The Compelling Tactics and Overwhelming Despair of Redemption Reapers

Redemption Reapers swerves left where a lot of other grid based tactics games head right. Some distinctions are subtle, where others are large departures from a well known and well loved formula. The friction between expectation and reality has been met with resistance from a genre fanbase more comfortable with convention, but approaching this experience on its terms can be a rewarding one.

Redemption Reapers pretty quickly veers away from the plucky attitudes of your typical Fire Emblem adjacent fare with an oppressively dour tone. An impossible to fathom force of monsters, the Mort (read: orcs) is hellbent on the total destruction of humanity through bloody, destructive and painful means. The Mort are never really expanded upon outside of their predilections for violence; where they came from, their motivations, even the reason for their existence is never explained. In the scope of this game, none of this is the point - the only concern is survival against an overwhelming existential threat.

Our focus then lands on a small band of mercenaries, the Ashen Hawks, fighting and killing enough each day just to make it through to the next. It’s easy to write this cast off as try hard emo core at first blush - the opening cutscene ends with pseudo-protagonist Sarah mournfully opining, “after what I’ve done, I don’t have the right to be happy” - but what Redemption Reapers is more directly going for is a kind of human-focused realism. These characters have past horrors hanging over their heads, alongside a seemingly endless horde of creatures destroying everything and everyone absolutely. Total and all consuming nihilistic depression is the correct response for anyone who still possesses an ounce of humanity in the situation they are facing.

This devastatingly forlorn mood permeates throughout every inch of the game, from the main narrative to the Ashen Hawk’s outlook to the (excellent and well worth absorbing) collectible notes and weapon descriptions. Approached with the understanding that this is the realm we are getting into, all of the background writing and foreground voice work hits a high bar - something every aspect of the game takes pride in. It certainly helps that the quality of the game’s animations, art and map design are all top notch, pulling together a package that feels premium in more ways than one.

Approaching combat is your standard tactical fare - work your way across grid based maps, take out enemies and (hopefully) avoid getting slaughtered in the process. Redemption Reapers tweaks the well trodden formula in a few ways, several of which make for some really smart and thematically cogent adjustments.

An action point system that grows slowly throughout each battle allows for some clever uses of multiple skills both each turn and across multiple turns. Starting with a max of 10 and increasing to 12 (later 13) the more your fight, each turn a unit regains 7 points - creating a clever ebb and flow across a battle. Over-extension or conservation can be rewarded, depending on the situation.

Movement is free form up to a number of spaces, but crucially you’re not locked in to just moving once - combining with the action point system, you can move, attack, move again, attack again, then move to safety all in one turn if you’re smart about it. This naturally leads into the best and most crucial feature - follow up attacks. If you attack an enemy with one of your units, and another is also in range of the enemy, they can also take a swing. This doesn’t use up action points, essentially giving you a free attack - making clever positioning of your units paramount to success in battle.

These interlocking systems bring a harmoniousness between the abstract idea of the battle in line with the practicality of this turn based formula. Alone, any of our squad would get easily crushed by a handful of enemies - together, fighting side by side, they can take on a horde and come out the other side alive. Each character’s skills only accentuate this mode of play, with bonuses for characters standing together, extra damage for follow up attacks and lots more. Very rarely do tactics games have their characters actions interweave in such an impressive manner.

I flipped back and forth on the narrative threads of Redemption Reapers for the entire 30 hour playtime. In some ways it felt way too short, as the events of the game feel like a snapshot of a much larger story. In other ways it felt too long, with multiple gameplay maps covering the same story beat, where one would be enough. The longer I sit with thoughts on the game however, it has congealed into a wholly satisfying, more subtle experience.

There is an "incident" from 2 years prior to current events that hangs heavy over the entire game, with the reveal of what really happened not coming until the very end. This seems like an odd choice, and kind of adds an extra layer of elongation to the narrative. It’s easy to see how this could have been a mid game reveal for the player, where you can then grapple with their actions alongside them before coming to a resolution - or at least acceptance - by the end. However, that’s not what this story is about. 

Ultimately this tale is more insular, focused more around the Ashen Hawks than on the world and its problems. Tactics games as a genre, despite being so character focused, are often driven by world spanning conflicts and large political and ideological clashes. Redemption Reapers is much smaller in scope, and is arguably more representative of the Ashen Hawk’s place in a much larger struggle. We only occasionally get a glimpse of events outside their purview - the focus is more on the task in front of them, instead of the movements and machinations of the world at large. No, this is the story of the Hawk’s part to play in this much wider conflict against an unimaginable, existential threat. In the face of the collapse of humanity, five people - no matter how skilled at facing the issue they may be - can only do so much.

As a result, there isn’t much room for life changing character growth or personal evolution across these 29 chapters. Instead there are simply subtle shifts, such as in Lugh’s demeanour or Sarah’s internal struggle with fear. In a genre where we often expect to find outsized personalities with grandiose arcs of self discovery, Redemption Reapers bucks not just mechanical trends. It’s more focused, more understated in its approach. Judging from the game’s reception on Steam and in the press, this swing away from tradition didn’t land with some, but it burrowed itself in my mind and sat with me for a long time after putting the controller down.

I’m not sure if it’s a function of the way I’ve played through it - over quite a few weeks instead of cramming it all at once - but I’m much higher on this game than seemingly everyone else. Genre expectations can be fickle things, but the swings Redemption Reapers takes aren’t without merit.

Importantly, that tactics layer - the bit tactics players are ultimately here for - is not just solid, but honed incredibly well. The cohesion between the tactical layer and the physicality of the action creates a harmony you don’t often see in the space, and the high bar set for the voice and animation work has Redemption Reapers slice out its own niche. I shan’t soon forget my time with the Ashen Hawk Brigade, and the immensely bleak world they call home.