Lionheart Tactics (iOS)

I came for the Kongregate Gamestop Coupon and stayed for the game.

Lionheart Tactics is an addictive turn-based strategy game.

As a longtime addict of turn-based strategy games like Final Fantasy Tactics, Tactics Ogre, and many much older games I won't mention (~_^), I was rather excited when I downloaded Lionheart Tactics. While it fell far short of my expectations, Lionheart Tactics is an enjoyable game.

As with many games, I found the early portions much more enjoyable. There is a nice feeling of growth as you collect new units, find new equipment, level up, and challenge new bosses. However, as progress stagnates this excitement lags, and unfortunately, high-end character development is blocked by paywalls.

The core gameplay in Lionheart Tactics are the turn-based battles. There are a variety of heroes with unique weapons, skills, and play styles and many different gridded environments in which the battles take place. Sadly, outside of battles marked as Hard, Challenging, or Impossible I haven't found a whole lot of strategy.

Most battles can be quickly beaten with one of two cheap strategies. Either send in a few powerful units and simply watch everything die (Halberdier + Dancer works well), or camp until the enemy units blunder into archer range (to die miserably). The latter works well with just a simple archer or two and some tanks to guard them when units get too close. Toss in a Rouge, Huntress, or Sniper for even better results. In some cases, even battles where the enemy troops claim to have double my team's power rating have been a cakewalk.

The rare battles with powerful ranged units that keep you moving or mirror champions that take several turns to down are very enjoyable (and what keeps me playing ~_^).

Collecting and improving heroes is an important part of the gameplay (and sadly another place for paywalls ~_~). Players purchase random heroes from the store, random sets of equips, and random enhancement stones (noticing a pattern?). Higher ranking equips & stones are expensive (grinding) and even after opening dozens of boxes (more grinding) some of my units have not gotten new equips or stones. Hero skills and enhancements employ the standard timer mechanics (some quite long).

Lionheart Tactics wasn't as strategic as I had hoped and grinding to improve your troops can become a chore. However, it is an enjoyable game and well worth playing. I continue to login periodically for the special events where some of the more challenging battles can be found.

Summary:

• + variety of units and abilities
• + high quality artwork
• • passable storyline
• • typical tedious grinding for gold, xp, and crowns
• • touch controls can be buggy
• • lack of strategy in most battles
• - reliance on random item boxes
• - long load times, especially at launch