BRIGANDINE ABYSS from NIS America and Happinet is a war sim strategy RPG set in the land of Solginat after a great tragedy. Learn more in our BRIGANDINE ABYSS review!
BRIGANDINE ABYSS from NIS America and Happinet is a war sim strategy RPG set in the land of Solginat after a great tragedy. The King of Solginat is now dead, and a new would-be Emperor is ready to take charge, for better or worse. Chancellor Chaossolus is the one who has slain the former King, and has declared himself as Novus Imperator of the new Abyssloa Empire. Hundreds of years ago, the evil Abyssloa Empire was stopped thanks in great part to the power of the arcane Brigandine armor fashioned by Lunadea, a mage famed for her skill in the mystic arts. With a new Abyssloa Empire rising from the ashes, you must do whatever it takes to put a stop to its plans before it’s too late.
This is the latest entry in the long-running strategy RPG series that got its start way back in 1998 on the original PlayStation console thanks to Brigandine: The Legend of Forsena from Hearty Robin, which was published in North America by Atlus – yes, that does mean it’s an expensive physical PlayStation game. This was followed by Brigandine: The Legend of Runersia in 2020 on the Nintendo Switch and the PlayStation 4.
Your options are playing through the game’s Story Mode or taking on the new Mission Mode. For Story Mode, you’ll be choosing from one of the six available stories as you set out on an adventure through the continent of Meltitea. If you choose Mission Mode, then you’ll select one of the 24 available factions, as you work on fulfilling their respective unique goals. For Story Mode, the six stories are for the following factions: Gran Dragnica, The Scarlet Will, Mysteine, Purifanoe, The Samura Clan, and Pandemyuon. For Mission Mode, these 6 factions are joined by Elgannacht, The Ragnallritters, Rashana, Thauzencane, The Shugen Clan, Great Yuen Shen, The Arcus Air Caravan, The Ebony Fang, Noblesse Exaltée, Gnomossos, The Dhirgia, Cermuin, Santrea, The Lionhearts, Graudi, Archacia, Talentisse, and Brigande.
Gran Dragnica are drawn into action after the Novus Imperium captured and brainwashed their dragons. The Scarlet Will are mercenaries of justice who are now being led by a young girl after her father was slain. The Mysteine hail from a country that was founded and led by the queen who just happens to be the hero Lunadea, and are now ready to fight against the renewed Novus Imperium. The Purifanoe are from a village of fairies, hidden deep in the Greatwood, and must now find safe harbor after the war broke loose. The Samura Clan is a clan of warriors who are searching for the one from their land who is colluding with the new Empire. As for the Pandemyuon, they’re working at a secret lab on some… rather forbidden techniques of chimerization. They’ve decided to rebel against the Empire and put a stop to their plans no matter the cost.
The game offers three different difficulty settings to choose from, so that gamers of all skill levels can take on this experience. Your options will be: Easy, Normal, and Hard. The Easy difficulty setting will offer a low-stress experience, making it a good one for casual players. The Normal difficulty setting offers the standard challenge. As for the Hard difficulty setting, it will bump up the challenge to 11, with any mistakes you make along the way costing you dearly. Choose wisely, since you won’t be able to change the difficulty setting after selecting it.
I previously had a chance to work on a Brigandine: The Legend of Runersia review for the game’s Nintendo Switch version back in 2020 and had a lot of fun with that strategy RPG experience, so I was definitely up for checking out BRIGANDINE ABYSS on Nintendo’s current-gen console.
You should pay attention as the game’s tutorial tips show you how to play so that you can learn all of the basics. You’ll definitely need to have a better idea of what it is that you’re about to get yourself into if you are to survive! Each battle will have some win/loss conditions for you to note. These will be displayed at the start of each battle. Combat will be of the turn-based variety, and that means you’ll take your turn, and then your enemy will begin their turn.
Pick a unit on your side and then give them their orders. You can do this with the Nintendo Switch 2 Joy-Con 2’s left analog stick or D-Pad and the A button, or by using the mouse controls. The orders you can issue include moving to another spot on the hex grid, using skills, reviewing a unit’s status, or waiting. If you select wait for a unit, then that will end said unit’s action. Troop leaders will also be able to select between extra options such as rally or dismiss. Units will be able to move one tile per point of their MOV stat value. A unit’s movement will be affected by changes in terrain height, being able to climb up to 5+ tiles higher than their current tile, but they cannot descend to tiles -9 or lower than their current tile, so be sure to plan accordingly!
