Rating: 
Summary: Original game with good graphics...that's it
Review: I bought this game, played it for a night, and returned it to get Ghost Recon (which happened to ROCK).Pros:
-It's playable out of the box. I used to not care about this so much, but now I don't expect every game to work right away. How tragic.
-The graphics are excellent. I was very impressed.
-The game is very original. Resources like water and rice that grows make the game more interesting. The unit alchemy is a very new concept. Horses are really cool in the game. Cons:
-All in all, the game wasn't all the fun after a while. I just went back to playing Civ 3 and Dark Age of Camelot.
-The battles, though they look cool, are not fun to fight.
-The resource cap is VERY annoying.
-The unit alchemy system means that making all of your peasants into the top unit is really all you need to do to dominate. There is no reason to diversify your troops.
Rating: 
Summary: The REAL review
Review: I got this game quite a while ago and I can honestly say that most of the reviews are way off. First let me tell you a little about the game. The resource and production systems are simple. There are only 2 resources, rice and water. You cannot build rice fields, they are premade to the map you are on. If you run out of rice you have to find anther rice field or water the rice to make it grow faster. Very simple. There are a limited number of people your town can support, depending on the map. You periodically get a new peasant after a certain amount of time and you can put him to work or train him into other units. You can train in multiple buildings to get lots of different units. For example send a peasant into a tavern and he becomes a swordsman, then send him into an archery range and he becomes a bandit. Send the bandit into an alchemists hut and he becomes a Ronin. Despite what some reviews claim, you cannot win simply by massing all the high-level units. Every unit has a weakness, for example Ronin die very quickly by fire and explosive damage. (I mean quick, 2 hits from a pitch slinger. . .) Also you can give each unit a "battlegear" that can be used in battle. For example a raider can be given caltrops or bushfire. Bushfire sets all rice and trees nearby on fire and caltrops can be dropped behind him as a trap. There is also a building for defense called a watchtower. They are extremely tough. You can only build 4 but people still complain that it is too many for multiplayer games because people can "turtle" in their base and be unstoppable. Upgrades to units are handled in the form of yin/yang points. When you do damage to enemies you gain these points gradually, and you can invest them in upgrades or, if you have a keep you can summon heros, monks, and ninja to reinforce your army. Most maps also have wild horses. All the clans except wolf can tame horses and then put units on the ride them. Almost all units can ride horses... pretty much all but the big fatso units. The wolf clan feeds the horses to the wolves, allowing you to take wolves with you in battle to reinforce your troops. The horses have their own battlegears, trample and firebreath. There are 2 ways to play. Kenji's journey is the standard 1 player game, and there are skirmishes. Skirmishes can be multiplayer or single player with computers as well. That's all the game info you'll need. Now here's what I like about the game:
Graphics and Sound - Very good quality. Most of the units look and sound cool and say cool things.
Customization - Your army is very customizable. If you want an army with lots of archers that can rain fire upon the enemy buildings you can have it. If you'd rather have a bunch of healers on horses, using the horses to trample and then healing the horses you can do that too.
4 Clans to choose from - Dragon, Serpent, Wolf, and Lotus. Each have their own units, buildings, etc. They aren't exact copies of each other under different names like some RTS games.
Handicap - You can set yourself to have an advantage or disadvantage against your opponents.
Map Editor - Just recently there was a map editor added in battlepack 2 (the second patch) so you can make your own skirmish maps! Things I don't like about Battlerealms
Bloodthirst - All the units in your army are thirsty for blood and will rush any opponents in sight. You can tell them to hold their ground, but certain conditions cause this order to be canceled. The worst thing is the geisha (healers) are just as bloodthirsty as the other units, and they run off to die if you let them.
High Yin/Yang Peasant rates when low - Another annoying thing is that when you have no peasants or yin/yang points, that first peasant or point comes really quick. This can be abused in multiplayer to summon lots of 1 yin/yang heros and it makes finishing off the enemy cities a chore, since there are constantly peasants coming at you.
Annoying AI - some of the AI computers do annoying things, like constantly start new cities, and harass your troops to get them to run away from base. This takes away from the fun factor by forcing you to pay attention while your trying to do other things.
Bugs - A lot of these have been corrected by the first 2 patches, but there are still a lot more out there.
Slow Internet Play - Multiplayer is annoyingly hard to get started and particularly slow on battlerealms. Overall rating 4/5
Rating: 
Summary: A refreshing leap in the strategy genre.
Review: I had looked at purchasing this game around the holiday season, but passed it up for more popular games such as Ghost Recon and Return to Castlewolfenstein. But recently, I found Battle Realms again. ... So I picked it up thinking "Hey if it ... big deal, ..." When I arrived at home and installed it with ease I was amazed with the great graphics and animations. Many will tell you it has these, but the campaign is wonderful also. It start's off with an RPG like premise where you choose evil or good by defending or slaying the villagers. From there you choose which provinces you wish to explore/attack and that determines what armies spot you or attack your lands. The four factions are great, I prefer the Dragon clan for the oriental setting, and the powerful Samurai unit. Each clan has dozens of unique touches that make them special. The Wolf clan are the barbarians that feed horses to their wolves rather than ride them, and their units are berserks with awe-inspiring combat prowess. Contrary to most speculation, the resource system is 'annoying' but that is untrue. You send villagers to get water or farm rice simple as that. When you have more than you need in resources, ..., just send the villagers to train and set off for war!
Battle Realms is a breath of fresh air in the 2-d world of strategy games, and I would have GLADLY payed ... if I had known how good it is. Its action is intense, and its graphics are wondeful. I can not wait until the next time I can lead my samurai's bows and blades into battle.
Keep Gaming!
...
