Gideon’s Perspective
Reptilian Rising is like Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, but instead of gathering historical figures for a school presentation, you’re gathering them to fight an evil reptilian invasion throughout time. Sure, they might have generic names like “Bert,” who is obviously Einstein. However, naming conventions matter little when you can have a T-2000, a talking Ankylosaurus with a southern accent, and Winston Churchill on the same team.
You can find a video version of this review on YouTube!
In Reptilian Rising you command these time-warped teams to battle lizard hybrids, crazed cultists and weaponized dinosaurs in turn-based tactical battles. Reptilian Rising looks and feels very much like a board game, and I mean that as a compliment. The characters look like miniature plastic figures and the way that the gameplay unfolds reminds me of something I could be playing at a table. It’s quite charming.
What Reptilian Rising lacks in polish, it makes up for with an interesting tactics game that absolutely understands its own identity and leans into it with confidence. The result is an experience that is a lot jankier than I would like but offers a solid tactical experience that’s both unique and full of heart.
| Gideon’s Bias | Reptilian Rising Information |
|---|---|
| Review Copy Used: Yes | Publisher: Numskull Games |
| Hours Played: 12+ | Type: Full Game |
| Reviewed On: PC | Platforms: PC & Nintendo Switch |
| Fan of Genre: Yes | Genre: Turn Based Tactics |
| Mode Played: Medium & Hard | Price: $29.99 |
Running Through Time
Most missions in Reptilian Rising feature different board layouts, enemies, and side objectives, but ultimately, they play the same way. You’re usually tasked with taking over three time gates within 20 rounds. This very much emulates playing a real scenario focused board game.
I can easily imagine myself sitting at a table, moving my heroes around and pulling from a deck of cards that would dictate enemy spawns and actions. Some might critique the lack of mission variety, but I actually enjoy it. It’s a game that takes a core objective concept and then tells you to solve that puzzle under a variety of different scenarios.
That puzzle definitely has some replay value to it, based on the heroes you have access to and the order in which you recruit new ones. Heck, one specific upgrade increases the size of your starting team, something that’s only relevant if you play through Reptilian Rising a second time. With three difficulty settings to choose from, the incentive to do so is there.
Anyway, you tackle these missions with a set of heroes from throughout time. You might have an Archer named Robin from the Classical Era, rubbing shoulders with a World War 2 Sniper while a caveman riding a giant bird flanks from behind.
Each hero has a class and unlocks specific abilities, but they can also be built different ways as they level by choosing from three random passive skills. The variety of heroes is impressive, colorful and full of references to figures of both history and fiction.
At the beginning heroes each usually get 1 move and 1 other action that can be used to attack, or interact with the environment. The thing is, Reptilian Rising isn’t just a brawl. You’re out numbered and on a time limit.
Every few turns Reptilians bring in stronger reinforcements through time gates they control. However, taking control of a time gate causes weaker reinforcements to pour through several manholes around the map. To counter this, you can have a hero take an action to block a manhole, preventing it from being used. In addition, several cubes slowly gather strength to summon a boss, but the process can be slowed by destroying those cubes.
At the same time, many actions, including attacking, gather time energy which is used to power your heroes’ abilities, and also to summon other heroes in your roster to battle. But only if you control a time gate to summon them through in the first place.
This leads to a really interesting decision space where you have to balance your aggression with your ability to deal with reinforcements. Sometimes it pays to go slower, seal the manholes and destroy the cubes. Other times you might want to take the time gates faster, simply because stronger reinforcements come through them. Each mission also gives you the option to recruit one of three heroes to your team, but only if you get to them in time.
It starts out pretty basic and limited at first, but as your heroes’ level up and the missions get more difficult the games depth opens up a great deal. Every hero unlocks two special abilities that use time energy and when that happens you have to balance using time energy between summoning heroes and casting powerful abilities.
Once your heroes reach a certain level, they also gain additional attack, move, operate, and defend actions based on how you choose to build them. This blows the tactical doors open even further, and I didn’t even mention cloning or time tunnels. Both of which also use Time Energy.
However, if you are playing on medium difficulty, that’s also where the games challenge takes a nosedive. The enemies simply couldn’t keep up with my heroes at that point. I had wanted to save hard difficulty for a new play through, but I felt the urge to increase it around three quarters of the way into the campaign.
It’s important to note that Reptilian Rising isn’t a rogue-lite game, but it does incorporate several elements of the genre. Each campaign is considered a “run” and has various checkpoints. All the heroes you recruit have limited lives, and can be lost if they run out, unless you recruit them again. This has the potential for frustration, but I actually enjoyed the continuity between missions. It meant my decisions from previous missions mattered in an almost X-COM like way.
It also added even more strategy to the game. I could retreat wounded heroes back through a time gate to keep them from losing a precious life and open up space to summon another hero if I had them in waiting.
A potential pain point, however, is if you fully wipe out and fail a mission. Checkpoints reset you to the start of a chain, usually three missions back and you will have to replay them. The missions do have some degree of randomness but can be repetitive playing through the same three to get back to a boss fight that you failed.
There is a meta progression system, however. Heroes retain the levels they had at that checkpoint and there’s a set of upgradable game play elements, such as how many heroes you can deploy at the start of each mission and passive skills you can slowly make stronger with currency you acquired, win or lose.
I ultimately enjoyed Reptilian Risings puzzle like scenarios, variety of time spanning heroes and thoughtful combat system. It’s a condensed experience that’s very much focused on being a specific kind of board game style tactics game, and Reptilian Rising does a great job with it.
Unpolished
My main criticism of Reptile Rising stems from a lack of polish. Reptilian Rising is janky at the best of times. I reviewed it on my aging work rig rather than my gaming computer, but I was still well over the system requirements. The game constantly stuttered anyway. The interface itself constantly blocks the game grid, making it so you have to move, wiggle or rotate the camera to click on the spaces you want to move to or attack.
I had multiple instances where upon leveling up a character, I couldn’t back out of the menu and reloading was my only option. I also had a campaign long bug where the summoning menu showed that I had two Berts. Not only had the second Bert overwrote another character I should have had, I also couldn’t summon either Bert after the bug happened, and it remained for my entire play through.
The issues I encountered were frustrating rather than game breaking, although the Bert issue could have been a bigger problem had I lost too many heroes in the campaign. The lack of polish is still disappointing and I’m hoping these issues are resolved at or shortly after launch.
Verdict
Reptilian Rising is a game with a lot of heart that intentionally or not, really emulates the feeling of playing a solo board game, both visually and mechanically. It’s a charming, tactical experience with a neat premise. That said, at $29.99, I’m a lot more hesitant to recommend it. After all, at that price point it competes with games like Mewgenics.
My hesitancy stems from both the lack of polish and limited content. I got around 10 to 12 hours out of a single campaign run and a couple of extra missions I played on hard.
You could easily double that if you fancied a second play through on hard, and honestly, you likely won’t recruit every hero on your first play through. So a second one is ideal anyway. However, if you’re a one and done type of player, you can’t stretch Reptilian Rising all that far.
That said, if you’re okay with a bit of jank, there’s a lot to love here. The gameplay is thoughtful and cohesive, and the variety of heroes pulled from different eras really does carry the game far. Putting the smack down on lizards with the likes of Spartacus, Maid Marion, a female version of Blade and several other heroes from different timelines is an entertaining setting for a tactics game that is a joy to puzzle out.
