Bad North from Plausible Concept is a downloadable roguelike (or as they describe it rogue-lite) tactical strategy game that aims to strip away the complexity that many games in this genre do. You and your team of troops need to fight off the never-ending horde of invading Vikings that want to take your islands.
How to Download Bad North
You can download the game by clicking on the link provided below this review. The game is available as a digital download on both Steam and GOG.com. And if you want more Viking-themed games, check out the RPGs The Banner Saga 3 and Dead in Vinland, as well as another strategy games called Northgard.
The Game Review
The first thing that you notice about Bad North is the art style. It is very weird, but that is meant in a complementary manner. The art style at first glance has a kind of cute vibe to it, but the drab colors, moody scenery and the haunting death is coming score give it a kind of ominous tone too. You would think cute and ominous would not go together, but they do and they do very well.
Now let’s talk about the gameplay. Some strategy and roguelike games are far to complex for their own good. Bad North is not like that. The idea is that you have to protect a series of islands from invading Vikings. You do this by positioning your troops and making use of your infantry, but also your specialized warriors like your pikemen and archers for example. Your archers are very useful as they can pick the Vikings off while they are on the boats coming to the island.
Any time that you protect property on one of your islands you will get coins. How you use these coins can be key to how long you survive in the game. You will unlock the first class along with a set of rather basic skills, but the more you progress the more you can level up your archers, pikemen and so forth.
The thing with this is, your enemies will also be leveling up! You will just get used to being able to use your archers to pick them off fairly easy. Then they will show up with shields, or with archers of their own.
This keeps you on your toes and forces you to rethink your strategies. However, it is not overly complex and Bad North never throws to many things that you have to do your way, although when two sets of Viking start invading at once things can get very tense.
You will also need to think about what island you want to protect. Certain islands will offer you a new item like a powerful bomb for example that you can use. Or they will offer you a new army that you can make use of, or offer more of a reward for protecting it. The randomly created islands actually work really well and you will find yourself addicted to trying to save just one more time and time again.
The main criticism that people (myself included) have with Bad North is that you will be doing great and then there will always be that one set of Vikings where one of them will simply not die, no matter what you do. It is an annoying glitch and one that will hopefully be fixed.
Bad North is a real-time strategy game which is not a genre I usually get into, but thanks to the “charming” style, easy mechanics and the fun it produced Bad North really won me over.
