Tactics are a fairly rare guest on gaming platforms, not to mention home systems, so every noticeable announcement deserves attention. Company EVC decided to plunge headlong into tactical retro history, offering a family audience her own take on the tabletop series Dungeons & dragons…
Events Wintermoor Tactics Club take place in 1981 within the walls of the Wintermoor Academy, where dozens of hobby groups unite students. But one day everything changes – the director of a closed educational institution decides to conduct a great battle for elimination for the right to be called the ultimatum club. The losing circles will be disbanded and the winner will take it all. And then Alicia, a fan of board role-playing games, and her friends Colin and Jacob enter the stage. An amazing trio of geeks from the Tactics Club must snowball all other fan groups and become the sole champion of the academy.
Most of the game time, the developers offer to control Alicia, who moves freely between several locations, including the campus, library, courtyard and stadium, where she can communicate with other students, receive side assignments and find items important to the plot. Regular quests involve communicating with several NPCs or finding the desired inscription on the wall, and the plot is a constant return to the tactics club room, where the heroine plays with other members of the association of interests in the board tactical game Curses & Catacombs. Here, on a field divided into sectors, you need to put up your three characters and defeat the superior enemy forces.
Each hero has a unique advantage and a super attack that charges over time. For example, someone can put enemies into a stupor and make them attack their own for one turn, others are able to shoot magic of mass destruction or thin out the enemy’s forces using cavalry. In one move, the authors allow you to move along several cells and use one skill. As you complete side quests, you will receive special items that will enhance the abilities of the characters and expand their capabilities.
As the story unfolds, members of defeated and disbanded clubs will join you, and Alicia will have to invent her own stories for them, expanding the universe of the board game. At the same time, the battles do not have a difficulty level and are quite simple if you use the right characters. The same applies to the battles of clubs, where it is important to understand who is the strongest figure, and then crush her with the whole squad. Battles are fun but hardcore fans X-COM will be disappointed.
The idea of inventing a story for each of the new members of the club, where you have to choose one of several options, gives the desired effect of influencing the plot, but for the most part, this whole drawn-out visual novel with the good girl Alicia is boring. Especially the scriptwriters are blown away by the fifth chapter, where they have to wind circles around the locations, trying to persuade the next member of the club to return to the gaming table. Monarchists, detective lovers, or a self-proclaimed demon are fun, of course, but they clearly lack depth and more detail.
In terms of visuals, Wintermoor Tactics Club looks pretty, but the characters are poorly animated, and the environment seems too static. All you can get out of the interactivity throughout the game is falling snow flakes.
