There’s a simple delight to JRPG character customisation. Extend that to an entire squad of characters on a tactical grid? Now you’ve got your classic strategy JRPG. Extend it to an entire army of several dozen squads? That’s the rework you get in Symphony of War: The Nephilim Saga. Setting out a buffet of customisation around your army is enough to shake up a genre that was becoming one-note – even if the generic story does it no favours.
Symphony of War’s spin on the strategy JRPG is all about the squad. Each squad is made up of as many as nine units, each placed into a formation that you create on 15 squares – and the boundaries between them – for about 15 distinct positions. Whereas other games emphasise single individuals, only the most powerful heroes can take on an enemy squad single-handed in Symphony. Instead of customising the precise stats of individual people, you decide the squad built around them, tweaking composition and class as you go, and pushing their leadership stat ever-higher to increase their max squad size. Equipment also goes to the squad, with powerful artefacts taking up both equipment slots and space that could be used for soldiers.
But despite all that complexity, it’s surprisingly easy to grasp. There’s a decent in-game reference manual, and while some in-depth mechanics and the precise effect of stats – or how some terrain works – aren’t very clear, it never feels like you’re held back by a lack of understanding.
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