Regalia: Of Men and Monarchs
The petal is mightier than the sword
DEVELOPER PIXELATED MILK
PUBLISHER KLABATER
PRICE US$ 25
AVAILABLE AT STEAM, GOG REGALIAGAME.COM
Just days into my reign as the new lord of Ascalia, I decided to take a trip to Falgarwood. My council, consisting of my two sisters, my bodyguard, and the cranky ghost of a long dead ancestor, thought it’d be a good idea to get to know the area. Let the local peasants put a face to the name, that sort of thing. It’ll demonstrate that you care, they said.
A few days later, far from winning over the hearts and minds of my people, I’m lost in the sprawling wildwood, fighting for my life against a pack of balefolk - or animated trees. Balefolk have this special ability, you see, where once they lose 50% of their health they can cast a spell called Petal Dance. The first time I saw one of them do this, conjuring up a swirl of leaves to orbit its trunk, I thought it was cute. When the second one did it, I grimaced. When the third one did it, I quit the game in disgust.
It took me a while to work out what was going on. Why did Griffith my bodyguard, the tank of this operation, lose 300 hit points that turn even though he wasn’t attacked? Wait, why is he now dead? And, hang on here a minute, why is Signy, the swift damage-dealer of the party, also mysteriously dead? And, ohferchrissakes, now I’m dead too.
Petal Dance, you see, not only gives these damn trees a huge buff to their shields, which under Regalia’s combat rules you must first deplete before you can inflict any real damage to an enemy’s health. It also does a ridiculous amount of real physical damage to each member of your party every single turn no matter where they are on a grid-based battlefield. It’s
a foundation of turn-based combat supported by some light base-building and dialogue options
insane. It’s infuriating. It’s what lead me to force-quitting then sheepishly reloading my previous save once I’d recovered my composure.
It’s also a good example of how Regalia wants you to play its combat. This is a strategy RPG built on a foundation of turn-based combat and supported by some light base-building and dialogue options. What’s novel is that in combat you don’t get a basic attack. Every action in combat is a special skill, all of which operate on turn limited cooldowns.
Kay, the main character, has skills that range from buffing ally’s shields and attacks to a ranged attack that weakens an enemy to a low-damage melee attack that hits multiple targets. Other party members have their own, increasingly diverse, array of abilities. The challenge of each encounter is managing the best turn to use each skill while also countering the skills the enemies throw at you.
I eventually overcame those bloody balefolk and their Petal Dance garbage. I realised I had to focus my attention on one tree at a time, using Kay to buff Signy and Griffith so they could kill it quickly before it had the chance to cast.
We’ve rebuilt much of Ascalia now, and I think even the local peasants don’t hate me too much. The castle renovations are looking pretty good, too.
Especially since I chopped down all the bloody trees. DAVID WILDGOOSE