Symphony of War: The Nephilim Saga - Ogre Battle Spiritual Successor Tactical RPG

[Carpincho Pampeano]

Talk about the gameplay, every single game be it western or eastern has faggot shit now.

 

[Kalarion]

I just finished Chapter 13, I suspect I've hit the climax and am working on the build-up to endgame. So I feel like I can give some initial impressions.

I can't remember if anyone correctly categorized this game earlier in the thread. My impression is that it's mostly been put up as a spiritual successor to Ogre Battle (MOTBQ). This is only partially correct. I would call it a mash between MOTBQ and Fire Emblem. It has the character sprite and art aesthetics, world map look, general battle flow and inter-chapter "feel" of MOTBQ. But the scenario maps are turn-based, and the battle grid and scenario maps themselves are much closer in look and feel to Fire Emblem, as is the character development system.

It's also not nearly as complex in any of its systems as either of its progenitors. It has something like the rich character class progression system of MOTBQ but (as far as I've seen) none of the cool nooks and crannies the elder game had (making Liches and Princesses, dragon shenanigans, interesting/niche/weird classes like the Dollmaster and so on). Instead we have very vanilla Tier 1 > Tier 2 > Tier 3 progression, with at most one branching choice at each promotion (and sometimes not even that). It also has something like the cool scenario map system of Fire Emblem and MOTBQ, but again, none of the nooks and crannies of its forebears (no treasure-hunting ala MOTBQ, and very flat random shops/treasure chests ala Fire Emblem).

In fact, now that I think on it, the game Symphony of War most closely resembles is actually Battle for Wesnoth. Although, again, not nearly as intricate as that old stalwart has turned out to be over the years. You might call this "Babby's First Battle for Wesnoth in RPGMaker" (try rolling that one out 5 times in a row :D).

The music is really good. Not to say it's the next Mask of the Betrayer or anything, but it successfully rocketed me back to my pre-teens, hunched in front of my SNES, playing Ogre Battle for the first time. Delicious.

The story is fine. In this area at least, it holds up well in comparison to its inspirations. The beats are well done, there's plenty of maturity to the storyline and it doesn't veer into cloying naive childishness. It also takes some zigs where I expected zags. A pleasant surprise. It does its job and it doesn't grate too much on my sensibilities. I say this as a grumpy old Christian conservative bastard who's pretty convinced we're living in the End Times, and for whom the well of popular media has been thoroughly and irrevocably poisoned. The fact I can bear the light touches of Current Year without violently rejecting the game entirely (which is my normal wont when dealing with modern media) is quite an accomplishment on the creator's part, and I salute him for it.

The Good
- Cozy character progression for standard units. I felt right at home from chapter 1. One interesting thing Symphony of War does that I haven't seen elsewhere in my admittedly limited experience is the ability to cap the progression of a unit with a special item. It makes them basically a powered-up version of their class with bonus stats, and locks them into it forever. Pretty neat.
- No grinding. The only forced progression option you've got is to use Arena Tokens for extra fights and a smattering of Faction XP. The Faction XP feels like it's mostly there to smooth out the power differential between a player who routinely maxes out scenario XP and one who flubs objectives occasionally.
- The inter-chapter marketplace allows the hiring of Mercenaries, basically pre-levelled and -Tier'd units who cost more to hire and initially take up more space in a group. One cool thing they included was a sort of "unique" version of each class that you can hire for exorbitant fees. They have increased stats compared to "base" versions, and usually have very strong traits. You'll know it's a unique because it has a quote of some kind where the class synopsis should be. They're worth every bit of gold cost, and I actually find myself skimping on other spending options just to make sure I have the ability to snap them up as they arrive.
- Speaking of Traits, it's pretty well implemented here. You've got your growth affinities, a basic relationship between affinities and weather, character traits with limited customization and so forth.
- Story. Like I said, I have a very difficult time interacting with modern media (by "modern", I mean anything created after, say, 2000 or so). But this one doesn't cause that reaction in me.
- Music. Really well done. This is how game music should have progressed as we moved out of the MIDI era and into symphonic sound.

