An interesting spin on the Darkest Dungeon formula that is very much worth a playthrough but currently lacks the necessary depth to ensure replayability.
This is a very good rogue like game, combat is difficult but also very satisfying.
WARSAW has a very unique atmosphere filled with sadness and hopelessness, it is definitely unusual experience in gaming.
Warsaw is a tactical turn-based game with some interesting aspects, although some of them hurt more than help. The setting is neat and the plot has real stakes, which is nice in a wartime game. The injury system along with ammo management will likely be a hit or miss for many.
This is a good basis for a game, but not a full game by itself. There are too many design errors and too little content - and the characters whose destinies you should be invested in are instead bland and uninteresting.
Warsaw starts well enough. Its eye-catching premise and style do a good job getting players’ initial attention, while the brisk gameplay loop gets players up to speed quickly. However, the loop gets tiresome a short while in, with rather shallow depth and no narrative to support it, and so the experience of the game itself will not linger too long in the memory. But if nothing else, Warsaw still gives encouragement for others to learn more about one of the darker times in history and find further respect for those who fought through it.
No matter what you do, it’s the RNG that will ultimately decide whether you win or lose. Instead of playing Warsaw, you might as well just roll the dice and punch yourself in the face every time it doesn’t show six. [Issue#241, p.55]
Warsaw is turn based tactical RPG during WWII.
Story 2/5
We are sending our heroes to aid momentum of uprising in Warsaw streets and help raise morale of locals. It has historical setting with fictional stories. The codex will be filled with characters stories, weapons and enemies. There are plenty of events that will unfold stories of our characters and inhabitants.
Objectives are way too repetitive and it shouldn't happen on same run. There was one event as part of main objective that repeated all the time when picking the same mission rewards.
Gameplay 4/5
Before entering streets, we will have option to aid some of districts that are losing morale using supplies. There are 6 districts and I've usually finished with only 1 at the end because I didn't focus on supplying them. I have only been able to keep 4 districts when I supplied all of them every possible time.
We will set off with 4 members loaded with supplies, mostly ammo, and choose their starting combat positions depending on their equipped skills and their position requirements. Some skills of new characters are unassigned despite having free slots.
There are events that can be also solved with stat checks, and usually span from 60-80% chance of success. These usually didn't repeat themselves in same run and when I got into battle there was no exp or reward for me.
We'll be able to run around city even after finishing the main objective just to collect and refill the loot as it's very limited in inventory. There's also a sidebar with remaining enemy encounters, events and loot to be found.
Replay value 3/5
Each new game is bit different and offers different mission choices, events and companions. We can pick our 3 heroes when starting new game. Some events may occur in different run or different heroes may join us. We will not unlock all heroes in one playthrough and have limited number of them unlocked per run. I had 14 unlocked out of 17 after 4th run. 28/32 enemies and 33/47 weapons. Game clearly doesn't offer all its features at once.
It's pity game doesn't always bring some fresh characters and ever changing events. The outcomes are same if we succeed or choose same options. We are able to unlock all skills and stats for a single hero in the end and we can fill up our 4 slots easily with high end active and passive skills.
I tried all difficulties. Easy is basically running through gameplay without challenge. Regular is a bit easy. Challenging isn't really hard and Extreme is slightly hard and forgiving. Whoever says this is very hard doesn't really know how to play a game.
Graphics 2.5/5
It has unique looking characters, their skills animations and weapons. Different environments depending on the places we encounter enemies.
Central room is a bit destroyed later on, city is also damaged. We might play in same districts in later stage. Smoke and clouds cover up areas. There is also night/day cycle.
Once we're in the streets all enemies, events and loot positions do not change and we just have to discover them, while some enemies will have a small or big spotting radius to detect us.
Another small problem is that pictures are reused over and over in different types of events, so unless we read the text associated to them, it feels like doing the same thing again.
Music 2.5/5
Repetitive but subtle music. Non spoken story, companions and enemies shout in their language when acting.
Similar games?
Gameplay: Darkest Dungeon/Iratus (combat system), Slay the Spire (random events).
It's NOT similar to This War of Mine.
We're spending most of time fighting in turn based combat.
It doesn't run in real-time during missions or in safehouse.
It misses survival features, like eating or sleeping.
This is an RPG with stats based combat.
We don't construct anything
Hardware requirements?
Low and mid gaming.
How many hours?
7-8.
Verdict
6/10 Game has great potential with combat mechanics but falls short in storytelling that is represented with text and some events are too repetitive. Map is small and feels same whichever district we play. The stats about uprising are uninteresting. However codex is good.
More diverse music and story narrator are so much needed. Game difficulty is pretty forgiving and some items and weapons skills are too powerful and heroes become broken strong after few missions because there's too much loot and experience from foes despite having very limited inventory.
It's pity I wasn't able to unlock all heroes after finishing on all difficulties and good thing there were sometimes brand new events, however some runs may be less interesting than others.
If the game had DLCs, more content and further balances, it might pick up on popularity but developers seemed to have abandoned game and haven't got planned new updates.
SummaryWARSAW is a challenging WWII turn-based tactical rpg taking place in a war torn city and sporting beautiful hand painted graphics. Lead a small, dedicated outfit of civilians and soldiers with their unique skills in their fight to take back the city besieged by occupying forces.