Review for Immortal Realms: Vampire Wars. Game for PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch, the video game was released on 28/08/2020
The fascinating world of immortal beings called vampires - as fascinating as they are lethal - has always created an aura of passion and death that involves and teases the media imagery. Drawing from this reservoir today, however, is not always easy, especially given the impressive amount of content released over the years both in traditional media and in videogame ones. Immortal Realms: Vampire Wars however he manages to build something summarily new and that in practice works: Palindrome interactive in collaboration with Kalypso Media combines the macabre and fascinating world of vampires with the genre strategic turn-based combat, with some hints of elements RPG of Card Game.
Immortal Realms: Vampire Wars therefore lands on Nintendo Switch after having already landed on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC through the Steam platform. How will the port for the Nintendo laptop behave? Let's find out together.
Immortal Realms: Vampire Wars has a slightly sketched plot that will let itself be discovered in the continuation of the adventure without ever being too in-depth. We do not know the context that led several vampire families to "socialize" with humans, who have become a voluntary source of blood, but we do know that once the campaign begins we will have to side with one of the three families in order to achieve the set goal.
This trick allows the player to increase the otherwise too sparse longevity, restarting the main campaign with a new family, in order to achieve a different goal and to complete the dark corners of the plot from different points of view.
In terms of gameplay, Immortal Realms: Vampire Wars is a multi-stage strategy game with an isometric view and classic Fire Emblem attack boards. In the first phase it will therefore be necessary to move around the map and, from location to location, implement a series of preparatory actions: hiring armies and leaders, collecting cards, improving the characteristics of the characters and collecting battle cards. Once you have made the appropriate moves and arrived in hostile territory, the real battle phase will begin.
In this second juncture we will have to attack and defend ourselves, with the troops each with different intrinsic characteristics, and with our leader with particular abilities. At this point we will also be able to use our deck of cards, in order to cast spells and special abilities that are the real focus of the battle. But watch out for the blood available: if you do not have enough before starting a duel, the departure is guaranteed, in that case you can also decide to bleed a village, taking into account that in this case that village will be "dead" and will no longer provide blood next shift.
On the one hand, Immortal Realms: Vampire Wars boasts an excellent depth regarding the characters, their background and the description of the cards and abilities. In this respect, the depth is excellent and convincing, while unfortunately for what concerns the fighting and the RPG component the title lacks, resulting at times banal and repetitive. Overall the experience is good but it almost seems more suited to fast sessions than to the classic and rhythmic battles of the strategic genre. This feature, however, fits well with the portability offered by Nintendo Switch and the port is the result of a good job.
Immortal Realms: Vampire Wars manages to land in style on the Switch with well-adapted controls: certainly the slow and reasoned genre allows you to take it slow but the result is appreciable and the mapping of the buttons is well studied. Unfortunately, reading small characters and exhaustive descriptions on the small screen of the newborn from Nintendo is not always a simple thing, but we must admit that the result is really appreciable.
Furthermore, the simplification of the game style, the well-made maps and the short sessions combined with cooperative and non-cooperative online modes, are elements that perfectly match the characteristics that make the Nintendo portable console one of the greatest successes of recent years.
Unfortunately, not all that glitters is gold. The cutscenes are at times embarrassing and not justified by the use of a graphics engine that would allow much more. In addition, there are slowdowns from the versions for PC and console, not justifiable even on less performing hardware like that offered by Switch. It must be said that the result is equally valid, but in a landscape where competitors are fierce and churn out better products, some more effort should be made in order not to penalize a good idea with interesting ideas.
Immortal Realms: Vampire Wars lands on Nintendo Switch bringing a load of strategy and mystery that we are sure will captivate many gamers. In general it suffers from some shortcomings and some aspects that could be improved but it cannot really be said that the final result is poor, indeed. We would therefore like to recommend the title to lovers of the genre, always taking into account that we will find ourselves in front of a game with rather simple mechanics.
► Immortal Realms: Vampire Wars is an RPG-Strategy game developed by Palindrome Interactive and published by Kalypso Media for PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch, the video game was released on 28/08/2020