Rating: 
Summary: Fun for a week or two
Review: I have owned this game since it came out. That's around 3 years. This game is not worth the money. I, like many, was very excited about the game when I first got it. I will admit the game is unique, but gets very boring very quickly. Grapics/Sound - The graphics are not far from perfect. Awesome graphics. Some very realistic and well-recorded sounds accompany the fighting/actions. The voices, however, sound like hobos [paid a small amount] to do stereotypical anime and immigrant imitations. he background music is pretty well, too. Gameplay - As I said, the gameplay is uniqe, yet bad. Rather than constructing a building that pumps out a type of unit one at a time and whenever you want, you train a peasant from your "Peasant Hut" in the building. There's close-combat training, ranged, and magical/chemical. There are also a few places allowing you to teach the units abilites or give them items, limited to one. That's basically the bare-bone facts that all clans share. There is the good-hearted averaged out "Dragon Clan", the evil counter-parting "Serpent Clan, the stone-age brutes "Wolf Clan", and its slave masters, the dark "Lotus Clan". They all have a large and very differing vary of units, abilities, and way of living itself. Only two resources exist, rice and water. You must also water the rice fields to grow back harvested plants. The construction is painfully slow, yet the combat faster than the blink of an eye. As well as horrible AI and campaign. Conclusion - When people get the game and play it for five minutes and review it. But the truth is, you'll wear it out in 2 weels still trying to beat the third mission of the campaign. And the fact that no one is ever on-line since the producers never advertise their games, you're limited to playing the brain-damaged AI...
Rating:
Summary: Battle Realms-The best RTS ever
Review: I have played BR for quite some time now, and I just have to say that this game is well balanced RTS and one of the best I ever seen. Liquid put alot of time and resources into making this and you can really tell. Liquid is an up and coming company and I look foward to there next release. If it is half as good as BR It will be awesome. If you like RTS please check out this game. It is a must buy for RTS fans.
Rating:
Summary: The Best RTS ever!!!!
Review: I think liquid did a hell of a Job with this great game, it has innovation, great graphics, lovely songs and a superb kung fu style in battles.. on the strategy i think a mountain of books couldnt contain them all, everything can help you overcome your enemies Location, wheater, horses, rocks, forest, fire, battle gears. You can use complex or simple strategies to achieve your goal i think is one of the fastest RTS ever and requires a sharp mind, fast thinking to beat your opponents!! Forget about WC3 this is the Best RTS ever
Rating: 
Summary: Lots of fun the first hour or so, much less after that
Review: I used to think these games were all about charisma...just make some interesting-looking units with silly voices, and you have a winning formula. Turns out I was wrong. The graphics, sound, and charisma of this game are all top-notch. They also made a strong effort to make a game with some real differences from the traditional starcraft formula. Unfortunately, every change was for the worse. I don't like the continuous peasant-creation system, the multiple training sites that make it possible to make the ultimate all-purpose unit, or the "yin/yang" concept that requires you to fight to get upgrades. It also doesn't really allow you to give group orders like you could in starcraft, (e.g. stimpack a whole group of marines at once), a major problem. Bottom line, it looks great, but just isn't fun anymore after the first few games. I'll wait for Warcraft III.
Rating:
Summary: Outstanding and Innovative
Review: I was one of the lucky people to be selected for the Battle Realms beta, and I must say that this is the most innovative and beautiful RTS I've ever played. Everything you've seen in traditional RTS games - economic management, attacking and defending, even upgrading your units is totally redone and very well executed. If you're an RTS fan, look for Battle Realms [...], I guarantee you'll love it.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent, Innovative, Thrilling...
Review: I've been gaming for about 15 years, and I can honestly say that I've never played a game like this before. Battle Realms brings some new and exciting concepts into the RTS genre. Those of you who enjoy RTS games, but also enjoy adventure games will probably LOVE Battle Realms. Rather than building massive armies of the same boring "micro-machine-looking" units, you build armies out of more unique units. Different units can train in different manners, and gain different abilities. You are able to summon heros, which are generally extra powerful units in some way. Whether it be a special ability in a class of its own, or simply great strength and agility. There's a great diversity of Units in this game, without being tediously and excessively complex. I'm a gamer who has always stuck to ONE game at a time. I like to focus because I belong to a gaming team. However, Battle Realms has grabbed me by the shirt, and held my attention surprisingly well. It's even spreading to my online-gaming teammates! We're playing battle realms together, both against each other, and together against computer AI. If you're looking for a game that will keep you excited and interested, check out Battle Realms. I'm glad I tried it, and so are several of my friends. Nothing short of 5 stars.
Rating:
Summary: Simply complex, complexly simple!
Review: I've been playing strategy games of all types for almost 20 years. I like them a lot.
When I installed and fired up Battle Realms for the first time, I was pleased by the look and feel of it. Then I was once again learning yet another strategy game... ho hum... A day later I was totally in love!
StarCraft was a big favourite of mine but now I'll never install it again.
Battle realms is clearly the most ingeniously complex yet decidedly simple game I've ever played. It incorporates all that's ever really been good in the strategy genre into one stunningly beautiful package. Its 3D world view is nice enough for a modern game but graphically, its unit combat animations and management are just fantastic! Your armies jostle and jive about the battlefield giving it the feel of watching masses of the best masters of all the worlds fighting styles 'mixing it up' for your amusement!
But that's just the eye candy!
The game mechanics should appeal to the most obsessive number-crunchers and statisticians to the 'I don't give a damn, I just like the look of that troop type' players.
There are 4 different races (clans) to chose from and that helps give the game an incredibly rich complexity in unit versus unit relationships.
There's so much I'd like to say about the game but I really don't want to spoil it for ANYONE!
Buy it. Buy it now. It's the best RTS I've ever played and I've played them ALL but none so obsessively as this.
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