REVIEW: BATTLE REALMS - EVERY WARRIOR HAS A NAME

Before going into the story, I must talk about an item that is mentioned throughout the whole story.

The Serpent's Orb

Legend has it that if the demand is great enough, the Orb can summon the spirit of the Dragon itself. This Dragon Clan's most ancient artifact is so attractive and powerful that every clan seeks for it desperately, they believe it can fulfill their different reasons.

But the truth is: the Orb itself contains no power. Only the one who believes in it then the Orb can help strengthen the one’s power greatly.

Story + Clan’s Introduction:

• The Dragon Clan:

Long time ago, the island lived the glory age of the Dragon clan. Every member fulfilled his/her role. The warriors of the Dragon were talented and bravery, prized honor above everything else. People believed that power has its value only there are wisdom and discipline to guide it.

Until one year, many black and inhuman creatures came from the north, people have no idea what the hell were those, so people just called them “the Horde”. No matter how many brave samurai and warriors died in the battle, the Horde’s power never decreased. In the end, the Dragon clan leader used Dragon's fury from The Serpent's Orb and sacrificed himself successfully repelled "the Horde"... temporarily.

People who still believe in The Dragon seek The Serpent's Orb to bring them back to an era of order and peace.

• The Serpent Clan:

After ravages of “the Horde”, survivors who successfully escaped head south and become the first generation of the Serpent clan.

The Serpent doesn’t pursuit honor and spirit of the Dragon anymore, they just want to survive. They become cunning and craving for power, most of them are skilled in luring enemies into ambush and using sudden, lethal strike to finish enemies off. The Serpent also holds the techniques of gunpowder, and uses it to create some deadly explosives and traps.

Even some Serpent people cooperate with the Lotus, together they take great pleasure in exploiting and abusing the Wolf slaves.

The Serpent just simply want The Serpent's Orb for its pure power.

• The Lotus Clan:

They are a group of wizards and sorcerers who break their clan law by digging deeply into corrupting dark magic. When the fact was found by other parent clans, they decided to expel the Lotus clan from their homeland.

After the Lotus comes to this island, they use their powerful magic to slaughter many wolf clan people, enslave the rest as their labors and control all mining caves and minerals, create horrors among clans on this island.

Although corrupting dark magic makes the Lotus clan magically strong, but their flesh are also seriously eroded by it. So the Lotus believe The Serpent's Orb can rid them of magical corruption.

• The Wolf Clan:

People of this clan live primitively and closely to the nature, they have their own religion and fierce as the wolf when it comes to combat. Due to climatic disasters and breaking of the homeland, the Wolf’s Druidesses used their relic: The Skull of the White Wolf to saved their people and went out to sea, eventually they came to northern part  of this island.

But they’re not that lucky. Not long after they settle down, the Lotus find and attack them, not only people be killed or be enslaved, but also their resources and relic be occupied. Nevertheless, their hope for freedom never decreased.

The Wolf thinks by combining The Skull of the White Wolf & The Serpent's Orb’s, two powers can let them return to their ancestral lands, the place where they really should be.

Campaign:

• Kenji's Journey

You'll play as Kenji Oja, the Serpent's Son, who fled from this island when his father was assassinated. The game starts as Kenji’s return, you have to choose either rehabilitating the glory age of the Dragon, or revitalizing the pure strength of the Serpent.

• Grayback's Journey

You'll play as Grayback, one of mining slaves. The game starts in mining cave, how he rescues other fellow slaves, revolts against the Lotus and the Serpent's tyranny, reclaims the relic and leads the Wolf clan to liberation.

Simple Gameplay Introduction:

Basically your goal is as simple as other RTS games, you need to beat your opponent off and that's all, except there are some mechanisms different from other RTS games:

• Peasant hut is where peasants (worker) come from, and it’s also resources gathering place. It’s similar to base in other RTS games, so it’s very important, if all your peasant huts and peasants are destroyed and killed, you basically lose. The higher current population you have the slower rate peasan hut creates a peasant.

• There are four resources you need to collect, two of those are rice and water, and they're basically unlimited. You can let peasant do rice field watering if you feel the growth rate of rice too slow.

• When training, upgrading units or letting units learn skills, you need to spend some rice and water and let your units go into corresponding buildings one at a time for a period of time. EX: If you want a 1st tier soldier, you need to let a peasant go into training building, few seconds later he become 1st tier soldier, and so on. This is unlike other RTS games, where you only need resources to training, upgrading units.

• The third resource is horse, you can let peasant tame horse and bring horse back to stable. Peasant having tamed horse can collect extra resources at a time, and soldier can ride a horse for faster speed. Some units/heroes and the whole Wolf clan can’t ride a horse.

• The forth resource is Yin (for Serpent, Lotus)/Yang (for Dragon, Wolf). You will gain Yin or Yang by killing enemies and tearing down buildings. It’s used to upgrade tech tree, summon heroes from keep, increase hero’s strength or unleash devastating  powers.

• All units are ground forces, there is no air forces in this game.

Skirmish(custom game) + Multiplayer

There are four game modes:

• Survival

As long as all your units are killed you lose.

• Razing

All players start with a peasant hut. As long as all your buildings are destroyed you lose.

• Kill the Keep

All players start with a keep. As long as your keep is destroyed you lose.

• Famine

All players start with maximum units & resources, but all resources in the map are gone, you need to build the most effective army with these starting resources. As long as all your units are destroyed you basically lose.

WorldMaster - Make Your Own Map

Just like “Worldeditor” in Warcraft 3, BR also has it’s own map editor! If you are tired of those official maps, then you can create map with cool textures or crazy stuffs in it.

My rating: 4/5

If you are a fan of RTS, you really should try this game. Despite it’s almost 18 years old, the depth of the story and the balance, strategy of each clan are still pretty well-made from the current point of view.

Unfortunately, the next year after BR release, there goes Warcraft III: ROC, and it goes without saying that all players turn their focus on that game, so BR is not that popular all the time.

This is the end of my article, thank you guys for reading.

Developer: Liquid Entertainment

Publishers: Crave Entertainment (US), Ubi Soft (Europe)

Platform: PC, Window

Realese Date: November 7, 2001

Expansion Pack Realese Date: November 5, 2002

Genre: RTS