Armello Review

Armello is something pretty special. Mixing a hardy helping of Strategy with a savory amount of Table Top gameplay. Sound yummy yet? Well also place on beautiful art work hand drawn with fantastic music. A game that focuses on online, and offline, can it really hold up to its lovely backdrop of a Lion King falling into utter darkness and ruin, while many playable characters clash this all head on? Read on.

The plot you play as a ‘Hero’ from one of the four animal clans: Rat, Rabbit, Bear or Wolf. Players navigate their fully animated 3D character across the board (procedurally generated from 3D hex tiles) as they quest, scheme, explore,Vanquish monsters, perform the Mad King’s royal edicts, and face off against other players, with one ultimate end goal in mind — storming the palace and becoming King or Queen of Armello. On paper it sounds easy, but you first must build up your character. Or get stomped easily. I personally was charmed by the clans in the game. All animal based, some people might feel iffy about this. I grew up with a ton of characters like the Ninja Turtles, so this is not new to me.

The characters, or the pieces you play as  have interesting back drops to them. exploding with charm.

Thane: The Winter Wolf is a beast at night. Thane has a very high Fight stat, while all his other attributes remain average. As a nocturnal Hero, he is strongest during the night, and weaker at day. So if you play him out the right way you got one heck of a power house in your play style. He is a light example of how the game does play out. Each piece or character you do play as has structure and a element where their the strongest at or weak in certain fields. Supposedly  there will be over twenty playable characters within  the futures fore-casted future. Or mostly concept ideas from the team at League of Geeks. Lets hope they keep them coming. It could really spice things up online wise. I have not personally watched Games of Thrones, I did however looked it all up and compared everything I could without watching the shows style. I have heard quite a bit of how people do reference this game to the series. I can agree, with a few clips online sorted say that it is pretty true. “Hoodddorrr!”

Armello’s Gameplay is a mixed set of emotions for me. At its fresh core it felt so fantastic. Then slowly, online it was lingeringly lowered expectations to my mind. Offline, I felt the brutal AI’s RNG bash my skull into submission and make me humble. This is a good thing at least for the single player aspect. It was fast and things got rolling(dice). Online on the other foot did not translate too well as most players were like watching a old man cross the road.  Matchmaking is brutal along with the old man’s hobble. Taking close to fifteen minutes to find a fourth or even two more players. Most matches were slow, making me a bit bored and taking away from the games over all fun. After the long period of waiting draining your drive to play online. A positive note is when things did pick up it was a nice rush and exciting otherwise. Sure most table tops are like this in real life if your play standard. Turns take awhile to progress due to rolling a few dice setting off suspense. When you have new players who are Bambi, you will be waiting longer then needed. By design the game is pretty good. Offering plenty to a experienced player down to even decent players. Controls are pretty simple. You can move your camera around via W.A.S.D. Active cards (which I will go into in a moment) with your mouse. Roll dice by swiping them with your courser, and knock them a bit with said courser.  Your movement is based off of your AP (Action Points I assume) After moving with a entry of 3 spaces you must then retire your turn and allow the other players to commit their turns. Within your turn or the players before or after you you may play cards within your deck if obtained. Cards cast abilities or actions with the cost of: Gold, Magic, Prestige, and Rot. Rot is granted if you are defeated by Bane’s or other Heroes along the way of playing. Prior to your turn you may cast out a hero buff, or cast a boon or debuff on a space you are in. The game has a ton of cards that randomly distribute to your hand. The number of those cards are like one hundred and twenty or so plus.

The visuals including the music are top notch, some of the most best I have seen for the genre. I am a fan of retro animated films who had that Disney like vibe to them. Call me narrow focused if you will, but sometimes CGI is not as inspired over hand drawn like characters. The whole point is to bring a story alive. Like out of a children’s novel, or even a comic book. Sure you get a few good films here and or there like Frozen(over hyped if you ask me) none that brought entertainment magic like Beauty and the Beast, or Princess and the Frog (I am perhaps the only person who likes the film, but damn was it good to me). When you look at gaming, you look at pilot. At least any sort of vague story for RTS/Strategies to construct a conflict. Armello takes a more mature Disney film with a bit of a deep curve for kids to understand, like mentioned above Game of Thrones. Then creates a living like world. Animations of the characters are a pleasure to watch play out.

In Closing:

Armello offers what you would want out of a Table top board game digitized. However online does heavily vary to quality. As many moments you will sit along with others trying to play the game. Steeping the online experience to not the best it can be. When you do get into games it wiggles into waiting for your turn for what felt like ages. Offline was my preferred experience. The AI was much more quick to decide and was pretty challenging. If you love Table Top games. Then Armello might be the right fit for you. If you want a game to play with some friends you might have a better time as it offers up to four players online together via private games.

Recommended – If you can overlook its online issues, and do not mind playing offline or have 3 other friends to tag along for the ride.