Ravenmark: Scourge of Estellion

When I saw the videos and description of Ravenmark, I thought I had stumbled on another hidden gem like Valkyria Chronicles. Alas, there are not much hidden gems and most times you will just pick up another little pebble. Ravenmark is such a disapointment that looked good at first glance. A warning should have been the fact that Ravenmark is an iOS port. While that doesn't mean that it automatically has to be a bad game, there are still some implications that come along with it. Games for portable devices almost always don't want to bother the player with decisions that he made in earlier stages of the game. Concerning an RPG or strategy game, this effectively means that there are most likely no player choices to be made like specialising the skills of your units, upgrade units after a battle and carry it over to the next or RPG-choices that affect the course of the story. In short, you can expect that everything that adds salt and pepper to a RPG or strategy game will be left out. T...

Overall 6/10 Ravenmark is a turn-based tactical game in a fantasy setting. The player commands a small number of units battle after battle as a story unfolds in the background. Ravenmark is NOT an RPG, there are no role-playing elements whatsoever. Ravemmark is NOT a strategy game, as the player does not manage the army and does not make any decision out of the battlefield. Ravenmark is NOT an interactive story, as the player can only read the story, but cannot interact with at all. PROS: + The combat system has some nice elements to it (formations, facing, abilities, terrain) + There’s a good variety of units and maps, and it doesn’t get repetitive too soon. + It’s very easy to understand how it works, yet some battles present interesting tactical challenges. CONS - The player’s actions have no impact at all once a battle is won, all you get for a win is access to another battle, with a predetermined setup. - For a IOS port any price tag above 5$ is too much. - The story you...

First things first : it's a tactical game, it has no strategic layer whatsoever. You are facing predetermined set of tactical tasks to solve, with abundance of story and lore in and between. Pluses : + Polished. Works as it should, no crashes, glitches or errors at all. + Variety of scenarios. There are lots of different battle situations, including sieges, ambushes, survival, chases, 2-vs-1, terrain hazards, you name it. + Difficulty. Technically two difficulty levels present, Easy and Normal, but to get more achievements you can complete additional mission tasks, a-la Hard difficulty. It's very finely tuned and absolutely doable, but require certain planning and "save/load" trick in tight spots. + Writing. Lore itself is young adults dark-ish fantasy mashup, with steampunk and the dwarves and of course mad zealots. But it's exceptionally well written, with great attention to dialogues and the lore. Ravenmark is a joy to read! + Sheer amount of content. 59 missions total, that's ...

Little, yet not too small fantasy tactical game with turn-based combat. Quite enjoyable for some time, just not take it too seriously, like an AAA-project. It's obviously not. Well, it looks cool enough, it plays cool enough - for some time given. The way I see things - it's worth its price. Especially with some discount or bundle. All the negative reviews comes from one major misconception, tied with the store tags for this game. It is not a RPG for one bit, and it is not a strategy game, but rather a tactical one. More to it, it's a mobile port, which means Ravenmark kinda simplified by gameplay, when lined with some obvious PC strategy top-sellers such as Total War. Yeah, there is no for any strategic impact, you do not call shots on the global map, or choose anything between missions. You just start a new map, with some units and some tasks given, win the day, and go for the next map. Sometimes during the missions, sometimes between them, you watch cutscenes, which are revealing th...

Disregard the Strategy and RPG tags, this is a turn-based tactical game in a fantasy universe. Literally, there are no strategic or role-playing choices to be made, just a series of different maps. It is however a pretty good tactical game and I find it to be quite enjoyable, but don't expect your actions to make any difference in the campaigns. What breaks it for me is the price. It's just not worth 15 Euro. Make it half that and it's just slightly overpriced. Also, it's painfully obvious that it's an iOs port, with graphics, sound, UI and tutorial you'll recognize from iPad games. Edit: After playing some more, I grew tired of the cutscenes (they just kept coming, and new characters involved all the time). I guess the "story rich" tag is correct, but the story is not interesting enough to bother to follow.

This wouldn't be a terrible game, if not for the incessent loading to a cutscene, only to load to yet another cutscene, and sometimes, to load to yet another cutscene. If the cutscenes themselves weren't so aweful, that wouldn't be as big of a deal.

If you want strategy and tactics with formations of medieval battlefield - pick Total War. This game has close to nothing in comparison. Every battle is a pre-made scenario in which your troops positions at the start is a complete and total fustercluck. If you [i]still[/i] want to give it a try for some inconceivable reason, keep in mind these things: - Formations of 2 units suck - [i]You[/i] have command limit. enemy [i]does not[/i] - If you told troops to pursue, they will pursue that exact unit, not a formation\group of units; if the unit you told to pursue is (usually via sudden critical strike) dead, your troops will just stand and do nothing like complete retards. Because battlefield is obviously a place where you just stand and do nothing. - There is no strategic layer. You just fight one battle after another. - Every battle is stacked against you. Every. Fraggin. One. (remember what I said about positioning?), and since there is no strategic layer whatsoever, there is no way t...

I suggest the mobile (iso) version of the game over the pc version. Why? one of the coolest features was in battles when two units fought you would get a neat cut in of both units art work ( kind of like advance wars) however in this version rather then giving an option to turn it off they opted to take it out comepltely. Is this going to ruin the game? No, but as someone that has played both versinos I feel that this version has lost some of the aesthetics charm that made the mobile version great. HOWEVER If you can get past the changes that where made for the pc version tthen your in for a real treat the gameplay/story is pretty good and worth a go.

if youre like me and have played hundreds of turn based strategy games, you probably wont like this game but if youre new to the genre and very young (or just simpled minded) you might enjoy it the game mechanics could be understood by a six year old,. even so the game forces you to go through a brain numbing tutorial,..i hate forced tutorials,. especially on very basic games not only that but theres tons of crappy rpg syle back and forth text between units,. the kind you find on nintendo ds rpg games,...its boring as hell, and tries to be funny,. it fails to do so this is only there to had some context to the set piece battles,. but you will find yourself skipping through all the back and forth dialogue as it becomes so dull the final straw was not being able to find a menu or quit button whilst in game so i was forced to force quit the program i do hope the devs keep working on the game and improve it, as it does have some potential and even though this review is negative, i...

I couldn't get into the game. There were too many characters, locations, and events introduced to the player too fast for the player to understand what was happening in the story. I thought the formation mechnics were hard to manage. Units take turns in a numbered sequence but the UI does not do a good job of presenting this.