Ravenmarch

Game overview

Raven March is an MMO strategy game from Kabam Games. Although the game gets off to a slow start, partly due to excessive load screens and a sparse story, it gains in the multiplayer portion thanks to a well developed player-versus-player map, where new combat is always to be had. Scenarios are also available for those who prefer to play solo.

The game has quaint but fairly detailed 2D graphics that serve it well. In terms of story, however, there's not much to say - you have a small selection of avatars and three factions at war to fight as. Exactly why they’re at war in the first place will unfortunately remain a mystery.

In general, Raven March offers fun for casual players, but hardcore gamers will likely have to pay if they want to continue to advance at a reasonable pace.

Full review

Starting up

After creating your account, you have the choice of up to four characters. This decision seems purely cosmetic, since you’re told nothing about the difference between the characters - not even a name or class. These are avatars, nothing more, and are symbolic of the general lack of complexity in this title.

Next up is a simple but somewhat repetitive tutorial showing you how to upgrade your village, an aspect that will be crucial to supporting your growing army as you progress. Once this is done, you’re given a choice of three factions to pledge allegiance to. Just as in the character creation page, no background or unique characteristics are offered to help you decide which faction to join. They are differentiated only by name, banner sigil and locations on a map.

There are two main aspects to gameplay – battle, and resource management, represented by the scenario/world and city view screens respectively. You must fight to progress and win glory for your faction, but such battles require resources, men and gear, all of which have to be gradually upgraded in your city.

It is only once you unlock the world map that Raven March really gets going. Here you get access to a large-scale war zone with plenty of player-versus-player combat to be had. The three different factions are constantly wresting for control over territory, thanks to a worldwide network of players. This works very well and even if you play at 4 o'clock in the morning, there is always someone new to conquer.

Besides multiplayer, the game also offers single player scenarios. These are campaign missions with a few lines of story. Defeat enough enemies in a mission and you unlock the next chapter, as well as upgrades like generals who determine the size and strength of your army.

Combat may be too simple for some.

Unfortunately for a game that’s all about combat, the combat is not very interesting. In a nutshell, battles come down to a variation of rock, paper, scissors. For each encounter you have three battle strategies to choose from, each of which is weak or strong to another strategy (ie. rock beats scissors but loses to paper and so on). Winning is a matter of noting what strategy the enemy plans to use, and then choosing the strategy that will trump his, all within a frame of a few seconds. Choosing wrong or taking too long will lose you the battle, costing you more men and preventing you from progressing in the game. While this system does make battle fast and easy to learn, it also quickly becomes repetitive and unchallenging.

Graphics and performance

The graphics of Raven March are where the game does better. Visuals are quaint but have some really nice details, especially in the city view where your castle and lands are framed by mountains fading into fog, and birds soar serenely across the screen. Strangely, the beginning stages of the game, including the tutorial, are completely without music, offering only a few pitiful sound effects. Music does come in at later points, and fits fairly well with the game, but the lack of it in the beginning leaves the atmosphere feeling oddly empty.

Unfortunately, while the world looks good enough, the game does not run particularly well. You will encounter some bugs, including garbled unit names (anyone up for fighting some recryitef knighits?) and slow load screens plague parts of the game. Battles sometimes begin without anyone to fight, as the unit graphics haven’t been fully downloaded yet. While these aren’t huge problems, they do make the game feel unpolished. Performance improvements would certainly be welcome in future updates.

Pay-to-play

Raven March falls comfortably into the free-to-play model, and so it isn’t long before you’ll be offered the chance to pay your way to advance. Actions like upgrading buildings and recruiting soldiers for your army require more resources and time as the game goes on, tempting you to speed it up with real money. Paying players get VIP status with single or daily rewards, such as the ability to instantly construct or upgrade buildings or tap into extra resources and better gear.

Thankfully for those who are determined to play for free, there is still a fair amount to do if you’re willing to wait, and Kabam has done a decent job of keeping the requests for in-game purchases separate from everything else in their own menus. However, those looking to advance quickly will probably need to shell out to reach the higher levels without a lot of waiting.

Conclusion

Raven March is a fairly entertaining play for those after a simple strategy game and not much else. Battle with players all over the world in the open world map, where the playing field is constantly changing and there’s always some new territory to claim. Or play alone in campaign, fighting your way up as you grow your character and unlock items and challenges. While it is a little buggy at present, this doesn’t interfere much with play, and hopefully fixes aren’t too far away. All in all, we recommend Raven March for the casual strategy fan. Hardcore players, however, will have to be prepared to pay their way to the top.