Brigandine: Abyss PAX West Impression

It’s a fun tactical RPG that reminded me of Fire Emblem at times, but has a fun twist to how you fight.

Brigandine: Abyss is a strategy RPG from Happinet and NIS America taking place after a century-long effort to thwart the ambitions of the Abyssloa Empire. However, a new Empire has risen and players are tasked with standing against them as one of six different campaigns. It access to tons of unique units through multiple campaigns, all with different defensive and offensive abilities and attacks. Players can form a force tailored to their tactics from over a hundred different human and monster units.

The PAX West demo opened up six hours into the game, with players controlling the Samura Clan. The mission is to take your units into combat at a story-based battle objective and emerge victorious. The battle scene opened with a small voiced cut scene giving the details of what is going down in the world. The game shows the units players will be facing and lets them choose a team that will be best suited to fight back. If the player or enemy’s enemy leader dies in combat, the whole unit is destroyed, and this results in perma-death for your leaders. Players can, however, buy tokens in game to revive your fallen units.

During combat, players have some advantages they can take advantage of. For example, players can use terrain height to combat units from afar while also gaining the effect of that terrain. It requires strategic unit placement, as well as some defensive moves in make the most of unit abilities, like a heal can only be used at a certain range. This means players can waste a turn reforming their forces if they keep their healer too far from the frontlines.

There is over two hundred hours of gameplay for the game’s Story Mode of the game, as well as sixty-plus hours of Mission Mode content. It features a total of six major factions; the Samura Clan is one of those six major factions. It means there is an awful lot of time for players can sink into it, especially those who enjoy tactics-based games, but it does at least include a speed-up button to make the battles go more quickly.

I enjoyed the demo offered at PAX West. This was my first time playing this game series, but it’s a fun tactical RPG that reminded me of Fire Emblem at times, but has a fun twist to how you fight. It appears to be well-paced, fun, and entertaining for someone who enjoys tactical RPGs.