Battlejack review: Hit or Stick?
By Ian Garland
Battlejack is a game for people who wish that blackjack could have had more dragons, and if that doesn’t sell you on it, perhaps its cutesy characters will.
Developer: Grand Cru
Publisher: Nexon
Platform: Android (version reviewed), iOS
Release Date: August 24, 2017
In blackjack, staying on thirteen is generally not a great choice. However, when there’s a fire troll preparing to wipe your party out, you should at least make sure you do some damage. Wait, I might have gotten my games confused.
Battlejack is a game which combines the calculated risk of blackjack with the leveling up and party management of a fantasy RPG. The gameplay is fairly straightforward: each area is split into five distinct stages which feature a mixture of different enemies en route to a more difficult boss fight.
However, there’s more to this game than it first appears. Every time you defeat an enemy, there’s a chance you’ll obtain that monster’s card. This allows you to add the monster to your party on your next adventure. Of course, you could just absorb it and use it to level up one of your other characters if you’re feeling a little sadistic.
Your party makeup plays a huge role in your success too. There are five character types (fire, water, earth, light, and dark), and each of these deals a different kind of damage. Water beats fire, fire beats earth, and so on. You could hit 21 with each hand you’re dealt, but if you don’t have the right type of party members, it’s going to take a lot longer to get anywhere.
More from Reviews
- Sonic Dream Team review: A welcome surprise to Apple Arcade
- Nacon’s Revolution 5 Pro for Playstation: Is it worth it?
- Jusant review: An uplifting tale about lifting yourself up
- WarioWare: Move It review: A waggle in the right direction for the series
- Alan Wake 2 review: Am I high right now?
But wait, there’s more! Each of your party members has a special ability which can help you out of a tight spot. Some add armor, some heal your party, some let you throw flaming swords, and while some of these sound cooler than others, they work best when used in conjunction during a single turn.
The difficulty progression is steady but fair. You’ll never find yourself struggling to meet the recommended levels for a battle, and if you do, you can always just join a guild. This will let you bring an additional party member, and if they’re high-leveled, even bosses can be killed in a few turns. If we had any complaints, it’d be that this feature takes some of the risk out of otherwise difficult fights – maybe it’d be better if the number of times you could bring a helper was limited.
Like most other mobile games, Battlejack includes microtransactions. However, you’re never forced to buy anything in order to continue playing. Gems (the game’s main currency) can be spent to open chests early, but they’ll unlock themselves after a while anyway. Similarly, starting missions costs meat. I completed the first four of the game’s areas in a few hours and had a decent surplus though, so unless you get stuck on a level, it’s unlikely that you’ll run out.
The features mentioned above plus the surprisingly deep battle system combine to make a game which is exceedingly difficult to put down.
This game has a cutesy art style that complements it very well. The characters are crisp and varied – shortly after starting, I had a magician, troll, and winged horse on the same team. Better still, this applies to the enemies too: you’ve got your standard slimes, but there’s also a golem which wouldn’t look out of place in Hearthstone.
Even the soundtrack is decent; in the few hours I experienced, I never found it annoying or distracting – quite the opposite, in fact. It’s fairly standard “fantasy” music, but it was calm enough that I never considered muting it, which is an achievement in itself.
Even though the game moves through 3D environments, it never feels sluggish, even when played on a fairly old smartphone. The battle animations and screen transitions are all quick and fluid-feeling, plus the only noticeable loading screen takes place when the app is first launched.
The features mentioned above plus the surprisingly deep battle system combine to make a game which is exceedingly difficult to put down. There’s something satisfying about eating the monsters that gave you trouble a few stages earlier, and no matter how many chests we unlock, it never gets any less exciting.
Next: Shrek Sugar Fever review: The first 80 levels
Of course, one wonders if this excitement will persist until the end of the game. Once you’ve upgraded your characters to their maximum level and evolved them, there’s little to do except experiment with different party setups and fight monsters with your guild. You can also replay previous levels at a higher difficulty, but at that point, why bother?
7. Battlejack is a mobile game that oozes enough cutesy charm to keep players interested for a while. The in-depth battle and character systems allow for countless party combinations, however, the story can be completed relatively quickly, and there’s little incentive to continue playing after this point. By all means, try it out but don’t expect a sprawling adventure – this is above all else, a card game.. Grand Cru. . Battlejack
A copy of this game was provided to App Trigger for the purpose of this review. All scores are ranked out of 10, with .5 increments. Click here to learn more about our Review Policy.