Terrain types will also have an effect on a unit’s movement, with traversal over forested or watery terrain having a higher cost than doing so over plain tiles. Each unit will have one of three movement types: ground, flying, or aquatic. Ground is the standard movement type for units. A flying unit’s movement won’t be affected by terrain type or height. As for aquatic units, they can move further when going over watery terrain.
Skills are split into close-range physical attacks, long-range physical attacks, magical attacks, healing, buffs, and debuffs. Physical attacks and long-range physical attacks will be affected by the PHYS ATK stat value. Magical attacks are affected by the MAG ATK stat value. Healing will be affected by the INT stat value. As for buffs and debuffs, they will temporarily raise or lower abilities, with the INT stat value having an effect on the chance to inflict a debuff.
Some skills can be used after a unit moves, while others cannot, so be sure to pay attention! The info you can view for skills is also crucial for your strategy. These include the skill’s element, the area over which a skill will have an effect, accuracy that dictates the likelihood that a skill will hit, critical, which influences the likelihood of landing a critical hit, and counter, which marks a skill that will be used when countering.
Using a skill will increase its skill gauge. Once the skill gauge is full, using that skill once more will level it up. Boosting a skill’s level will improve its stat values for things such as power or accuracy. The maximum level for a skill will be three stars. You can review a skill’s current skill gauge and level from the skills menu.
Keep an eye on the health gauge for each of your units, so that you can aid those that need your support… or else they’ll be easily overwhelmed and defeated! Mercenary units that have their HP reduced to zero will die and be removed from your forces. Non-mercenary leader units will retreat from combat so that you can deploy them again in other battles. Do know that if a troop’s leader dies or retreats, any surviving monsters in their troop will also retreat. The exception is that any monsters the troop leader had rallied will die when the troop leader’s HP reaches zero.
As your units attack and defeat enemy units, they will gain experience points. Once a unit obtains enough experience points, it will get to level up. When this happens, it will have a chance of receiving a boost to its stat values for HP, MP, STR, DEF, INT, RES, and AGI. You must balance out how you use units so that you don’t have a single overpowered unit while the rest are left behind, not being able to level up during combat at a steady pace.
For Story Mode, you’ll be working your way through each faction’s story as you complete Event Battles that will trigger during certain seasons. Each season is split into a trio of phases: organization, attack, and invasion. During the organization phase, you’ll be preparing for the battle up ahead. The attack phase will allow you to choose which troops will invade what area. As expected, the invasion phase is when said troops will launch their invasion, as other factions do the same.
The organization phase will allow you to manage your troops, boost them, level up your bases, and so on. There’s also the option of sending troops to complete quests or move them around your bases to strengthen your defenses. For the attack phase, the troops that you want to send to invade another area must be in a base adjacent to the one they’re about to invade. And now, the troops you move during the organization phase cannot then be used to invade during the same season. You should always protect your main base, since losing it will result in a game over!
Fate binding is also an important part of the gameplay loop, since it will allow you to bind fates with leader units or monsters so that you can add them to your forces. The amount of Mel that will be needed for this will differ depending on what a unit’s level and class are. The good news? If a fate-bound is defeated in combat, you’ll be given a chance to resurrect them from the fate binding menu by spending some Mel as well as a resurrection item. Mercenaries will need a Tome of Resurrection, and monsters will require a Jewel of Resurrection.
BRIGANDINE ABYSS from NIS America and Happinet is a war sim strategy RPG set in the land of Solginat after a great tragedy. The King of Solginat is now dead, and a new would-be Emperor is ready to take charge, for better or worse. Chancellor Chaossolus is the one who has slain the former King, and has declared himself as Novus Imperator of the new Abyssloa Empire. Hundreds of years ago, the evil Abyssloa Empire was stopped thanks in great part to the power of the arcane Brigandine armor fashioned by Lunadea, a mage famed for her skill in the mystic arts. With a new Abyssloa Empire rising from the ashes, you must do whatever it takes to put a stop to its plans before it’s too late. BRIGANDINE ABYSS launches on Nintendo Switch 2 next week on August 27 with a $49.99 price tag.
Disclaimer
This BRIGANDINE ABYSS review is based on a Nintendo Switch 2 copy provided by NIS America.
