Recs.
Updated
A bundle of 3 Mercenaries Saga tactical role-playing games featuring turn based combat on a grid.
SpecsUpdate
Pros
Pro Easy to jump into thanks to simple and easy to understand mechanics
The mechanics are easy to grasp within the first few minutes of gameplay. There's nothing convoluted or over complicated, and the game doesn't attempt to be anything it's not. Skills and abilities do what they say they do without a lot of fluff. For example "Throw Stone" does exactly that. Each ability also tells you exactly how much damage it's going to do before you use it.
Combat takes place on a grid based system, taking turns with the enemy as you move your units around, attack, cast spells, and heal. The distance in which you can move or attack is marked with highlighted tiles so you'll never have to guess how far each unit can move or what the range of their attacks are. It's all spelled out for you in visual format.
As in most typical RPGs, between battles, you can buy weapons, armor, and items with the gold you earned, as well as level up your characters with your experience points in a clean and simple UI.
Pro Getting 3 games for the price of 1 is a great value
Chronicles is 3 different games released as one title. All three games are accessible from the main menu which includes Mercenaries Saga: Will Of The White Lions, Mercenaries Saga 2: Order Of The Silver Eagle, and Mercenaries Saga 3: Gray Wolves Of War.
Pro Good port
A lot of care went into porting the games from mobile and Nintendo 3DS. The graphics for all three games were redesigned and well optimized for the Switch.
Additionally, some of the newer gameplay features from Saga 3 such as aggro and minion summoning skills were retroactively implemented into the earlier titles, meaning even if you've played them before, you can play them again with these new features added.
Pro Starting battles with zero mana leads to more rewarding and satisfying spell casting
Unlike most tactical rpg games, Chronicles opts to start each character with zero mana at the beginning of each battle. This means you'll need to play strategically with your wizards by positioning them properly so your other characters can defend them while their mana charges. If you want to wind up that big fireball, you'll have to work towards it instead of just unleashing it right off the bat. When you finally do get that big spell off, it's much more rewarding to watch the enemy fall knowing that you set it up through skill rather than brute force openers.
Pro Thieves are especially fun to play due to some of their non-combat abilities
Thieves add a really fun element to play that isn't battle focused, and allows for some interesting choices where you have to choose whether or not going for the treasure chest on the edge of the map is worth more than using your thief to attack enemies. Not only can thieves unlock and disarm traps on treasure chests, they can also steal items off enemies. That means even if you go into battle low on items, strategically using your thief to pickpocket and plunder may still give you the upper hand by acquiring more during the battle itself.
Pro Lots of different ways to build each character
All the characters in the game initially start as one of the basic fantasy classes (fighter, thief, or caster) with a limited skill set. As you level up, you get to choose specializations at certain milestones. At level 10 you get to choose an intermediate class, followed by choosing an advanced class at level 20. Each of these class specializations have their own unique set of skills to use on the battlefield.
For example, you may start as a fighter. At level 10, you have the choice to become a mercenary or a knight. Once you hit level 20, your mercenary can now evolve into a sword master or battle master; if you chose the knight tree, you can now evolve into a paladin or general. As you progress, you keep all your skills from any classes previously chosen in the tree resulting in characters that genuinely feel more powerful and dynamic as they grow.
This end result is an exciting class system loaded with fun class advancement choices that can be used to create a bunch of different and unique combinations for each and every character on your roster.
Cons
Con Each game in the series is the exact same gameplay with a different story tacked on
The only difference between each game is the characters, dialogue, and the story. The battle mechanics, menu style, skills, and gameplay of each game in Chronicles is the exact same. It may start to feel repetitive if you plan on playing the 3 games back to back.
Con The stories are extremely generic and can be skipped without missing much
Each game in Chronicles features a different kingdom under attack, with the characters all wondering how they are going to bring peace to the land by defeating the big evil bad guys. The writing doesn't do much to leave this familiar fantasy territory that we've all seen a thousand times before, making all of it generic and able to be skipped.
Con The color of gear quality in the weapon shop is confusing
When you go to upgrade weapons or armor in the shop, red colored gear is an upgrade and blue colored gear is a downgrade. This is the exact opposite of most similar games, which can be confusing at times and cause you to make costly mistakes when purchasing gear if you're not paying close attention to the stats.
Con You'll be stuck with the same perspective of each battle for the entire game
Each map battle is displayed with a 3/4th overhead view, but the camera is unable to be rotated around for various views of the board. You're out of luck if you want to view the action from a different angle.
Con Difficulty spikes between battles means you'll be grinding a lot
The difficulty spikes from battle to battle are sometimes way too steep. You'll often have to grind side battles called "Free Battles" to level up your characters before you can progress the main campaign. These battles happen on the same maps you've already done, so it tends to get very boring and repetitive after a while.