For the longest time, I have been meaning to take Kriegsfront Tactics for a spin. After playing its prologue, I can confidently say that its full release has the potential to become one of the strongest new entries in the turn-based tactics space. Obviously inspired by Front Mission, but with an identity that’s very much its own, Kriegsfront Tactics is shaping up to be a methodical, dense, mech-focused tactics experience that I’ll be sure to fully enjoy when it eventually releases.
What is Kriegsfront Tactics?
Kriegsfront Tactics is a turn-based strategy and tactics game currently being developed by Toge Productions. Players command a squad of customizable mechs as they trek through the thick jungles, villages, temples, and mountains of an alternate-history 1970s Southeast Asia conflict. The game’s basics are pretty much what you would expect if you have played XCOM or Jagged Alliance 3. The game has very nice, high-quality PlayStation 1 graphics. I’m firmly on the field of the people who love this art style (mainly because of nostalgia), because when it’s done right, as it’s being done here, it’s absolutely amazing.
The game has a prologue that functions like a vertical slice of what players can expect when the final product eventually releases: it has several battles, story set-pieces, and mech management.
A Unique Southeast Asian Setting That Elevates Tactics
Even before we dive into the combat of the game, one of the first things that stands out in Kriegsfront Tactics Prologue is its unique and underutilized setting. Instead of reusing the standard sci-fi tundras, deserts, or urban ruins, Kriegsfront Tactics drops players into a lush and dense environment inspired by East and Southeast Asian biomes, which have a very substantial impact on gameplay.
The thick forests are natural concealment and ambush sites, the temples and ruins provide players and enemies with hard cover during firefights, and the height variation makes getting the high ground an important priority during fights. Long sightlines are easy to break with the amount of foliage available, and overwatch chains can be disrupted by those same forests or cover. It’s a really neat setting that at first glance should not be conducive to mech activity, but it works surprisingly well here.
Turn-Based Combat That Feels Like XCOM
I’m of the firm position that turn-based combat is better when it’s not extremely complex, and it can be hard to meet that middle ground of excellence between being so devoid of tactics that it just becomes boring, and too overwhelming an affair that it feels like busy-work. If you’ve played XCOM: Enemy Unknown or Jagged Alliance 3, you’ll pick up the fundamentals instantly. Kriegsfront Tactics follows that classic formula of making a move into the blue squares if you want to take an action after that, or make a move into the yellow squares (allowing players to move longer distances), but no further actions can be taken. Everything else is pretty much the same, overwatching mechanic included!
To shake things up a bit, the game adds a couple of formula twisters, including subsystem targeting (something that every great mech game needs to have, in my opinion, otherwise you’re just fighting with metallic humans), where players can target the torso, arms, and legs, and disabling each of the limbs significantly hampers the way the mech operates, as it should. One point, the enemy mech was trying to kick my mechs because it had no arms; it looked like something out of Monty Python.
There are also multiple weapon slots for each mech, so you’re not limited to having one specific role. If you want to have a mech with a rifle and a mortar or missiles, you can; you don’t need a specific artillery kind of mech, so that’s cool. I think mech games, unlike games based on humans, allow for this kind of creativity because it makes a lot more sense in the game world. There are also melee mechs! The game also adds armor to the mechs, so you’re not limited to their health pool, but shots have to penetrate that armor first.
PS1-Inspired Graphics That Work Surprising Well
One of the biggest surprises is how good the PS1-inspired low-poly graphics look in motion. Instead of feeling outdated, the visuals create a distinct identity with their sharp silhouettes, clean and fast animations, well-designed mech models, atmospheric lighting, and dense foliage and moody landscapes that really look their Southeast asian inspired with a prevalence of browns, oranges, and dark green tones. The game captures that gold era feel of mecha games like Front Mission and early Armored Core, but rendered with modern polish, really well.
This aesthetic choice also enhances performance and readability during tactical encounters while impactful animations and weighty feedback work to elevate the game in tandem with its graphical style, selling the impact of metal-on-metal warfare. I must also give a nod to the particle effects and the UI that looks like it came straight out of Metal Gear!
Oh, and player can also fully customize the visuals of their mechs, changing their color schemes and camo.
Final Thoughts: A Promising Tactics Game Worth Watching
I don’t even know why it took me so long to give Kriegsfront Tactics: Prologue a try, but I certainly don’t regret it and, in fact, would highly encourage every player out there who has an interest in turn-based strategy games and/or mechs to give it a go. The game stands out in a crowded genre, and if the full game builds upon what the Prologue already does well, this could easily become one of the most distinctive turn-based tactics releases of the decade.
And considering the Prologue is free, it’s absolutely worth trying.
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