Your mousey crew lands on Aurania, a land of mystery and potential. What follows is an epic turn-based adventure filled with twists and turns, lots of interpersonal and faction-crossing drama, and plenty of combat. Wargroove 2 follows the events in Aurania 3 years after Queen Mercia and her allies defeated the ancient adversaries and restored peace to Aurania. Now, this team of explorers and researchers (with some formidable fighting skills) seems keen on unearthing forbidden tech that could have catastrophic consequences. Filled with beautiful sprites, luscious maps, and engaging cutscenes, Wargroove 2 turned out to be a great time for pixel-lovers and turn-based aficionados alike.
The gameplay is very reminiscent of classics like Advance Wars, and it’s hard to not compare it to those types of games. You move troops around one by one during a turn, and you’re allowed to spawn more troops as you earn coins and capture bases. During the map, there is a main objective and side objectives, oftentimes with multiple ways to win the map. You also have a special Commander on the field which has a “Groove” move that charges up during combat. These Commanders are super powerful, but also function as a sort of “king” piece in chess, where if they are defeated you lose immediately. This responsibility carries with it the gift of true power, as they are the most devastating foes or allies on the field, and can use their individual groove moves to turn the tides of battle. It was really challenging thinking of how to best maneuver and use these fighters, because of their effectiveness and importance. You could see this in how the AI moved theirs, smartly keeping them protected and limiting their vulnerability.
The different troops allow for a multitude of options for attacking, surrounding, or simply overwhelming your enemies. There’re ranged options to hide in the mountains and rain down arrows, traveling options to allow you to move less mobile troops into the center of battle quickly, mounted attackers that dash into combat to provide quick jabs, and ground troops that are the bedrock of many armies, oftentimes being used as protection for your powerful Commander. After your initial set of allies is spawned on a map, choosing which types of troops to spawn at bases is the foundation of any strategy. I started the game on medium difficulty and quickly realized that not everything I tried would result in a positive outcome. The AI is very smart, and pinpoints your weakness pretty well. Luckily, you can experiment and restart whenever you like, and depending on your difficulty, you can undo turns as well. In fact, the difficulty meter has lots of options to let you play and experience the campaign however you would like, increasing or decreasing the challenge and allowance of redos as you see fit.
As the maps got filled with more and more enemies, terrain options, and units, the gameplay became very much like a huge chess match, with little battles happening all over the place. All the while the story beats would cut in between turns, keeping the action moving towards an ultimate ending on each map. I really loved this about Wargroove 2, where I felt like even during battle things I was doing were affecting the story (though the result was always going to happen.) In-between the battles, you’re shown cutscenes filled with tasty lore about what’s happening between all of the factions (even the ones you aren’t controlling) and are given looks at how and why each main group of characters is doing what they believe is right. The dynamics and conversations between all of these teams was unexpectedly nuanced and fair, and I found myself looking through the many lore pages, filled with notes, and connecting the dots while I played. Overall, the 3 interwoven campaign stories are all very dense and lovingly told, providing a big narrative to dive into, even if you’ve never played Wargroove 1. It did get a bit wordy sometimes though, and there were points where I felt the gameplay took a backstage to the story, even in the middle of some battles.
Pixel art style games are unique in that they are limited in their capacity to display movement or emotion just by the art alone. However, I believe this gives them the advantage of having to come up with intriguing, special ways of showing the tiny movements, like cloth on clothing flapping in the wind, or mousy ears and tails bopping around as they run. Wargroove 2 is a treat for the eyes. Each map has a plethora of terrain types, little graphical treats, and so many troop and enemy types that it’s hard to keep up. Luckily, there’s a dense UI which allows for quick information display of terrain details and troop abilities. In fact, once you understand the numbers and general info being displayed at all times, it becomes quite easy to navigate the different troops you need to move. I really enjoyed the special cutscenes that often bookended each level, giving colorful background to the events surrounding the gameplay sections. These gave you insight into the more diplomatic side of things, and allowed for lore-building between characters. The enemies and allies weren’t just good versus bad, which isn’t always the case in gaming stories.
Wargroove 2 ties everything together with an epic backing soundtrack composed by Dale North. The score feels perfectly made for the game, and brings the world and events to life. In addition to the wonderful soundtrack, the characters pipe-in with little voiced lines to provide emphasis when necessary. This means that even if you read their dialogue text faster than they would have read it, you still get the audible effect the game wants you to feel initially. At first I thought this would be off-putting, but the style of delivery wound up being sorta revolutionary. When a game is fully voice acted, I feel guilty if I start skipping it, worried I might miss a perfect inflection or addition to the story. Here, I got the good stuff right at the start and got to focus on the story and visuals instead.
So is Wargroove 2 worth your time if you’re a turn-based tactical combat fan? 100% yes. If you’re into this sort of thing at all, go for it. It also has a hugely complex map and story creator that I didn’t dig into, but could be your thing. The community has already crafted lots of new stories and maps to be explored. There’s also a Conquest mode that functions as a roguelite and allows for even more combat goodness. The offerings are nearly endless here, the characters are likeable and sometimes cute mouse people, and your ears are treated to a lovely buffet of sound effects and music.
