Summary

  • Turn-based strategy games have evolved, becoming more accessible and enjoyable for all types of gamers.
  • Songs of Conquest offers a familiar gameplay experience, but with a charming art style and engaging story modes.
  • The game allows players to explore community-made content, create their own maps, and engage in strategic battles.

Turn-based strategy is not the niche, back-of-the-class-dweller that it once was. Many games have worked hard to bring this genre to the forefront of gaming, in refreshing, accessible, and approachable ways. Fire Emblem has been working at it for years, while Baldur’s Gate 3 brought everyone into that D&D 5e mindset like never before.

Songs of Conquest, now at the end of its reign in Early Access, is stepping up to further this reach, in a game that has a bit of Octopath, a bit of Fire Emblem, and a lot of other little things that come together to build an enjoyable strategy experience. It doesn’t reinvent the turn-based wheel, but it does do enough to stand alongside the strategy giants we already know and love.

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Upon starting the game, you’ll see three options available to you: Campaign, Conquest, and Multiplayer. Campaigns are the story mode of Songs of Conquest, with one campaign centered around each of the four factions in the game, all with multiple challenging levels to strategise your way through. The official campaigns themselves are thorough and increasingly difficult, and offer up some intriguing characters and information about the world and the factions that inhabit it.

However, there are also Community Campaigns, which allow you to browse and play maps made by other players. Community-made content not only gives you near-endless battles to play through, but it also allows players to push the boundaries of the game itself, and create some truly incredible things. There are already so many available to check out from the Early Access period, and that number is only going to grow. Alternatively, you could spend hours using the map editor to create your own maps and campaigns, which is easy to use and dangerously entertaining.

The Map Editor lets you draw out terrain, forest, rivers, towns, and quickly create some cool looking locations. This might already be my favourite thing about the game.

As for the gameplay itself, if you’re familiar with the big strategy games I mentioned earlier, then this is going to be pretty familiar and easy to pick up. While it does boast a charming art style that feels reminiscent of Square Enix’s HD-2D, the fundamentals are there in how it feels to play. In each campaign, you take the role of a Weaver, who can lead the charge of conquest and amass followers to fight for them, while using magical powers to grant buffs and advantages on the battlefield.

You click to move about the map, interacting with points of interest, towns, and hidden treasures. Then, when encountering a group for combat, a fight will begin. Here, you can choose to either take part in a manual battle, in which you will place your fighters and control them each turn, or select quick battle, which will automatically carry out the battle and determine the result for you. I loved having access to quick battles, as sometimes, skirmish after skirmish, you just want to sit back and pit your forces against another while taking a breather from the strategy side of things.

That said, the battles can become intense, and sometimes you’re better off doing a manual battle to avoid too many casualties. You can just click attack and pray in the early game, but your numbers will quickly start to dwindle. The placement of your troops, the moves you make, the considerations of your attack ranges versus the enemies' attack ranges - all this comes together to make a high-stakes battle, each and every time.

Battles are played out on a hexagonal grid, so movement and range is where strategy comes into play. Keep your ranged fighters at a vantage point, and make sure your melee fighters don’t get overwhelmed and surrounded.

There are even some elements of town building, wherein you will use funds and resources collected to build up ruined settlements. Each building offers specific advantages each turn, and this feature is much more prominent in the Conquest game mode. In Conquest, you can play on existing maps, pick from some pre-built scenarios, or generate a procedural map. Then, two to eight players can build up a base, and fight to conquer the area. You can play as whichever faction you want, but can also set teams between the players, to decide who will be fighting who. It’s another element that adds some replayability to the game.

I’ve dipped into a lot of these types of games before, and while I’m one of the many who was enamoured with Baldur’s Gate 3 last year, turn-based strategy is something I’m by no means an expert in. I love playing these sorts of games, but I have no experience with the real ‘hardcore’ side of the genre, and higher difficulties that require more strategy is something I still need a fair bit of practice in. That said, Songs of Conquest still feels welcoming, giving you the option to choose from varying difficulty levels, set up custom games with specific options to practice the things you want to practice, and yet still has everything a long-time strategy fan is going to want from the experience. It’s really a complete package of what you want in a turn-based strategy game, whoever you may be.

Songs of Conquest knows what kind of game it wants to be and knows its audience, and while it won’t push any boundaries for the genre, it’s an excellent choice for existing fans - or, if you’re looking to get started with strategy games and hope to grow your experience, then this game also has everything you need to do so.

With a welcoming difficulty curve and paced introduction of mechanics, various modes to practice and play with friends, and an extensive world of interesting characters and factions, Songs of Conquest is a golden example of turn-based strategy games done right, with everything you could want included.

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Songs Of Conquest

Reviewed On PC

Turn-Based Strategy Systems 4.0/5 OpenCritic Reviews Top Critic Avg: 82/100 Critics Rec: 80% Released May 10, 2022 ESRB m Publisher(s) Coffee Stain Publishing Engine Unity
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WHERE TO PLAY

DIGITAL
Pros & Cons
  • Beautifully charming art style
  • Offers a deep and intriguing world
  • Welcoming to new players, plenty for experienced players
  • A myriad of campaigns and modes to choose from
  • Doesn't do much to push the genre in any direction