The Meh
- ...character progression. Very predictable, and not very deep. The inability to equip individual units with items (instead you can equip each group with up to 3 artifacts, which grant group-wide bonuses) was a huge missed opportunity here. So was the failure to expand or at least stay on par with its predecessors in terms of making progression something to eagerly look forward to throughout the entire game. Again, I'm happy with it as is. But it's not going to wow anyone.
- Instructions, tutorials and documentation. Gets the job done but very bare-bones and plain. Leaves out some important information, and not in the "oooh I want to experiment and figure this out on my own!" way. It updates world lore as you play ala Dragon Age etc. The world's history reminds me of FFT, where you have mythical heroes of old who give the impression of not being what everyone thought they were.
- Economy. With rare exceptions I never feel like I'm running out of gold or class progression resources. As far as class progression, I actually would appreciate more scarcity for Tier 2 > Tier 3 progression materials for non-magic classes (cavalry, infantry and so forth). As it is I'm just impatiently waiting for my characters' stats to get high enough for promotion so I can suck up those billions of horses/iron/obsidian I've got sitting around doing nothing. Conversely, promoting a mage or paladin into Tier 3 is still a big event and a tough decision even midway through the game (at least, for me). I would have loved to have that feeling when promoting into Knight/Sentinels/Warbows and so forth.
- I'm torn on the level up looks. On the one hand when characters level up it feels like winning a slot machine payout; you get little popups over the head for each stat gain and a little chime, with different chimes depending on the type of gain (so Loyalty gains sound different then stat gains, for instance). It's kind of exciting. On the other hand seeing a bunch of stat pops fly by at light speed doesn't really do a game of this kind justice, where level gains should be associated with anxiously waiting to see how much STR my Footman gained, hoping it's enough to allow me to promote him.

The Bad
- UI. Really bad. I feel like I need 20 clicks to get anywhere in menus, and cancelling out doesn't work like I expected it to. I normally associate cancelling out with going one level "back" in a menu. Here it almost always dumps you all the way out of whatever submenu you're in. This applies to battle too, I'm constantly fully cancelling my action instead of just backing out of whatever submenu I happen to be in, and it's annoying as fuck. Important character data is hidden inside the tutorial section. Why doesn't each character list all of its attacks and their preconditions on its character card? Why does it take an ugly and disturbing popout to read the effect of traits? Why does the context-sensitive descriptive panel only display two lines at once, with a slow and unchangeable auto-scroll?
- ......character progression. Men, if I feel like I've capped out my army's troops at the midgame, it's a bad sign. Either the curve should be longer or there should be more endgame options for progression (including lateral progression such as specialization options). Even worse, main story characters don't progress in the same way regular troops do. They gain CP (the character promotion points) and can max their CP level, but they then sit there for (at least so far) the rest of the game. Coming from a dev that clearly understands his inspirations and hits the right notes in so many other places, this is an area that genuinely frustrates me. Although I might be being uncharitable, maybe new options show up later.

There's more but I can't be assed to remember what right now. Maybe I should jot notes as I play or something.

 

[Monkeyfinger]

Wait 2 months before you play this. The UI improvements are going to make a big difference and the dev promises they're coming, though in his words it's a "long list".

 

[thesecret1]

Got to chapter 12 on hard difficulty... Haven't lost a single soldier (not squad, soldier!) yet, fulfilled every bonus objective effortlessly, final rating is S on every single mission, all without even really trying. I actually started questioning my sanity – "Did I actually somehow pick the easy difficulty?", but no, I'm playing on the hardest one available. I'm not even pulling any super smart 4D tactics (the game doesn't even really allow for them, tbh, it's too simple for that), my squads just outclass enemy ones that hard. Resource management is a joke – since I capture every bonus objective on every map, I'm never lacking for them, ever.

I think I'm dropping this. It's a nice and simple SRPG, sure, but the absence of difficulty just kills it for me – I'm winning so effortlessly that it's just plain boring. I'm practically just marching from one end of the map to the other, while enemy squads suicide themselves by trying to attack me, only to not only deal next to no damage, but get obliterated by the counterattacks.

 

[santino27]

I just finished Chapter 13, I suspect I've hit the climax and am working on the build-up to endgame. So I feel like I can give some initial impressions.

There are 30 chapters, so you're not actually near the climax.

Finished it today. There's some fun, some half-finished features (no idea why they bothered with relationships, given they come out of nowhere and have only a minor in-game (and even narrative) impact), and a lot of UI clunkiness.
The story is pretty entertaining through the first 10-15 chapters, with some unexpected twists, but the latter half, I think the dev bit off more than they could chew, and a lot of the developments just seem random or 'we're doing this because the plot requires it.'

Overall, an enjoyable, if fairly easy and decidedly linear, time waster, but one I won't play again.

 

[FriendlyMerchant]

Talk about the gameplay, every single game be it western or eastern has faggot shit now.

You could probably find an older game with quite similar gameplay without sodomite glorification. So there's no point.

