clear and as long as you don’t mis-click you can fine tune your movement and abilities before committing. The similarities involve more optional content, as it has multiplayer and a map editor to create your own content, if you so desire. Personally, I always think I’m going to get my friends together for a multiplayer session or to create and show-off a custom map, but I almost never do. That said, I appreciate that they took the time to add that feature.
The story and gameplay are good, but nothing really new or quirky. It takes itself pretty seriously and that’s fine if you’re just there for the tactics. Tactical decisions are fine too, if a bit on the simple side. For example, attacking an enemy does not involve any return fire, so if you surround an enemy correctly, they’re toast. That’s pretty satisfying too, since many strategy games bog you down with too many rules and abilities and modifiers. Warborn keeps it simple and that’s to its benefit.
So would I recommend Warborn? Yes, if you this is your introduction to Advance Wars style games it’s a fine starting point or if you’ve exhausted other examples and want a slightly different take on the formula. It probably won’t wow with any of its elements, but the polish and presentation are fun enough to warrant at least one playthrough.
I played Warborn on PC (Steam) with a key provided by the developer for review and not for promotion. All my thoughts are my own on playing about 5 hours at the time of writing.