Rune Raiders

Developer Retro64 seems to have taken the term 'grid-based' quite literally when designing its debut strategy title Rune Raiders.

This simplistic ladder-style turn-based strategy game hosts block-shaped characters that you can move around a tall grid. It might not sound deep, but the well-pitched learning curve and cartoony graphics make for an accessible route into the strategy genre.

Starting off with a measly bank balance of $700, you can hire up to six warriors of your choice in Mission mode. Your team is made up of ranged, healing, and close combat units, and you start off with a Dwarf, a Heroine, and an Elf.

The roster eventually grows to a mighty 12 warriors, each with unique abilities and upgrades to play around with.

After positioning your characters into a decent formation, you can move your team up, left, or right all at once or switch them about separately. The further you move up the grid the tougher it gets to take out any nasty enemies blocking your path.

You'll spend the first few levels collecting money from fallen enemies and spending it on upgrading each character. You can upgrade your armour and health, and you can both change the direction of attacks and healing and increase their strength.

This means you'll have to keep going back and grinding a few levels for money, as it's an absolute necessity on harder difficulty settings.

Alongside the 15-part Mission mode is a Survival mode. Survival is the same as Mission mode, in which you have to last as long as you can with unrevivable units.

It's all perfectly pleasant, but there are a few minor issues. For one, the balancing is a bit off - Rune Raiders becomes very easy once you've levelled-up a powerful team. You can beat the whole thing with the same party, meaning that you're not encouraged to switch characters for different circumstances and experience everything the game has to offer.

For another, it occasionally freezes and crashes when you use Game Center.

Rune Raiders is a great entry point for those wanting to get into the complex world of strategy games, but it doesn't offer enough diversity or challenge for experienced gamers.

Subscribe to Pocket Gamer on