 

[HoboForEternity]

Just started, i think it is very cool so far. So much classes and synergies of what to put in a squad. I think this shares the same universe as skyborn? I mean the skyborn race are literally mentioned in the codex

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

I know it’s not exactly MOTBQ or POLC, but I can’t think of anything else out there that scratches the Ogre Battle itch like this.

 

[Carpincho Pampeano]

I know it’s not exactly MOTBQ or POLC, but I can’t think of anything else out there that scratches the Ogre Battle itch like this.

The only thing similar i can think is Soul Nomad, it's also known for having an actual evil route.

 

[Poseidon00]

I am very tired of "spiritual successors". They all end up mid.

 

[Carpincho Pampeano]

I am very tired of "spiritual successors". They all end up mid.

No lit fr fr bro, we better be bussin with the bros in fortnite rn no cap

 

[HoboForEternity]

Kalarion it's definitely in the same world. same lore, takes place probably at least few hundred years before skyborn (given tech level in skyborn is steampunk level). in the lore of the world, they said one of the first sapient species was the earthenfey. in skyborn the main plot involve the result/consequences of banishment of earthenfeys from the material world. the skyborn race is also directly mentioned in SoW. then again, the scope of skyborn isn't that big, just a particular part of the region so SoW expanded the lore a lot more, but it's definitely the same world.

 

[Kalarion]

I finished yesterday. TLDR santino27 is right, it's a decently entertaining game that you'll most likely never play again. Buy it on sale.

All my reservations from earlier in the thread turned out to be correct. After Chapter 16 or so, there's nothing new to discover. The tech tree is designed to be fully unlocked by midgame, so no tension in development or CnC in terms of building your army. No new units or types show up after Chapter 15. Some (not all) of your main character units auto-promote later in the game, but with the exception of Thicc Gr1l, it's not really exciting, visually or mechanically. You'll have plenty of opportunity to make a large army to your taste (most missions after Chapter 20 will allow you to deploy 15-20 squads), but there's no incentive to do it. thesecret1 addressed why: there's no challenge.

If the stuff I read earlier in the thread re: bitching by players about not being able to grind is true, my faith in humanity continues to plummet. There is zero need for grind. None. Never did I feel underpowered or threatened. Rather the opposite. I did lose squads occasionally (in contrast to TS's play :D), but only because I didn't take time to create well-made compositions/formations, and couldn't be bothered to follow good tactics. I felt no reason to care about a squad or soldier getting wiped out, because after winning the map they were right back in my Army screen, ready for the next mission. Zero stakes, zero tension. And because you effectively never lose a man for good, by Chapter 20 or so every soldier is max tier, and brand new hires only take a couple Arena runs to bring up to par.

Late in the game a small bundle of side-quests are dumped in your lap with little explanation. You can complete them or not, doesn't really matter. Two of the missions' rewards would be pretty cool in a game with any sense of threat. Not so much here. In a couple side-quests and some of the later mainline missions the objectives throw some curve balls with potential, but it's too little, too late, and not difficult enough to excite any emotion or attachment. The game is a foot wide and an inch deep.

The story sort of loses focus after the climax, with characters taking actions and saying things without rhyme or reason. One that really stood out was Lysander screeching at Jedediah about how awful the Nephilim are, how he's plotting their overthrow and death, and how much he especially loathes Diana. Two missions later he's begging forgiveness and has seen the light. Why? Who knows, not me. All the non-Nephilim characters end up turning against them with Lysander, yet at the end they're once again singing praises and mea culpa-ing. If this is the caliber of a new republic's leaders I fear for their future. Heroes become villains become heroes again and I didn't really care about any of it. Meh.

I'd probably rate it similar to some of the quality Flash RPGs I've played in the past; good fun for awhile (maybe even a long while), not really worth a lot of attention and I'm not going to bother playing again once I'm finished. What's the point?

 

[mediocrepoet]

I finished yesterday. TLDR santino27 is right, it's a decently entertaining game that you'll most likely never play again. Buy it on sale.

All my reservations from earlier in the thread turned out to be correct. After Chapter 16 or so, there's nothing new to discover. The tech tree is designed to be fully unlocked by midgame, so no tension in development or CnC in terms of building your army. No new units or types show up after Chapter 15. Some (not all) of your main character units auto-promote later in the game, but with the exception of Thicc Gr1l, it's not really exciting, visually or mechanically. You'll have plenty of opportunity to make a large army to your taste (most missions after Chapter 20 will allow you to deploy 15-20 squads), but there's no incentive to do it. thesecret1 addressed why: there's no challenge.

