Prime of Flames - Strategy Done Right
There's no shortage of strategy games out there, it's as if a new one releases every other day even. However, once one actually sits down to take a look, it becomes evident that the term "Strategy" is used very loosely in the turn-based subgenre (i.e., gacha games). Nevertheless, from time to time, the mold gets broken, and a hidden gem emerges. Today, we take a look at one such hidden gem: Prime of Flames.
Prime of Flames is a Turn-Based Roguelike Strategy game. It takes place in a fantasy world set during the times of a "great cataclysm", the usual fantasy setting. In it you, the star emissary, lead a party of animal people, who are tasked with the responsibility of leading you back to their tribe safely. On paper it seems like a simple generic strategy game, but in reality it is so much more. Today we're going to be going through how Prime of Flames does Strategy right, let us begin!
*(Disclaimer: I understand that this game is only a demo; hence, all my opinions are given with that in mind)*
The core of all games, gameplay is the part which matters the most. In order for a game to be considered good, its gameplay must also prove to be good. However, due to its importance, it often ends up being the most challenging part for devs to find a perfect balance with. Though that isn't the case for Prime of Flames, it finds the perfect gameplay loop which remains fun and interesting even after hours of play. Let's start from the top. As I mentioned earlier, Prime of Flames is a roguelike game, which means you restart from scratch each time you face defeat. It utilises the Path Progression system, allowing players to pick from diverging paths, ensuring a non-linear gameplay experience. Outside of combat, the players will find themselves having to make optimal decisions as well, such as when and what to spend their coins on, which characters to revive, whom to send out on expeditions, among others. All of these elements add an extra layer of strategic management beyond combat. Another layer of gameplay is the "Unit Forge" system. On the world map the player will sometimes encounter spots where they're able to recruit new characters (more on that in the next section), these characters will either aid them in battle, or they can be used to forge a new more powerful mechanical unit. The forge system allows for an added layer of planning, which keeps the game interesting by always having the player think about their actions. This demo also provides a full experience of the game, with randomised bosses and encounters each run, making every run unique and providing hours of content from just a demo. There's much more to talk about, and such we'll now move onto the topic of combat!
The turn-based beating or getting beaten up simulation part of any good combat oriented game; Combat is the most crucial part after gameplay to get right for any games which include it. This is another area Prime of Flames finds excellence at. To begin with, we'll have to take a step back from beating up some poor chap, and talk about the fundamentals of the game first.
Prime of Flames features a faction system which dictates the type of characters you'll find during your run. Currently there's 3 factions present in the game, and all of them offer a different gameplay experience. To go along with the theme of 3, Prime of Flames also includes 3 different modes of difficulty: Travel, Challenge, and Conquest. Travel can be summed up as the story difficulty. Challenge, as the name suggests, brings some challenge to the table. And Conquest offers the true roguelike experience. All the modes have descriptions inside the game, so I'll let the game do the explaining part. Moving on, Prime of Flames utilises the party system which is common for turn-based games. Basically you control a party of characters with different abilities, it doesn't get simpler than that. Okay that's all for the fundamentals, now we can actually take a look at what the combat has to offer!
Prime of Flames doesn't try reinventing the wheel with its combat, however it does add some novel features into the mix, such as its unique mix of Passive and Active abilities. They keep the combat simpler by removing manual abilities, yet still engaging by mixing them into passive abilities which function in the same manner as active abilities. It's a bit confusing to explain on text, but the inclusion of this novel ability type makes the combat a lot more fun than one would expect. Another part of the combat revolves around the party size. To keep you on your toes, each combat encounter has an "army limit", basically that means the amount of characters that can be used in this encounter (it ranges from 4-6). This plays well into the forge units I mentioned earlier, as it makes you keep thinking about the party size (starts from 6, goes up to 8). The combat also sees some changes between modes, for example: Travel mode enemies don't have unique skills, however challenge mode enemies do. Or that challenge mode doesn't feature temp death for chars, while Conquest does. All the modes feature their own style of combat experience, though I believe Conquest to be the true experience.
Just like in real life, even fantasy worlds find themselves divided by Ideals and factions. In Prime of Flames you're given the choice between 3 factions to choose from. All of which offer a different gameplay experience and difficulty. This section will take you through a brief overview of each faction's strengths and weaknesses.
First off we have the cat girls faction, Ninelie. Ninelie is a summoning focused faction, it's also the easiest one to play with. Their strength lies in their ability to spam out a billion summons, and their weakness being the fact they're incredibly boring due to the fact they just spam out a billion summons, unless that's your cup of tea.
Secondly we got the mechanical girls faction, Bronion. Bronion is the tank/forge focused faction, they're not too difficult but not too easy either. Their strength is their tanky characters, however their biggest strength is in their forge. They're capable of forging very powerful mechanical units, which can provide a lot of strength to your party. They might just be the broken faction too since I couldn't notice any glaring weaknesses about them.
Lastly there's the evil goth bird girls faction, Everknight. Everknight is the ability focused faction. Their edgyness doesn't end at their name, because the hardest to play faction also has an unique status called "evil intentions" which is the reason they're the hardest. Their weakness is the fact their warriors are very weak and call easily be killed, however every warrior has the status "evil intentions" which stacks upon successful attacks. After reaching a certain amount of "evil intentions", the warrior is able to transform into a super form, making it be very powerful. Their strength is their weakness, they're easy to kill, but if managed properly, they can be killing machines.
In the age of hyper realistic graphics, it is seemingly forgotten what truly makes a game timeless, the art style. Prime of Flames' art style is a beautiful use of traditional watercolour style mixed with the fantasy theme. It perfectly encapsulates the theme of the game. The feeling of dread, yet with the glimmer of hope. It's a terrifyingly beautiful representation of how much importance art serves in gaming. It is evident that the artists put a lot of love and care in making the art for this game. The art is designed in such a way to where it also makes sure the characters and enemies pop out over the background. And the difference in style between the "heroes" and "villains" is also very well done. Overall the art of Prime of Flames adds a lot to the game, and is made with a lot of love and care.
In conclusion, I believe Prime of Flames to be what turn-based strategy games should be like. Fun, yet difficult. Despite being simple at first glance, it provides a great amount of planning and management possibilities which keep it fun and refreshing for hours. It is an all round great and fun strategy game. I would highly recommend Prime of Flames to any fans of the genre and to people looking to dip their toes into it as well, and I also hope to see it win the Playfest.
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