Platforms: Nintendo Switch (reviewed), Steam, Microsoft Windows, Linux, Mac
Battle for Blood’s gameplay is typical of many match-three puzzle games as you’ll be moving tiles left, right, up, or down to create horizontal or vertical matches. Where this game changes things up is each specific tile is associated with a type of soldier. Creating matches will summon these soldiers to the battlefield and your goal is to create a powerful enough army to push back the enemy while protecting your crew’s carriage.
There are 12 different soldiers that you can unlock over the course of the game’s 60 levels. Each soldier has different stats, and each is best suited for certain situations. This can lead to a bit of strategy when you’re deciding which combination of soldiers you want to bring into each level with you.
The game is broken down into bite-sized levels. Each level starts you out with either a specific number of moves or set amount of time that you’ll need to make matches with the time or moves given. If your army is formidable enough, you’ll break through the enemy’s defenses and be allotted more time or moves to create more soldiers. This will continue until you either finish the level or your carriage is destroyed.
Outside of the soldiers you’ll summon, there are a few other special abilities you can use to help get through levels. These include things like giving you the ability to attack enemies directly yourself, restoring the health of your army, and more. These specials aren’t unlimited though, so they are designed to be used more strategically or when you’re in a pinch.
After you finish each level, you’ll receive a rating of one to three stars and get a number of coins. These coins can be used in a few different ways. The first way is leveling up the stats of your soldiers. Here you’ll be able to level up things like attack, defense, health, speed, and more, all of which will help you take on tougher enemies. You can also upgrade the health of your carriage, the number of coins you earn, and your special abilities. Coins are also used to replenish the special abilities, as well.
At its core, Battle for Blood lays down a pretty solid foundation for a good game. Unfortunately, it’s hindered by a number of issues that keep it from being that. The most glaring is its obvious roots as a free-to-play game. Thanks to this, the game has a number of difficulty spikes that force you to grind for coins in order to improve your soldiers. That grind is no joke either.
You’ll be forced to replay levels to get only a couple hundred coins each time. With upgrades, even early on, sometimes costing thousands of coins, this starts to get cumbersome quickly. To make matters worse, after the first seven or eight levels, you’ll have to do this grind for nearly every level unless you get extremely lucky with your combos. I’d imagine this is where micro transactions came into play in the free-to-play version, but that’s not an option in the Switch version. I prefer it this way, but it would have been nice to have a way to score more coins and alleviate the constant need to grind.
My other big issue with Battle for Blood comes with its performance. First of all, on Switch, it can only be played in handheld mode with the touchscreen. Granted, this is probably the best way to play a game like this, but not having the option to play docked or with a controller is limiting and a bit of a letdown. On top of that, there are times when the game runs terribly. I found that if I created too many soldiers or there were too many enemies on screen, the frame rate would drop tremendously, and the controls would become unresponsive. This made some levels nearly unplayable at times.
Battle for Blood had the blueprint to be a game that I could have loved, and early on, there were some glimmers of fun. Unfortunately, the cumbersome grind and performance issues left me more than a little disappointed. At a price point of only $4, it’s not going to break the bank and didn’t get the insane Switch tax that some games do, but even if it were still free-to-play here, I don’t think I could recommend it. If you’re curious, check it out on a platform where it is free. Hell, it might even run better. As far as the Switch version goes, this is one you should probably skip.
