Wargroove - First Impressions

 

I've been excited for Wargroove since it was first shown in a Nintendo Direct for Switch, due to the homage to Advance Wars, a series that largely past me by, that I have thought about playing especially after Intelligent Systems recent work with Fire Emblem, just Nintendo hasn't given a new Advance Wars in sometime thankfully Chucklefish has stepped in and brought us Wargroove.

Now I might have seen Wargroove in a Nintendo Direct however I'm playing on Xbox One which doesn't matter much as Wargroove has cross-play with a code system, meaning I can play with anyone be it on PC, Switch or Xbox One and if you're a friend then I just need your game's code, also it has asynchronously mode but I feel I could forget to take my turn.

This is more of a first impression than a review and so far I've played the prologue and all of Act 1 (Haven't played more due to another project). I've got to say it's great at the moment with some really neat characters. There's also an arcade mode which is a five battle campaign for each character, I only have the one character unlocked at the moment which I got from finishing Act 1.

Mercia was the first character I unlocked for the arcade mode, the five battle campaign has an overarching story and gives you some more lore to the characters and world which can be found in the codex. I would imagine some of the other characters arcade modes will intertwine with each other and some like Ceaser the dogs likely to be a bit more silly.

With all this means there is plenty of content with a 6 Act story mode and 12 Characters all having a Mini-Campaign in the Arcade, without touching any multiplayer and finding all the games secrets.

There is also something called Puzzles Mode which I've not unlocked yet and a Map Editor which I played around with but not really something I can see me using as I'm rather hopeless at those sort of things. I did download a 1P campaign someone had made in a haunted house and that was rather good and since heard about people recreating maps & missions from the likes of Advance Wars, which is all available regardless of what platform the map was made on.

As I said I've not played much Advance Wars, that I can't really compare but I have played some Fire Emblem and it's rather close in how it plays just with some different system on what unit can beat what unit and it's not an individual unit you're moving but a group of swordsmen to move in most cases.

 

I am playing on Xbox One but I have to say this might be best on Switch due to the aesthetics and the homage to Advance Wars plus IF it uses the touchscreen that could be a handy way to move units and make maps.

Now there is a positive playing on Xbox One and Wargroove is the first game I've tried it out with is mouse and keyboard support which I have to say is an excellent way to play this and can making maps that I can see it being much easier than using a controller.

No matter what you do decide to play Wargroove on, based on my first impressions this is very much worth a download.