Wildermyth Review
Last week I once again professed my adoration of Final Fantasy Tactics because I have no capacity for self-control. I talked about how much I enjoyed the game’s combination of tactical gameplay and RPG mechanics, but that’s not the only thing I love about FFT. The story told in Final Fantasy Tactics was a terrific story of war and intrigue set in a fantastical world. However, the reason it stuck with me so powerfully was because it impressed how groups of people historically branded “good guys,” like the nobility and clergy, can’t be trusted and will often sacrifice the downtrodden for their own selfish gains. I think this incredible story mixed with the amazing gameplay is the reason I still won’t shut up about Final Fantasy Tactics. It’s also why I keep chasing the high that game gave me. Humorously, independent of that pursuit, this week I decided to review Wildermyth, a story of stories that also turned out to be a tactical RPG.
Unlike most story-based video games, Wildermyth doesn’t tell one specific story. Instead, it is about the book Wildermyth, a collection of legendary tales and heroes across time. Each of these stories serves as campaigns for players to venture through with a core narrative alongside procedurally generated smaller side stories. Like the side quests, the heroes players will guide through the stories and the enemies they will face are partially procedurally generated. At the end of each chapter of the story, characters will change and can have their gear upgraded, and time will pass, pushing characters towards retirement. Finally, if a character survives through the end of the campaign, or if they die and the player builds a memorial to them, they will be entered into the player’s collection of Legacy Heroes who can be used to play through later campaigns, either new ones or retellings of the same story.
Unquestionably, my favorite aspect of Wildermyth is all of the stories it can tell. The base for these stories are the campaigns, each of which tell a story relating to one of the game’s enemy factions. These are well written and do a good job of teaching players about each of the factions through the lens of their interactions with humans as well as building out the game’s world and its history. My favorite so far is the campaign against the Thrixl, an invasive race of insects that are a strange blend of the Zerg and the Fae. The campaign involves repelling their invasion from a parallel dimension but features a touching subplot of surviving trauma and how family members react to changes in those they love. One thing that surprised me was that some objectives could be failed without bringing an end to the campaign. During chapter two of the campaign Age of Ulstryx, I was tasked with investigating a specific area to learn more about my Gorgon foes. I got distracted and didn’t do that, but it wasn’t game over. Instead, I was able to proceed but lacked valuable information.
Then there are the side stories, which are prompted by the “hooks” each of the characters have. These happen once characters have scouted one of the game map regions or before the start of a battle, as well as very rarely when a character starts on a personal quest. A truly staggering variety of things can happen on these side quests and always give the player some choice in the outcome. A great example of this was when one of my warriors, on the way to a battle, fell through a sinkhole and found himself at the foot of a statue with a massive gem in the center. I was given the choice to either leave the gem alone or pry it out of the statue. I decided to extract the gem, which resulted in the warrior passing out and waking up with the gem in place of his eye. As expected, having a precious stone in place of one of his eyes resulted in a loss of accuracy, but much more interestingly had an effect on his death. When that warrior was killed in a fight, I was able to use the magic of the crystal to cause his body to explode in a barrage of crystalline shards, damaging all surrounding enemies. It’s difficult to predict how any situation will play out and can have repercussions that span multiple campaigns, making the side stories an enigmatic delight.
Characters change in Wildermyth in ways I haven’t seen before. Not only does every new piece of equipment show up on their character model, but biological changes including scars from falling in combat and, in Senn’s case, moth wings grow after spending a bit too long in a magical realm.
I’m sure there are readers out there asking what it’s actually like to play the game, and to those people I say it really is mostly about encountering and resolving stories, I’d say about 60%. But the other 40% are a mix of tactical combat and light base management. The base management is simple, the game map for each campaign is made of multiple regions that must be explored, cleared of enemies, and developed to produce resources for the player. Rivers and some mountain ranges are barriers that can be overcome with effort, but this also opens up a path for invading foes. It’s not that compelling or interesting but it’s functional and provides tactical options that may or may not have led to my aforementioned failure in chapter two of the gorgon campaign. Once players get into a fight, Wildermyth becomes a tile-based tactics game with a variety of ideas, most good but some underwhelming.
The thing that really blew me away was the Interfuse ability. The signature ability of the Mystic class, Interfusion allows characters to spiritually connect with plants, objects, and debris on the battlefield. Depending on the mystic’s abilities and what they have interfused with, they can do different and incredible kinds of magic. This is, without a doubt, the most creative magic system I’ve seen in over a decade. Unfortunately, the rest of the character classes are less interesting. Warriors have some cool mechanics around killing multiple enemies and holding formations but are mostly standard fighters. Hunters are meant to be the ranged specialists with some tricks, but they do very little other than shoot once a turn and call it a day. If I’m honest, the unrivaled design ideas in the mystic more than makes up for the bland other two classes, but their flaws are worth noting anyway.
I have played fewer games this year than in previous years, so I’m not going to say this is the best game I’ve played this year because that doesn’t mean enough. Instead, I will confidently say that Wildermyth is the best game I’ve played since October 2020. The stories that players can see and the ways that effects the combat on top of an exquisite magic system makes for a truly great experience. If you have any computer, Mac or Windows, that can play games, you owe it to yourself to play Wildermyth, especially because it’s only $25.
Buy this game at full price
It’s worth every penny they’re asking
