iGR Insight - Highborn Chapter One Review

When the first chapter of Highborn was released February 19 2013 on Steam, I immediately purchased and delved right into the turn based action.

Highborn is a turn-based strategy game where you play as the three different protagonists, Archie, Trillian, and Enzo, who are fighting against the Decay who are up to no good. The evil Arch-Lich is trying to open some crazy portal in order to summon monsters from another dimension in order to wreak havoc. But the Arch-Lich is not alone. He has friends of the mythical persuasion to help him fight against you.

In the beginning you are only have access to Archie, the paladin. In future missions you are able to play as the other heroes. Each hero has two abilities that apply to their class, and by capturing monoliths spread throughout the map you’re able to acquire more spells for the mission.

Monoliths aren’t the only thing you are able to capture/explore. There are towns, wizard towers, keeps, and ruins. When you take over these strategic places on the map they help fight the enemies in range and provide you with more units.

Highborn’s story line is adequate for a title that is mostly game play driven. I found myself breezing through dialogue boxes, and instead focusing on the game play. What kept me interested outside of game play were the pop culture joke references. The combination of game play and whit are the facets that make Highborn shine. I found myself laughing on more than a few occasions.

Tutorials are pretty much non existent. When you begin the first level there wasn’t much of an explanation on the controls, but they are simple enough to figure out. That wasn’t the only that managed to test my nerves. Another small annoyance was the fact that if you made a mistake while moving a unit, there were no mulligans, so that could potentially ruin your mission early.

There are three chapters that are out on the iOS for Highborn, but there’s only the one installment available on the PC. Despite the rocky start I still look forward to the playing and reviewing future chapters.

+Fun gameplay

+Witty dialogue and pop culture references

-Storyline

Review Score: 6.5/10