Lionheart Tactics (tactical turn-based)

When I discovered Lionheart Tactics last year, it was only available for mobile devices. Earlier this year, however, the web version of the game was released on Kongregate. I had been playing since.

Lionheart Tactics is a tactical turn-based game where the player commands a squad of fantasy heroes out to beat up the opposition. Battles occur in fixed story-based quests, dungeons that reset daily or weekly (sort of) and multiplayer arena fights. Outside of combat, the player manages the development of his/her heroes.

A typical battle.

In a typical battle, the player moves each of his/her heroes and ends the turn. Then it is the opponent's turn. Each hero gets to move and act once per turn. Each hero may also have two special abilities. The first is the regular special ability that has a cooldown time (in turns).

The second is a (potentially powerful) limit break that may only be used once a specific bar (on the left in the screenshot above) is charged up. The bar is charged when the player's heroes take damage or are KO-ed. All heroes share the same bar, thus making it not possible to use more than one limit break at a time.

Battles involve sizing up the opponent, evaluating what they are capable of and then anticipating or forestalling the response. Aside from defeating the opponent, reducing damage taken is also an objective because injured heroes take real time to recover.

Defeated heroes take even longer to recover. The higher the rank of a hero, the more time he/she takes. A Master-rank hero requires 3 hours to revive.

There are Health Boosters to heal heroes, which are easily available from dungeons. However, speeding up a hero's revival from defeat requires crowns that are much better used elsewhere. Crowns are rarer currency (compared to coins). They can be considered semi-premium since they can be easily earned (often in small amounts) by playing quests and raiding dungeons.

A story-based quest on the map.

Story-based quests give coins, a few crowns and equipment to help develop heroes. However, each can only be done once. Dungeons are a renewable source of coins and crowns. These reset after a week.

Once in a while, there are limited-time event dungeons that reset daily. These dungeon provide additional coins, crowns and loot.

Selecting heroes for the arena.

Other than story quests and dungeons, there is the the multiplayer arena, which is always available. The player plays against heroes of another player, which will be controlled by the AI. The general ability of the opposing heroes are revealed beforehand, providing valuable information on what heroes to assign to the battle.

The opponent in the arena has access to limit breaks (unless for some reason the opponent did not train his/her heroes). This makes the arena a different challenge as defeating the opponent's heroes charges the opponent's limit break. The player should plan to avoid or reduce the effects of the opponent's limit breaks.

The start of an arena fight.

Heroes gain experience as they act in battle (provided they survive). In addition to equipping them, they can also be improved by promoting their rank and by training their skills. Depending on the skill, training can take anywhere from 2 minutes to 5 days (the longest I have seen so far).

Between training and recovering from injuries, there will be time when certain heroes are not available. As such, it is best to have lots of heroes so that it is always possible to bring a full squad of heroes to battle, and also for versatility.

One final method to improve heroes is by sacrificing unwanted heroes to boost the stats of other heroes. These stat increases are permanent and work up to a limit, which is different for different heroes.

Once in a while, there are time-limited events that help improve the heroes, such as 2x boost events and cheaper equipment.

The roster of heroes.

When the player first starts, there is a tutorial to ease the player into the game. This tutorial teaches the basic game rules. In addition, the loading screen provides tips and other less important information.

Lionheart Tactics is a squad-based tactical turned-based game that challenges the player to formulate tactics and use them to achieve victory with the available heroes. Outside of battle, the player makes plans based on the availability of heroes. The graphics are nice, as are the animation and sound. However, it does have a few bugs that pop up now and again and the interface takes some getting used to (I unintentionally ended a hero's turn a few times).

After an arena battle.

Game tips:

• Improving heroes requires a lot of coins and time. Recruit many Thieves to steal coins. Invent a time machine for the other (or waste crowns).
• Save crowns for limited-time packs that may give rare and limited heroes that are very difficult to promote and equipment that are way too highly-ranked to use. The packs usually cost 600 crowns each.
• Save a large sum of coins for events like 2x stat boosts and cheaper equipment.