Now Chucklefish is back with the eagerly anticipated sequel, Wargroove 2! Sure, its been out for a bit, but it’s still worth taking a look at this excellent tactical sequel. Naturally, things pick up right where the first game ended, giving a rundown of the heroes of that adventure before moving on to the next chapter. The game starts out with you taking control of a race of mouse/rat people called the Faahri. They’re looking for weapons of power from the Cacophony, a civilization-destroying war. You’ve likely got a little knowledge of what might happen if you’ve played the first game but suffice it to say, not everything goes well for the rats and they end up fighting pretty much everyone on the continent. The plot is full of quips and jokes, but manages to pull off a respectable level of worldbuilding in the handful of sequences you get.
After playing through the Faahri storyline, you’re treated to a whole new cast of characters from the Outlaws and the Heavensong Empire, fighting against the Felheim Legion. The difficulty ramps up too and there are still two more major portions of the game left, the Pirates and the finale. The wide ranging plot and variety of units and characters makes the whole thing seem more expansive and less linear than the game actually is and that’s a good thing.
Combat is standard tactical turn-based stuff. You’ve got foot, spearmen, cavalry, archers, mages, and an assortment of weird units including a few new ones including frogs, air troopers, and krakens. While they’re not revolutionary, the new units add a bit more spice to an already solid combat design. As you’d expect, certain units are strong or weak against certain others and by and large this follows the standard tactical triangle. Conveniently, Wargroove 2 shows approximately how many units you’ll kill and whether you’ll survive or kill the enemy before making your selections, taking a bit of the randomness away from this style of combat and allowing you to plan more effectively. It’s a better learning strategy than just handing the triangle to players, that’s for sure.
Commanders and starting units for each battle are pre-assigned and when their troops kill enough enemies, the commanders power up and are able to use their Groove abilities. Each commander has a different ability, from becoming a giant crystal hulk to setting a huge block of squares on fire for the duration of the stage. It’s important that you use Groove abilities carefully but there’s not much explanation on how to do so, so definitely experiment! Unlike games such as Fire Emblem, combat characters are replaceable and do not level up after each battle. Lose 20 men taking a castle? Doesn’t matter. Things only get dicey if you leave your commanders unprotected. Gradually taking strongholds to generate money and barracks to build more guys is a great strategy but remember that your goal is to kill the enemy leaders, so a rapid strike force in the right place can often win much faster.
What you’ll find more intriguing about Wargroove 2, especially if you’re into tactical games, is that the game is remarkably challenging. Even on the normal difficulty, you’re going to end up losing a fair bit. The AI design is punishing and exploits mistakes and weaknesses easily, leading to battles rapidly turning against you if you’re not paying close attention or don’t take the enemy threat seriously. You can reverse a single turn per battle on normal difficulty as long as your commander doesn’t die. On Easy, that ups to three reversals and the combat becomes more manageable. There are hard and story level difficulties too, but for most players, it’s going to be easy or normal. Expect your battles to be right down to the wire and you won’t be surprised! There’s a reason there are multiple difficulty settings that you can switch to between battles. Keep in mind that many battles in campaign mode can take upwards of an hour or more, so plan y our playtime accordingly and if you’re playing on the Switch, Sleep mode is your friend!
By now you’ve probably got an idea what most of Wargroove 2 was about but you’d be wrong! In addition to the main story mode, there’s an additional Conquest mode available in the game. This upends the Wargroove formula and converts the game to a roguelike combat arena series that lets you earn shards to unlock more playable options within Conquest mode. You have the ability to choose a commander who bestows specific bonuses and one of several set unit layouts and then try to see how long you can survive. Make it to the end and you’ll start unlocking more commanders, more combat, and lots more playtime! The great thing about Conquest mode is that the combat is bite-sized, allowing you to play in short intensive bursts of 5-10 minutes each. This is a significant change from the standard long-form battles in the main campaign and takes a bit of getting used to! Your units don’t heal between battles either, making it a lot more of a challenge to get through the randomized maps of Conquest mode.
Naturally, you can make your own maps too if that’s your thing. Wargroove 2 has a map creation and sharing functionality and you can play multiplayer as well. Between the main campaign, the versatility of conquest mode, and the customization options, there’s a lot to love here. Going into the extras lets you view all the lore you unlock in Campaign mode and listen to the misuc jukebox as well. There’s no sense in dwelling on too much detail for multiplayer and custom modes as they use the same overall mechanics, but playing against human opponents is definitely way more challenging.
Visually, this is a fantastic looking game. Pixel art is always nice but this refined artwork with noticeable unit motion and tight pixels makes for detailed visuals that are fun to look at. There’s more than a bit of Advance Wars aesthetic in here even though this is a fantasy game, but the unique character designs, Groove attacks and environmental effects are excellent, even if they aren’t quite the same as the first game. The cut scenes have some fun facial effects and other neat little unexpected surprises, as well as some dramatic fades. Combat is very visual as well, but can be a bit time-consuming so if you don’t want to bother to watch enemies attacking you, you can always turn some or all of the combat animations off. Overall, the light, cartoonish approach to Wargroove 2’s visuals perfectly suits the slightly silly script and irreverent characters throughout Campaign mode.
The sound is also quite good in Wargroove 2 with heroic medleys belting out during combat and authentic-sounding clashes and bangs and moans from defeated enemies. The music repeats over the course of the rather long battles in Campaign mode, turning into a bit of an earworm after a while and you might find yourself humming the combat music outside of gameplay now and again. That’s certainly not a bad thing, but at the same time, this isn’t a soundtrack you’re going to go searching out for download on Bandcamp. Individual tracks don’t have that deeper, orchestral vibe to them that other tactical strategy games seem to manage sometimes. Regardless, the music and visuals are quite complementary and the overall impact is a fun, light, positive experience that belies the inherent challenge of Wargroove 2.
This is a particularly stable game as well. There are no visual glitches, load problems, or other issues with Wargroove 2. Everything about the game feels like a AAA design with abundant playtesting. The only real complaint players might have is that the difficulty is impressively high, especially on Normal and Hard and you’ll end up struggling to make the correct choices with almost no options to backtrack. That’s pretty tough and given the way some players feel about easy mode (play it if you want to, damn it!) Wargroove 2 might be almost too challenging in some ways. That’s really not a complaint though, but instead more of an observation.
All in all, Wargroove 2 is a spectacular package. You’ve really got two main games available, Campaign and Conquest, plus multiplayer options and some custom design fun to be had. It’s a pretty substantial game, especially considering the low $20 price point on the Nintendo eShop. The game looks and sounds fabulous, is fun to play, the story is light but decent, and it looks and plays great in both dicked and undocked modes. If you like tactical strategy gamers, Wargroove 2 is a no-brainer. This is a game you should definitely pick up and everyone should get a chance to experience it! While you’re at it, buy the first one too if you don’t have it. You won’t regret either purchase!
This review is based on a digital copy of Wargroove 2 provided by the publisher. It was played on a Nintendo Switch in both docked and undocked modes and played equally well in both. Wargroove 2 is also available for PC on Steam.
Nate Van Lindt has been a gamer since the days of yore (aka Commodore 64), and has played a bit of virtually everything out there. He's also an avid comic book collector, both vintage and current, and reads a fair amount of sci-fi and fantasy. On top of that, he watches a fair number of movies and TV shows as well. Oh, and he has a family, a full-time job, and lives somewhere in the urban wilds of Southwestern Ontario, Canada, foraging for old video cables and forgotten game soundtracks.