I play a lot of iOS games. I mean … A LOT of iOS games. And one of my favorite things to see in iOS game development is the difference between great games being ported to iOS (which usually make use of on-screen virtual controls) and great games made specifically for iOS, which typically use multi-touch controls that couldn’t easily be replicated on a desktop computer.
Games from the latter category are often the most impressive, demonstrating the potential of a seemingly simple interface. And every once in a while, I’ll come across a game that will actually keep me from getting any work done. These are the games, despite the frustration of falling behind in my work, that I really love coming across. And Battleheart is one of these games.
Battleheart is a real-time, RPG-style, party-based battle game from Mika Mobile, developers of Zombieville USA, and OMG Pirates! Unlike their first two games (which utilize onscreen virtual controls), Battleheart uses a set of completely intuitive controls that are often as simple as drawing a line between characters. So what’s kept me playing all this time? Find out after the break.
Getting Started
When you first launch Battleheart and choose a game save slot, you’ll be greeted by a cleric (healing character) you’ll get to know as Lucille. She’ll walk you through a tutorial with another character (a knight) named Shepherd where she’ll teach you how to command your units to attack and perform other functions. These will become the first two characters of your party.
Lucille and Shepherd will teach you how to play.
Commanding your characters is painfully simple: just draw a line from one character to another. And this works for any character — a line can command a knight to engage in melee combat, a ranged attacker to begin shooting at the target or a healer to heal a friendly unit.
Draw lines to move you characters across the battlefield.
Draw lines to attack or heal as well. Geometry!
Wrapping up the tutorial, Lucille will explain how to use special abilities. Select a unit on the battlefield and his or her special abilities will be displayed in the upper left corner. Tap an ability to execute a complex action, such as a defensive stance or a group heal. More abilities can be unlocked as your characters level up, but more on that later.
Preparations
After the tutorial, but before beginning your conquests, you’ll be allowed to prepare with the Town screen. From this screen, you can visit several locations that will aid you and your party in gearing up for battle.
The Town menu lets you prepare for battle.
Armory
The Armory is where you’ll outfit your characters for battle. Tap on a character at the top of the screen to see their stats and currently equipped gear, and equip them with any items in your inventory that they’re eligible with. This gives you a level of customization and fine tuning very similar to a classic RPG.
Gear up at the Armory.
Merchant
The Merchant provides a collection of wares available for purchase. Gold can be acquired from finishing battles, and used to purchase these items. It’s nice to have in a pinch, but as with many role-playing games, the best gear drops from combat, rather than being sold at a merchant.
You can buy items at the Merchant, but the spoils of battle are probably better.
Academy
Your characters gain experience through battle, and as they level up they’ll be able to learn new special abilities. These abilities are learned at the Academy. Every five levels, a new tier of abilities will be unlocked, giving you the opportunity to choose between two different skills. Additionally, these abilities can be swapped out between battles.
Decide which special abilities to give your characters as they level up.
This is probably one of the most RPG-like experiences of the game. There is a heavy focus on leveling, because the new abilities your characters can learn open up a wide range of character/skill combinations that allow for a myriad of playing styles.
Tavern
At the Tavern, you can enlist other characters to serve in your party. This is how you can introduce new classes to your group, further increasing the capabilities of your class/skill party dynamics. Your maximum party size during combat is four, but Battleheart does a great job of translating the age-old skill of leveling up more than the maximum number of members.
The Tavern: for recruiting party members, not for getting drunk.
As you play through the game and level up your characters, a broader range of characters and classes will become available at the Tavern.
Keep
The Keep is simply where your unused party members hang out when they’re off-duty. Visit this screen to swap out party members to keep all of your enlisted characters in tip-top shape (as you can see, I have failed to do that).
The lazy members of your party hang out at the Keep when they're not on the battlefield.
The Battle
When your forces are adequately prepared and ready to engage in glorious battle, simple tap the Battle placard at the top of the main Town screen. You’ll be shown a map of encounters that you can fight your way through.
Fight your way through each of the encounters on the map.
After selecting an encounter to enter, you’ll be brought to the battlefield. Before long, enemies will start attacking in waves from the side of the screen. Stay calm, and remember your training: draw lines.
That spider already claimed the life of my other Knight. I shall avenge him.
I must commend Battleheart for gracefully upscaling the difficulty as you play. As your fights progress, you’ll be faced with large enemies that have massive amounts of hit points and will require some strategy to defeat. It may also take a bit of strategy when faced with multiple enemies. Your party makeup is up to you, but keep in mind that you should balance characters that can heal, do large amounts of damage and are well armored in order to get through some of these encounters.
Conclusion
I’ve been an avid RPGer for as long as I’ve been playing video games. Battleheart lacks a lot of the defining RPG elements — namely a story arc — so I’m hesitant to call it an RPG outright. But the game is definitely RPG style, and is reminiscent of the combat in classic party-oriented role-playing games.
The stripped down style of gameplay, I think, is what makes Battleheart so appealing as an iOS game. Prior to the proliferation of “spare time” games on iOS, I was never really into handheld gaming. Most games seemed to be designed for you to spend hours hunched over a tiny screen, and I wasn’t into that kind of long play. But Battleheart has proven that even those “spare time” games can sometimes suck you in.
What games have you played that you’ve been unable to put down?