Reviewed on: PS4

It isn’t uncommon to see games that try to revive the nostalgia of a golden age. What is strangely uncommon is that we no longer see recreations of the most classic Tactical RPGs! Arriving to fill this great void, GOD WARS Future Past brings everything we remember from the great classics of the Tactics and Tactic RPG genres.

Narrative: 8.5

GOD WARS Future Past has a quite unusual setting. The game presents a fantastical interpretation of Japanese folk tales. Right away we learn that humanity has recently fallen in love with its technology and its own creations, and this has awakened the fury of the Gods, who take revenge by inflicting natural disasters on the world.

The protagonist’s younger sister, the princess and priestess Kaguya, was sacrificed in an attempt to appease the gods who threatened her kingdom. The sacrifice worked, but a few years later the gods were no longer satisfied and resumed their attacks on humanity. Kaguya recruits her childhood friend Kintaro and they set off together on a journey to understand humanity’s problems, fight them and appease the gods once and for all.

The game offers an unusual story, with environmental and humanitarian messages – and does so with an exotic presentation, thanks to the countless elements of Japanese mythology.

Mechanics: 10

GOD WARS isn’t afraid to overwhelm you. At the start, the game will bombard you with an immense amount of information and mechanics… And, if you are a fan of the genre, you will love it!

The game consists of a sequence of narrative scenes and tactical combat scenarios. The story is told with sprites and text boxes accompanied by competent voice acting. Combat takes place on checkerboard-style maps, with the player commanding their team’s characters to move, attack, defend and use special abilities to defeat the units belonging to the enemy army. Each member of your team has a vast list of attributes, equipment and abilities – and it’s up to you to decide how each should progress.

There are 30 professions available in the game, and each brings with it an associated skill tree. Each character can belong to up to 3 classes simultaneously (a Primary, a Secondary and an Exclusive, unique to each character) and, as they take part in battles, each class receives experience points to be invested in abilities of that class. In addition, each character can equip items in the left and right hands, on the head, body and feet, and also add two accessories.

Abilities consume MP to be activated, and all characters in play start with 0 MP. Whenever it is a character’s turn to act, they gain some points. This continuous (re)charge mechanic adds a lot of depth to the game, ensuring that higher-impact abilities can only be activated after a few rounds, for example.
The maps themselves also increase the strategic aspects, since there are countless modifiers associated with each position. High ground gives advantages in accuracy and damage, and there are countless different types of structures and terrain that give benefits or penalties to the character standing in a given spot.

There are countless ideas taken from various classic tactical-genre games, with some of its own added to give personality and coherence. All these elements are very well executed, giving the player immense flexibility to develop each character and build a team exactly the way they prefer, plus countless options of approach for each combat scenario!

Audiovisual: 7

GOD WARS Future Past has pleasant art in its narrative scenes. There are some animated passages that deserve mention for being beautiful and conveying the story’s setting and emotion well. The 3D models aren’t very detailed, but have a look that pleases – the scenery, on the other hand, would have benefited from more polish, being generally excessively square and straight.

The voice acting has surprising quality, and also helps reinforce the narrative aspects. The music is competent, but brings out the game’s weakest point: repetition. There isn’t much variety in the tracks, and you will quickly tire of the battle theme that plays in almost every scenario and, especially, of the same song not only repeating but restarting with every navigation between the main map, inventory menus, class menus, shop menus, among others.

In time, you will notice there is repetition in the scenery too, but nothing as noticeable or irritating as what happens with the game’s music.

Final thoughts

GOD WARS Future Past is a perfect blend of nostalgic elements, harking back to the golden age of turn-based Tactical RPGs. Any longtime fan of the genre should feel at home and will be able to enjoy every moment and every small detail of this work.

Besides complex mechanics, depth and variety in its gameplay, the game even dares to tell an unconventional story, with style, themes and mythology borrowed from a culture quite different from what is conventional to us.

Certainly a title that shows us the potential of this genre that never died, but was asleep for too long.

SCORE

Narrative = 8.5
Mechanics = 10
Audiovisual = 7

OVERALL : 8.5

PlayStation 4 version