Templar Battleforce: Bloodpumping and Patriotic – Review

Templar Battleforce, the turn based RPG from Trese brothers, is a tactical focused game with a story both blood pumping and patriotic. It’s also confusing and disturbing, similar to the early history of the United States of America.

The story begins with a traveler who left his homeland due to oppression. People of the Galactic Core explored the galaxy far and wide for three generations to find a new home, free of war and oppression. One of the group that got separated from the convoy (probably because of their helms with very tiny eye holes). To make things worst, they are now engaged in a war with an alien life form called Xeno. Using guns and fanatic-like zeal, the player must defeat the indians… I mean aliens, and commands his Templars to be victorious,in order to continue their journey for the new home.

As well as the oddly emerging story, the game spend ample amount of time in dialogues. Though most of those dialogue is the equivalent of yelling something that an evangelical TV preacher would screams out. It also explains the attributes or skills and the lore for Xenos. In fact, some might consider that all the explanations might be too much and hardly necessary. Especially when these informations are tucked away nicely in the ‘library’ menu instead of being readily accessible by tapping the attributes on the character window.

Speaking of unnecessary things, it is noteworthy that the interface the player encounter is rather extensive, overwhelming, even at first. It is so extensive some features may even seem useless and redundant. For example: the needs for two separate keys that toggles the characters and shows in-field characters’ portraits on the screen is questionnable. Especially since a mobile game has limited screen space, compared to PC or console games. To expand, the said feature is especially pointless when the game don’t really care to ask if your soldiers have any moves left when asked to end the turn.

It is possible that I am complaining for having too much tools to play with. Some might even argue that i can decide to ignore the tools given to me if I find them useless. Which is a fair point. However, compared to the extensive interface, the game play is too linear for my liking.

During the many battles I have fought against the Xenos, I figured that most battles can be won by finding a choke point and securing a route. Obviously, it could be attribute to me being a brilliant strategist when it comes to fighting imagery aliens from outer space. Or as some call it: being a Korean. But it could very well be that the game loses its fizz when it comes to its extensive campaigns and battles for some players. Also, it does not help that the music, especially the in-battle music, is extremely repetitive. To make it worst, you will have to hear the song multiple time for the entire battle. Which are often dragged for a relatively long time. You better thank the prophet Shalun that you can turn off the music and sound effect during battles.

Despite all its minor shortcomings that I have extensively whined about, Templar Battleforce is still a game with blood-pumping campaigns. It lets you become a tactician; a scientist who invents new set of armors for your soldiers; and a field commander who will determine what action you should take next. Unfortunately, the game might doesn’t shine on mobile setting. But hey, at least this game does not make me miss my enemy when I have 90% chance to land my attack.