If the stuff I read earlier in the thread re: bitching by players about not being able to grind is true, my faith in humanity continues to plummet. There is zero need for grind. None. Never did I feel underpowered or threatened. Rather the opposite. I did lose squads occasionally (in contrast to TS's play :D), but only because I didn't take time to create well-made compositions/formations, and couldn't be bothered to follow good tactics. I felt no reason to care about a squad or soldier getting wiped out, because after winning the map they were right back in my Army screen, ready for the next mission. Zero stakes, zero tension. And because you effectively never lose a man for good, by Chapter 20 or so every soldier is max tier, and brand new hires only take a couple Arena runs to bring up to par.

Late in the game a small bundle of side-quests are dumped in your lap with little explanation. You can complete them or not, doesn't really matter. Two of the missions' rewards would be pretty cool in a game with any sense of threat. Not so much here. In a couple side-quests and some of the later mainline missions the objectives throw some curve balls with potential, but it's too little, too late, and not difficult enough to excite any emotion or attachment. The game is a foot wide and an inch deep.

The story sort of loses focus after the climax, with characters taking actions and saying things without rhyme or reason. One that really stood out was Lysander screeching at Jedediah about how awful the Nephilim are, how he's plotting their overthrow and death, and how much he especially loathes Diana. Two missions later he's begging forgiveness and has seen the light. Why? Who knows, not me. All the non-Nephilim characters end up turning against them with Lysander, yet at the end they're once again singing praises and mea culpa-ing. If this is the caliber of a new republic's leaders I fear for their future. Heroes become villains become heroes again and I didn't really care about any of it. Meh.

I'd probably rate it similar to some of the quality Flash RPGs I've played in the past; good fun for awhile (maybe even a long while), not really worth a lot of attention and I'm not going to bother playing again once I'm finished. What's the point?

I agree, except I think I liked it more than you, but I also doubt I'll return to it.
I played on the hardest difficulty with permadeath enabled and completed all maps with S rank and any optional achievements completed except the Chapter 12 one because I didn't have the proper units purchased to be able to do that. In retrospect, I'd have no issues doing it except I have no interest in getting back to Chapter 12 to do it.

I think I lost a full squad maybe once or twice during the entire game, generally speaking I didn't even lose any units inside a squad, though that happened occasionally. You can pretty much steamroll the entire game and I can't even imagine how easy it would be if you were able to (and did) grind levels. Maybe they could also implement an AI commander so you could treat it like a screen saver on a second monitor while you're working or something.

There were some sort of arena tokens that you could use for optional battles (apparently, based on the description) with a difficulty and reward based on the rarity of the token. I didn't use any of them and if I had and therefore had even more XP and equipment... I'm not sure if it would noticeably make the game easier just because I was steamrolling everything so hard as it was. I'm also not sure if this was the mechanism introduced to address people's complaints about not being able to grind.

All in all, as I said up front, it reminds me a lot of Warsong (Langrisser 1), it plays a lot like it, the unit promotion schema is similar, the equipment "system" is similar, etc. and it was also fairly easy, though a bit simpler - but it was also a 16 bit Sega Genesis game released in 1991, so 31 years later I'd have expected even more of a complex refinement than anything.

Don't play this for the story, but if you like tactical JRPGs, want to see what I'd describe as a fan tribute to Warsong (more than FFT/Tactics Ogre), or want something simple to introduce a new fan to tactical JRPGs, this is a decent game. If you want some sort of balls out challenging game or are a storyfag, there's probably not much here for you.

 

[HoboForEternity]

I am in chapter 19 but has yet to meet the giantess. Great game so far, kinda generic plot but fun still. But i feel like i am duped with the giantess

 

[mediocrepoet]

I am in chapter 19 but has yet to meet the giantess. Great game so far, kinda generic plot but fun still. But i feel like i am duped with the giantess

Just be patient. You literally can't miss anything except for some chests on maps and things like that. Everything else is as on rails as you can get.

 

[santino27]

I am in chapter 19 but has yet to meet the giantess. Great game so far, kinda generic plot but fun still. But i feel like i am duped with the giantess

The Giantess

Technically, you've already met her by then... she's just not a giantess yet.

 

[HoboForEternity]

I am in chapter 19 but has yet to meet the giantess. Great game so far, kinda generic plot but fun still. But i feel like i am duped with the giantess

Just be patient. You literally can't miss anything except for some chests on maps and things like that. Everything else is as on rails as you can get.

If i see correctly then the game has 30 chapters, which means i spent at least 2/3 of it without my giantess bride

 

[Kaivokz]

Finished this a bit ago.

Shit: Difficulty. On hardest difficulty my squads could use “force surrender” tactics every turn without losing anyone; every unit that surrenders gives a bounty of gold and faction rep, so if you go down this route you’ll max out all skill trees by mid-game and be swimming in gold. Some maps the surrender bonus is more than S rank perfect objectives, depending how many units there are. I beat the final boss on turn 2.

