Griefhelm vs Total War Battles: Kingdom
Griefhelm
Griefhelm is a realistic 2D medieval sword-fighting game with a Slay the Spire-like progression and a pretty brutal difficulty level in the sense that if you let your opponent get in a couple of hits, you’re dead. Offering several game modes and perks, the game focuses a lot on timing your actions to best your opponent on the battlefield.Since timing is crucial in this game, you’d best be vigilant of the several combat cues your enemies may make a split second before the animation starts. If you do it precisely right, then you might just survive the attacks and even find a few openings of your own to strike. This game is definitely not the mindless hack-and-slash that many other games seem to offer. Every action you take in this game is deliberate and this makes every successful kill so much more satisfying.
Now, all of these fights are scattered across nodes in a progression map that’s somewhat similar to Slay the Spire. What this means is that you’ve got a choice as to which path you want to take and, in this game, you’ll usually have at least 2. Different paths offer different levels and types of challenges, and hence, different rewards so it’s important for you to decide which reward is most worthwhile for you.
To sum up, Griefhelm is truly in a class of its own. I’ve seen many players compare the game disfavorably against Nidhogg and that may be true, but for someone who has only played For Honor before, Griefhelm really brings swordplay to a different dimension… literally (Hint: 2D as opposed to 3D)!
Total War Battles: Kingdom
Total War Battles: Kingdom is the free-to-play version of a Total War game that is available on the mobile platform. Set in the medieval times, the game perfectly captures how things were back then - an era filled with almost constant skirmishes and conflicts between lords and fledgling kingdoms. The gameplay mechanics are pretty well-done despite being somewhat restricted - you can only bring a maximum of 9 battalions into battle, for example, and it does retain most of the Total War archetypes like city-building, army training, and battles.Unfortunately, Total War Battles: Kingdom definitely pales in comparison to any of the games in the main series mainly because it fell victim to one of the worst pitfalls in the free-to-play gaming industry: microtransactions. Don’t expect to get far into the game without spending real money first, but if you still choose to persevere, it would probably take you weeks of constant playing to get your kingdom somewhere solid enough for you to hold your own.
That said, the game is still a pretty decent albeit casual installment of the Total War series. Fans of the franchise or of casual MMO strategy games on the mobile platform may want to give the game a try.