Brigandine - The Fantasy XCOM
I like the close similarity to XCOM, where I could train soldiers to send them to their dramatic deaths. To hear them scream and die at the hands & claws & maws of alien monsters. The system is better in Brigandine as I can train my soldiers, which are monsters - and I love tamed monsters - and send them to their deaths. Dead hero monsters can be brought back to life in Brigandine.
Particle effects are exceptional! Monsters look really good and cute. And there are lots of BOOBs, very doable female priest / girl ninjas / female knights / sorceresses, etc.. High level art with attractive females!
Massive military strategy features, like attack routes, incoming invasions, battle planning, army set-up, massive sacrifices, weakening the enemy, destroying "supply lines" / supply-capability. You can summon monsters and there is a rare event, called Mana Miracle - which gives a super-monster with enhanced abilities. In itself this feature is amazing. But during summoning of rare & strong monsters, like dragons and demons, this Mana Miracle event happens waaaaay too rarely.
I had to press the summon key a million times to summon like 30-100 monsters, of which large groups only a handful were Mana Miracles... So instead of destroying my keyboard with repeated press-stress...
Currently I'm using the "All Summons are Mana Miracle" hack in CE and I also set the money(mana) to max, so I can summon many of these exceptional monsters. We are talking about championship level athletes here
versus
the fat and unfit General Population fed on Taco's and Pizza's = general random summonable monsters in Brigandine.
So I take this freshly summoned exceptionally able Mana Miracle Monster Army and I select the very best of the best of them. If I need more monsters of the same type, then I take the two highest ranking of these supreme 1st level beasts.
Now I'm slowly building my Mana Miracle Monster Army, by leveling them up in combat, making them kill a high level enemy, so these super-monsters of mine level up faster.
The best-ever feature in this game I like the most are the VETERAN GENERAL MONSTERS, who are high level and have high stats, but only thanks to their high level! I love the fact that I can make them charge the enemy front-line and take the bullets / soak up hits by the enemy - and also I let them die - so my mana-miracle super-monsters can take their place. Much drama, since the death animations and particle effects in Brigandine are top notch! So these Veteran Great Monster Martyr Soldiers of mine die glorious deaths with Maximum Honor!!
Another supremely amazing feature of this game is
PERSISTENT FORTRESSES
I nagged poor OpenXCOM developers to create the feature of Persistent Fortresses, where you can do incremental damage to fortresses, then FLEE. Then rest, go back and the damage - their army losses - are still there. More or less.. depending on how much recover-time you allow the enemy, while you rest..
So I noticed in Brigandine, when I started to storm their persistent fortresses, which gloriously retained damage after a combat, that their monster force gradually diminished!
??
Well I took my aim during battle to KILL OFF their monster army first. Only then massacred their Knight Kommanders, if they were still there and did not flee the battle.
Since I'm also conquering their realm - taking their castles - so each additional turn they have less and less military support / resources to summon / boost / renew / refresh their own monster army, their army gets less and less.
UNTIL NOW, when the best of this 'Persistent Fortresses'-feature happened. Their Capital City / castle / has only their high level knight heroes left!! They have no more monsters! Its like the best movies and books, how only the hand-to-hand duel of selected champions from opposing armies decided the outcome of the battle.
BUT of course, thanks to the Money and Revival Stone cheats, I can summon back my fallen HEROIC MANA MIRACLE MONSTERS!! And make them storm the enemy castle over and over again!!
The drama increased, since I was so stupid to storm their capital city with low level knights-commanders, who couldn't really hurt their very high level Knight-Commanders! Only their heroes are left now. And with reloading-savescum I could even defeat one of their knights, who was the weakest physically - a spellcaster.
Now the enemy faction gathered all its knights to the castle - in the Capital City and they have no monster army left!
So I use the very same lame idiot low level knight commanders of mine, who now with the one victory - gained some levels. BUT I also will summon back all the fallen martyr Mana Miracle Exceptional Best Elect Monsters of mine, who heroically gave their lives, to win the last tactical battle!
Also the game has the option to Revive fallen comrades as Zombies, but only for the current battle..
Now I'm in the military organization phase, and I'll re-assemble the army. I'll give a better equipment to that horribly lame, low-level knight, who because of the EXP gained in the last battle also gained 7-8 levels [!!] so I can elevate him into a new, stronger knight class...
So with better equipment and now stronger newbie knights, I'll see, what the enemy's highest level Champion Knight Commanders will be able to do with my army..
Its like the movie Seven Samurai, where only the heroes are stepping forward to face the enemy army. Now only the enemy hero knights remain and we'll see what kind of fight they'll be able to put up.
I killed their Priest / Caster / Healer Knight buddy in the last battle.. Will they also field another healer hero to support them this time?
Also another AI feature in this game activated: the game correctly estimated that by the 'end of battle' only two of the enemies highest level Knight Champions remained
Facing them was the remainder of my low level monster army, with whom the enemy knights played ping-pong or football, kicking / hitting my army where ever they wanted... This weak army was led by my similarly newbie 3 knights, who could never really hurt those two mighty enemy Warrior Champions.. So the game decided its enough. Exactly at the right moment.. and completely without my input - my army commander, a (IIRC) level 9 sorcerer suddenly announced - its time to retreat from battle and he ordered a full army withdrawal.
For the enemy:
THE END IS NIGH!!!
The WAR DRAMA is set to MAX!!
This is why I call this game:
Colossal Amazing Brigandine!
Often you have to hack a game, while playing on hardest difficulty, to bring out massive monster mobs and Maximum Drama!
I wish the soundtrack were 10x bigger. But since I modded Sanctus Reach, so its soundtrack increased in size by at least 8x, I'll have to do the same with Brignandine as well. Yeah, this game is that good!