Meh: Story. Some good beats, some cringe. Squandered potential.

Good: Squad system, extra objectives, generally good map design. A more challenging game with this squad system would have been fantastic. There’s tons of room for customization between skills, artifacts, unit types, etc. All my main squads felt different by the end.

 

[Reinhardt]

Yes, only hot lipstick lesbian relationships for same sex romances, fags don't exist in my fantasy world.

HEY! It's my world too!

 

[fantadomat]

I decided to give it a try and it is not a bad,shitty jrpg type of story tho,very linear for now. Also retarded ally unit AI lol.

 

[BrotherFrank]

Finished it, enjoyed the squad building autism but found the game way too short overall. Definitely on the easy side too.

30ish chapters or so there is in total? Except the last chapter where you get a nice big battle and can fully utilise your late game army against a decently sized and strong enemy is chapter 26 (the boss doesn’t count in my book as he plays by a different set of rules), ch 27-29 might aswell be cutscenes.

Of those 26 chapters id say 10 don’t count because they are special missions like controlling a handful of hero units or playing the bad guys. And it takes a few chapters for game to take off at all but there is also 5 optional missions that are decently meaty so that balances it out.

This leaves just 16 or so “real” levels. Felt disappointed and unfulfilled by the end and my late game army never felt properly challenged.

It seems the dev is working to add some sort of endurance mode where you gotta survive as long as possible against waves of increasingly stronger enemies and it is sorely needed.

 

[Zombra]

Did the UI improvements for this ever come? I just heard about this for the first time. As an Ogre Battle enthusiast this is piquing my interest.

 

[BrotherFrank]

spekkio
Defending my assertion that game is on the easy side, here is what my late game army looked like by the time I reached the boss and was mostly grinding arena to level up weak squads and earn medals to turn units into their ultimate gold tier.

MVP squads

With temporal modulator they will always strike first which is why the mages at the back don't fear ambushes or assassins, if I had grinded up every unit to be gold tier I dare say it could have single handedly cleared every late game mission alone (by which i guess i mean chap 26 and the boss).

GL HF killing this squad and no OP bs time hack item here, the squishy mages are safe in the center and both front and back line are rock hard. I'd still want to gold up the mages and healers so that they are completely safe from mass aoe or strikethroughs from 2 handed melee attackers, then they would reach complete god tier.

core squads who ain't OP tier but still strong or excel in specific situations

Belinda's field kit along with keeping him near Narima means there is little need to stick a healer in this squad.

Samurai are a pain to get but are pretty strong and perfect for Narima to fill her role as jule's escort, helping with ranged support or engaging in melee as needed. Lack of healers definitely an issue though but seeing as i didn't place one in this squad it seemed i relied on others to heal her up if needed.

As long as they ain't facing assassins or being ambushed this is a solid 4x4 setup.

No thrills straightforward heavy cavalry squad.

Dragon squads can have more then 1 foot slogger, you just need to keep the ratio of dragons to non fliers 1:1

Cat man was a unit i avoided using in my first run and that was a big mistake, rangers are amazing and do really solid damage, including the final boss. Glass cannon af though.

Speaking of glass cannon... Yeah if this squad didn't get the first strike it was basically dead. Very situational but unmatched firepower as befits its leader.

Another solid 4x4

The rest, either crappy comps or ones i was grinding up

Never really iked using Stefan and it shows.

All i remember of this squad is how deeply unimpressive it was, likely is why i stuck a frontline of 3 shields even though looking at this now I think Lysander probably should be up front because of his passive.

Thrash squad but this is where I'd put units that I couldn't fit elsewhere but still wanted to level up.

The leader might be strong but getting him so late means a weak squad alas.

Ditto.

Genuinely can't remember if this is a thrash comp or not but seems I was grinding it in arena.

Same.

Ditto.

+1

 

[spekkio]

Dragon squads can have more then 1 foot slogger, you just need to keep the ratio of dragons to non fliers 1:1

Thanks for that. Maybe I'll make some flier team in next playthrough.

BTW, I went with only 12 teams (+Zelos, but he doesn't count - shows up too late) + "weaker" / less specialized ones than yours. Maybe that's why my feels about difficulty were different.

Still, great game, let's hope that they add more content (add-on is planned on 2023) and harder modes.

I also hope game shows up @ GOG as well, 'cuz that's where I mainly do the shopping.

*Edit:

Anyone posting .pngs > 1 MB big should be hanged.