Tortuga Team and publisher Ellada Games’ Braveland Trilogy collects 2014-15 PC releases Braveland, Braveland Pirate, and Braveland Wizard into a mildly entertaining turn-based RPG with a simplistic and cartoonish art style. The Nintendo Switch port features some good role-playing qualities, but lacks the depth to keep players entertained for long.
Braveland Trilogy’s core gameplay is all about combat. Each level sees the player moves across hexagon-shaped spaces to reach and defeat the enemy. Some measure of cover is available in every stage. Units can use melee weapons to bring down their foes, while others attack with bows or magic. Several aspects of the combat system can be customized, which is a neat feature that lets the player enjoy the game the way they want. Combat can be sped up, and damage stats can be toggled on and off which makes choosing when, who, and how to attack much easier and more convenient.
The way combat works in Braveland Trilogy share a lot in common with the gameplay found in other turn-based RPGs, particularly the Might & Magic Heroes series, which uses the same combat, team-building, and world map mechanics. The main issue with this is that Braveland Trilogy borrows a lot from other games, but doesn’t really offer anything new - aside from its colorful art style - that much higher-quality turn-based RPGs already have.
The Braveland Trilogy comes packed with three separate games: Braveland, Braveland: Wizard, and Braveland: Pirate. It should be noted that each game can be completed in just a few short hours, which makes each installment in the trilogy feel more like a chapter rather than an entire game on its own. The fact that each game has to be completed before unlocking the next supplements that idea. All three games follow a different protagonist as they assemble an army and advance through the world map. The three protagonists build different armies, which makes each game feel like a new experience to a certain extent.
The world map is set up like a board game, where the player advances through each space by winning battles. Occasionally the paths diverge slightly, but this doesn’t have much of an effect on the player’s progression, as the game map is still linear. While battles become more challenging as the player gets further into the story, the pace at which enemies improve and diversify is a slow process that gets old too quickly. There are too many instances where one fight feels nearly identical to the last.
The main campaign is one of two available modes in the game. The other is a local PvP mode, that lets two players pit two ready-made teams against each other. Using built-in teams makes multiplayer in Braveland Trilogy dull, because most of the game’s entertainment value is found in the main campaign where the player slowly builds up an army from a small batch of pitchfork-wielding peasants to a legion of skilled swordsmen and archers.
Another glaring problem with Braveland Trilogy is that even its biggest draw has its share of issues. Gathering team members and building up an army can be fun, but like the rest of the game’s features, it becomes tedious after a time. Many of the units share the same character models, and special moves for each unit are extremely limited.
There’s also a lack of options when it comes to recruiting team members, which means that if a player were to revisit Braveland Trilogy after completing the story, they would most likely find themselves building the same team all over again and it doesn’t encourage replayability. In the end, Braveland Trilogy’s quirks don’t save it from being another forgettable RPG.
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Braveland Trilogy is available now for the Nintendo Switch. Screen Rant was provided a Switch code for review.
