Ratalaika Games are one of the top Indie publishers and have had some great games released through them. So, the next game up is from Woblyware and is called Royal Frontier. The rogue-like game is a mash-up of RPG’s combat like Paper Mario and the rouge-like gameplay from other games, which is offering a fun gaming, experience.

Publisher: Ratalaika Games
Developer: WoblyWare
Release Date: 4 March 2022

Thanks to the publisher for the review code.

While rogue-like games are not my first choice to play but having a mashup of games like Paper Mario give me a reason to try it out. You begin by building your party of three characters and these include a monk, a wizard, and a knight, which might seem to be a start of joke but it is your starting party. Then as you progress you meet a human, a dwarf and assassin which is a big help in your quest later. The different classes offer two types of attacks and each as special abilities like the monk heals party members.

The map has points on it which represent battle locations and following these will get you to a boss battle. The combat is fun and has been inspired by Mario RPG where you used precisely timed press of a button to release an attack or block in addition to your regular skills. And following the tried and trusted rogue battle system after fights or levelling up, your health doesn’t regenerate so you go into the next fight with what you got left. Strategy is important so that you don’t deplete your meters and leaves you open later in the battle. And once your party dies, the game restarts.

Being retro-inspired the graphics are like the games of the 16-bit era pixel art. This means that the levels are very colourful and bright, with the characters looking sharp. The little animations that have been added gives the characters their own personality which include facial expressions. The soundtrack is basic with appropriate sound effects to match with the style and era of the game.

The battle system could have been better regarding the amount of damage taken. When you begin you have 70 to 100 HP and while this seems enough, with the enemy taking 20+ points in attacks you soon find health dwindling fast. Even blocking don’t offer much more protection and you will find if you take 7 to 10 hits then your party will start to fall and the next battle will be even harder. As you progress you gain abilities to help you prevent extensive damage, but until then you need to be more strategic in battle.

Final Thoughts

Royal Frontier is a fun game for the cheap price tag. I found it to be very interesting and while I am not a big fan of Rogue-like games, the RPG battles made the game enjoyable. Yes the damage system is a worry for beginners to this style of game, but once you get use to it, everything should be fine. It is a fun game and will offer hours of fun, especially if you are a big fan of this genre. A worthy purchase.