Exorder

TL;DR:
A fairly standard and enjoyable tactical strategy game in a colorful and stylish wrapper. If you liked games like Vandal Hearts, you will probably like Exorder.
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Recommendation:
☑ This experience is worth buying at full price.
☐ Wait to buy when it's on sale.
☐ Wait for improvements before buying.
☐ Save your money.
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How the game is played:
A concise storyline keeps the player moving right into the action with minor "tutorial moments" that are integrated into the adventure. Heroes and enemies take turns in phases for movement, captures, escapes, attacks, and counterattacks. Successfully complete each battle map's win conditions to move forward through the story and into increasingly challenging scenarios.
Win conditions: Hero must survive *and* capture, protect, escort, or defeat objectives.
What I like about Exorder:
+ Charming and colorful art style. The environments pop.
+ Original monster designs.
+ Nice character animations.
+ Recruit additional reinforcements mid-battle.
+ Reminiscent of Shining Force/Fire Emblem enemy phases/movement and Vandal Hearts mid-battle dialogues.
+ Good variations of map objectives to keep battling fresh.
+ Option to save your game mid-battle to finish up later.
+ Option to restart level when things go badly.
+ Music & sound effects are top notch.
+ Mousewheel to zoom in & out of the action.
+ Controller support.
+ Touchscreen mode.
Neutral:
=/~ Main character's voice acting is very good but even-toned. It sounds like she is reading vs speaking to the player.
Room for improvements:
- Pushing an ally into or through an enemy should do at least some damage to the enemy hit and/or push them back.
- While the music is fantastic, it could be more "urgent" and invoke a greater sense of excitement for the player.
- Please add an "Undo" option for when you move your characters to an unintended position.
- Please add the ability to change settings when in battle maps, not just the main menu.
- World map selection arrow graphic needs to stand out more. Gold, orange, neon green, etc, would stand out more than white.
- World map could use some ambient sound effects added to give it a "living environment" quality.
- I would like to be able to rotate the battle maps.
Other thoughts:
Overall, this is a fun, engrossing, and professionally made turn-based strategy RPG. I've always enjoyed tactics games like Exorder, they keep me captivated and focused like when I am playing a game of Chess.
Check out my other reviews! :)

My review of Exorder only covers the campaign and the mechanics contained therein.
Unlike several other reviewer, I did not find the game too difficult, or too punishing for early mistakes. Because "occupying" houses grants funds every round (and killing enemies grants funds as well), I was always able to recover after enemy reinforcements surprised me, I made a mistake (an undo last move button would be very welcome), or the rules of a new character class weren't immediately clear.
I also disagree with another review that stated "aside from some interesting unit abilities, there's nothing to really set it apart from other turn based strategy games". In fact, the unique feeling is why I chose to recommend this game. Unlike most grid-based tactical games, where the maps are relatively small, this campaign features large maps with many choke points, and I really enjoyed operating several different groups of soldiers in different "theaters" of the battle, and deciding where to reinforce and when to tactically retreat.
Overall, the game lost some points for me with UI issues (especially since the campaign felt pretty short, not having tooltips for basic mechanics was a big oversight- it took me quite a while to figure out that grass costs 2 movement points, or that standing in trees gives a defensive bonus).
At first I also though the AI was pretty good (I've done a bit of tactical AI programming in Unity on my own, so I know how hard it can be), but then the enemy just wouldn't stop blowing itself up with those stupid bomb mercenaries. I only used them in dire situations, but the enemy threw them at me in spades, usually to their own detriment.
The VO was a nice touch for an indie game, though a bit dry. The prologue/epilogue narrative just made me feel like I was always skipping an "episode" in this story, though, because after a mission an epilogue would play, then there'd be a time-skip to the next prologue.
I didn't experience any bugs in the game.
I got the game on sale for half off, and that felt about right to me. I feel like the game could have been better, but that it's still a worthwhile experience. It's not a "hidden gem" but I picked it up after playing the demo, and it actually got much better from there, so I'm happy with it.

For $20 (-20% on release!) you get:
-rather tough and really entertaining strategy game
-fun and longish single player campaign
-hilarious multiplayer
-really cool graphics
-hidden Gorillaz jokes (yes, I noticed)
Plus the game was made by 3 people as core team. Respect!

A solid (9 he he) tactical game with a light-hearted setting, pleasant graphics and firm gameplay core.
There are plenty of ways to go through the campaign missions - the achievements are sort of a built-in challenges to find another play style or experiment with the map which is nice.
I have to try out the multiplayer but the campaign alone is decent enough for people who enjoy a turn based not overly-complicated games ;)

This game has a lot of potential. Hopefully will be developed in the future.
Art style reminds me good old Warcraft 3. Gameplay is pretty nice and simple. Probably would be successfull as a mobile game.
I would introduce some simple character progression to add more depth during the matches.

