Goblin Slayer -Another Adventurer- Nightmare Feast review

Some of my absolute favourite video games in recent years have been tactics games, but this genre hasn’t always been the apple of my eye. Back when I was young there were plenty of less exciting tactics games that soured me on grid-based battling. When tactics combat is slow and lacking a bit of flair I find little less exciting, and in the earlier years of the genre this wasn’t uncommon. Goblin Slayer -Another Adventurer- Nightmare Feast is a harsh reminder of those early days, which is unfortunate for fans of the anime.

Now full disclosure, before this game I had no knowledge whatsoever of Goblin Slayer as an anime or novel. With a bit of research though it seems to revolve around the main character Goblin Slayer, who does feature in this game but not as the protagonist. That role is taken by Guild Master, a young girl who has just inherited the local adventurers guild from her late father. Apparently all the big cities in The Four Cornered World have a guild like this, but running a less popular branch isn’t easy. Still not one to be disheartened, Guild Master sets upon a quest to gather new guild members and help the community deal with monsters – even if it means getting her hands dirty.

This might sound like a fairly standard framework of a story to get you from fight to fight, but the story actually takes up a much larger part of the game than I was expecting. Goblin Slayer -Another Adventurer- Nightmare Feast is around fifty percent tactics game and fifty percent visual novel, with massive sections of narrative between each battle. This would be fine if the story wasn’t painfully edgy and a bit grim, with it only taking me around half an hour of playtime to have a sexy vampire start talking about Guild Master’s virginity.

Eventually the visual novel sections of the game will come to an end regardless, and it’s time for some tactics combat. With a party of adventurers you’ll be expected to kill a selection of fantasy baddies by moving around a grid, slashing swords and slinging spells. If you’ve played a single tactics game before then nothing Goblin Slayer -Another Adventurer- Nightmare Feast throws your way will surprise you, which would be fine if it wasn’t painfully slow and a bit dull.

One of the main issues with the combat in Goblin Slayer is that the maps you fight on are huge. With enemies spaced so far apart, it’s so painful to have to spend multiple turns slowly moving each unit individually over towards them. Once you get to them it’s not like it gets much better, with very few particularly exciting attacks to choose from at your team’s disposal. As the game progresses this issue does start to improve, but with so many instantly exciting games in the genre it’s hard to forgive the glacial start.

The one mechanic that Goblin Slayer -Another Adventurer- Nightmare Feast has that’s unique is called Fate and Chance. These are special luck based abilities that can be equipped at the start of battle, and when they trigger they only activate if you succeed at a dice roll. The first of these you get basically guarantees a critical hit if you pass the D&D style skill check, but later on you can use them to entirely nullify certain damage and prevent nasty status effects. It’s a cool idea that adds a bit of needed depth to the fights.

To actually win in your fights against the monsters of the world, you’ll need to gather allies through the guild. Now you might think that running an adventurers guild would require a bit of management, but in Goblin Slayer it’s essentially just a menu screen where you collect new characters and buy a bit of gear. Before long you’ll have more oddly named friends than you could ever hope to use in battle, which would be fine if there was any easy way to figure out which of them might actually be useful for your party.

I would love to be able to talk about more positive aspects of Goblin Slayer -Another Adventurer- Nightmare Feast, but it’s hard to really think of any. If anything all I can think of are more complaints, like the fact that the controls are clunky or that the visuals are really underwhelming. It’s been a long time since a tactics game disappointed me this much.

Fans of the anime might find more to love in this game, but for me Goblin Slayer -Another Adventurer- Nightmare Feast was an extremely underwhelming tactics game. The story side of the game isn’t much better either, with some particularly gross moments that just came across as a bit embarrassing. There are tons of wonderful tactics games to play if you’re a grid junkie looking for something new, and unfortunately Goblin Slayer -Another Adventurer- Nightmare Feast isn’t one of them.