Warhammer Quest
The Defence
The Prosecution
AMD equivalent
AMD equivalent
The Case
Mobile games don’t exactly have the best reputation right now. It’s a shame actually, because there are some really good ones out there and ports of mobile games can be pretty good too sometimes. Which leaves us with only one question: Is Warhammer Quest any good?
The Trial
It’s okay actually. Not a great game, but it works, is fairly engaging and fun to play. It’s clearly a budget title, in that the entirety of the budget went on getting the Warhammer license. This leaves about fifteen pence and a half empty packet of chocolate biscuits to fuel the rest of the game. Indicative of this is the almost complete lack of character animations. Seriously, I mean, it’s a flat image that turns a bit to indicate a sword swing (kind of like those He-man figures that had an elasticated articulation point at the waist. Anyone remember those?)
Gameplay itself consists of travelling from one place to another by way of clicking your chosen destination on a world map, scrolling through some menus at the town to get a quest, then clicking to the dungeon and killing everything inside. This business of killing dungeon monsters is based around a simple, turn based strategy system on a chessboard with some special skills and single use items thrown in for variety. But honestly, to call it simple is to do the game a disservice - t’would be more accurate to call it simplistic; it’s easy to understand and successfully use for someone who sucks at these type of games (so, someone like me). The various character types do little to add any genuine variety to your party, but they do add some, with the most notable differences being between melee, ranged and magic using characters. The latter of these can also engage in melee combat, but must rely on randomly generated “Winds of Magic” points each turn for their spells. These points can be stacked up for use later though, so it’s often best to either keep your spellcasters at the back, or have them close in melee range of weaker enemies until their skills are needed. If I was to make any real complaint, it would be that individual characters level up separately, based on how many monsters they kill in a given dungeon. Whilst it does add an extra degree of depth to the system, it can be irritating having to ensure each character pulls their weight, so as to avoid some rapidly outstripping the others. As they are only rewarded EXP for monsters they actually kill (and healing spells in the case of Clerics) this can lead to a vicious circle of a weaker character only ever injuring monsters but never actually killing them, whilst the powerhouse sweeps in and murders everything in the face. Of course, you can always go back to an earlier dungeon and you have a large roster of adventurers to choose from, so you can always swap out a higher level character to let others grind if needs be. This does, admittedly, add a great deal to the overall length of the experience, which is not insignificant to begin with. The simplicity of both the gameplay and visuals have allowed for a great deal of locations and a literally endless array of dungeons, as each is randomly generated from a series of small rooms strung together ala The Binding of Isaac. The soundtrack, both musical and incidental, is equally simplistic but none the worse for it. If there was one word which could sum up Warhammer Quest, it would be functional; nothing is particularly outstanding, but there is nothing to genuinely mar the experience either. It does everything it set out to do, neither excelling nor disappointing in any area. In short, this is an average game but average isn’t always such a bad thing. Because it was made for mobiles first, the development team have clearly put some real effort into making it a game that is easy to pick up, play for a few minutes and put down again with a sense of really having achieved something in that short period of time, whilst offering gameplay which is rewarding enough to keep your attention for longer periods if you have the time. Honestly, I think they would have been better spent making a title entirely of their own than making this a licensed title. There’s a lot of potential here for them to have made something really cool if they had.
The Verdict
Case Review
- Gameplay: Nice, simple, and easy to get to grips with.
- Size: Though it is very samey, there’s a hell of a lot of it.
- Animations: There are practically none, but nor are they particularly needed for this type of game.
- Title: Apart from the title, there’s nothing that really distinguishes this as a Warhammer game.
Appeal
Warhammer Quest is a top-down Dungeons & Dragons style game by Rodeo games and Twistplay ported from iOS to Windows, Mac, and Linux. Since it's a port, it works just like a touch-screen game. I pulled out my Surface Pro 3 and it worked flawlessly; no problems with anything I tried to do except rotating the game's playfield, which I would say is a negligible feature. As you enter the game you'll be offered a tutorial to combat, the tutorial does everything it needed to do and that's perfect. You're off to questing as you see fit. Combat is simple, touch/click a character you want to attack, then either select a square to move to or an enemy you want to attack. Combat is slow, like really slow. A full turn seems to take forever selecting what everyone will do and the only chance to hurry it up is to "fast forward" the enemy turn which causes the enemy turn to animate faster.
Towns offer the chance to stock up on anything you might need. Be it healing supplies, weapons, or selling supplies for gold. Your only chance to level up is in towns as well, an interesting feature that I actually appreciated. Random things can happen in towns, like having a lower max HP for one dungeon because someone mugged you, or various things like that. It's a strange thing, and I feel that you should have the chance to change the outcome through combat or a dice roll. Quests can also come from towns and are shown on the world map as either white or red markers. Inventory offers your characters the ability to hold four items of each rarity type: common, rare, and very rare. I'd assume this is so that you may not create overpowered characters.
Warhammer Quest was okay at best. Not a game I would play on a computer, or even on my SP3 really, but were I to be stuck with my phone in the restroom I might be playing it.
Appeal
I’ve said it so many times. Games using the Warhammer license can only go one of two ways: brilliant or disaster. Since THQs demise, Games Workshop, in their unparalleled quest for money, seem to give their license to anybody who promises to deliver a pixel product. That allows talent and passion to unfurl as fans of the tabletop develop great games for the 40k and Fantasy universe. Or it opens the floodgates for shovelware, made to yield a quick buck. Warhammer Quest…well it is the latter. This game disgusts me. Truly disgusts me. It all starts with their business model that requires micro transactions (not ‘that’ micro depending on your wallet) to unlock all the interesting characters worth playing – it reminds me of the money greedy GW managers that attempt - and sadly often succeed - to milk their fan base at any opportunity. So that’s a big kick in the teeth from the start. Then we come to buyable items (again, real money) that outclass anything you find in the game for a good while. What a great way of basically invalidating the first couple of hours any player has in the game.
Top that off with a rather lukewarm interpretation of lore, a generic storyline and things aren’t looking too bright. Not bright at all in fact. Instead of feeling like a bunch of adventurers out on their luck looking to make a living, we get shepherded from this dungeon to that dungeon and back. At no point does any connection with your band of merry men ensue or will you feel actively engaged. Dare I say, the game has no point? Yes, I dare. It has no point. Visually daring from a perspective standpoint (back to the roots I guess), the game is neither pretty nor is it acoustically appealing. Sure, it really doesn’t need to be a looker to be good, but the aesthetic choice and the lacklustre sound effects stand supreme as a shining beacon saying; no passion created us, we are here because we have to be and that’s that. If the combat was any good and the adventure worthwhile, I’d forgive you. But they aren’t.
I’ll give them credit for one thing though. The short cut-scenes when entering a new town, that’s neatly done. See, the talent is there. So why not bloody use it? Money, I guess.
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