*The main campaign is very short (3 hrs).
*Campaing starts as somewhat interesting but the ending is dull and feels incomplete.
*Maps are very small.
*Achievements adds some kind of challenge and replayibility.
*Challenges are a nice touch.
*Unit variety is OK.
*AI is not bad but not very bright either.
*Main difficulty during games comes from sudden enemy reinforcements appearing out of nowhere. There's not much options to make a strategy on.
Overall, I enjoyed the buck I spent on the game. You can easily decide with the demo. What you see is 40% what you'll get in the full game.

EXORDER:
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The King of Cerulean has passed away suddenly leaving the throne to his next of kin. It would be easy if there were no siblings, but in this particular case the king had two children, the Princess Beyla and the Prince Tristan. As the rules of the land of Cerulean demand, only one of them can be crowned. Therefore they must duel each other and the winner will be pronounced either King or Queen of Cerulean. If you want my opinion, this is a rule that can lead to disastrous friction between brothers or sisters. What’s next in EXORDER?
EXORDER is a turn-based strategy game where you’ll be taking control of the Princess Beyla in the single player campaign. There are other modes available such, as skirmish and multiplayer.
As soon as the game is launched, you’ll be presented with a cartoonish introduction which will lay out the fundamentals of the story. From here you have the choice to select which mode you’d like to play. Personally, I always play the campaign first before jumping into a multiplayer game. This way I can familiarise myself with the units and maps, and most importantly, avoiding a nasty defeat!
The first mission is the duel between the princess Beyla (who reminds me of Lagertha Lothbrok, from the Vikings for some reason), and the Prince Tristan, who has an Elvis Presley hairdo. It’s basically a small tutorial. There are 12 missions in total in the campaign where you’ll have to complete tasks such as eliminating all enemies from the map, capturing castles, escorting a spy, surviving an assault and freeing Lagertha. . . sorry, Beyla!
All maps are pretty compact with beautiful colour in this fantasy world, which includes a certain number of structures. Each side has one castle (maximum of two castles later on in the campaign) where you can buy units; these castles must be defended at all costs. If you lose your castle or if Beyla dies, the mission is over. There is another structure, the tavern, where you can purchase mercenary units as long as one of your units is within its proximity. The houses are probably the most important buildings in each map. You must capture them to regenerate income. However, only a few units are able to capture them. The house has another purpose too; it can regenerate a small amount of health per turn to a damaged unit. The other way to get a damaged unit back to its full health is to stand next to a fountain, and let me tell you they can be crowded as both sides are gathering for the holy water! Beware the Ballista, especially if an enemy unit is behind the trigger as they will inflict massive damage to any unit.
The gameplay is what you would expect for this genre of game. First, you select a unit and it will display the tiles that it can move to. If the tiles are on pavement, your soldier will be able to move further than if the tiles are throughout the forest for example, which makes sense. Then you have the melee unit, where you must be on your opponent’s closest tile to perform an attack. A couple of long range units, some need to be two tiles away to activate an attack and others must be between 5 to 6 tiles to do so. Hail the mighty Beetles (not the band, in this instance)!
There is a small numbers of units available to you in EXORDER, but they are really fun and have interesting skills. Apart from Lagg…Beyla, my favourite unit has to be the Illusionist - what a splendid unit! It looks like a red turtle with a staff, and can duplicate another of your units on the battlefield at no extra cost, and fires spells too.
Difficulty-wise, it is on a progressive system and it is well-balanced.
I haven’t had a chance to play a game online as yet due to the fact that I could not find another opponent. I would imagine it to be really similar to the skirmish.
Graphically the game looks really good and the animations are fluid. In terms of the interface, it’s easy to use. My only concern here is the price point. It would have been fabulous to have three campaigns instead of one in the single player mode, as we have three factions in the story. We could have had one with Beyla, one with Tristan and the other with the Federation of Clans with 6 to 8 missions in each. Apart from that this is a good game.
Positives:
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+ Great artworks
+ Fun units with interesting skills
+ Single player, Skirmish and multiplayer modes
+ Fun to play
+ Achievements
Negatives:
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- Needed more content for the asking price
- No trading cards as yet.
EXORDER is a well-executed turn-based strategy game with fun units and compact maps!
7/10
Key provided by developer/publisher for review purposes. Any opinions expressed are entirely my own!
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