Simple, Challenging, Relaxing
I was looking for other games to play while my energy recharged for Tacticus, and I found this game, which is basically the same format but with a different theme. Overall, I would say I like Rivengard better than Tacticus because it does not rely so heavily on getting specific characters from the summoning portal: all levels can be played with whatever characters you want. Instead of a split between factions for the Onslaught and Treasure Beach (Salvage Run) battle modes, there is just one, and you only need gold to upgrade abilities, not any other badges. As you progress through Onslaught in Rivengard, you can also get entire characters at certain levels. The downside is that the chapters get difficult pretty fast. They don’t start over in difficulty each time like in Tacticus; chapter 2 is more difficult than chapter 1 and it keeps getting more difficult. There are four chapters total in campaign mode, each with 75 levels (plus their Elite campaign counterparts). I have managed to 3-star chapters 1 and 2 regular campaign mode with only Uncommon level characters, but I am slogging through chapter 3 using Uncommon. There are a handful of characters that you can raid levels to unlock at their Rare form once you beat a certain level, but you will likely be raiding that level for some time and hoping for assistance through the summoning portal before you can unlock them as rare characters which need like 200 shards. Since this game isn’t the same money-grab as Tacticus, it doesn’t have too many events or updates. Even though the levels take a while to beat, they are still pretty fun, and I think the music and artwork is a little more cheery and relaxing.