The original Rise Eterna was a decent tactical RPG but didn’t exactly shake things up with its plodding story and relatively average strategic play. Now, looking to change things up, Rise Eterna War moves into more of a real-time feel, with you trying to keep pace accumulating resources, deploying your troops, and fighting to overcome an enemy trying to do the same. 

One aspect of play some may appreciate is its relative simplicity. You’re absolutely an active participant in battles, trying to ensure your build resources are keeping pace, and making sure to try to keep an edge on your foe by countering the units they bring at you. Early on, there really aren’t too many options and you’ll be quite evenly matched, so there can be a tendency at times for the battles to draw out if you’re unable to get on a roll and then keep enough momentum to prevent a strong counter-attack. Once there are more units in play you’ll then begin to diverge, requiring you to think more strategically with which units you deploy and which ones will get key upgrades to allow them to be even more effective.

The challenge here is that there are actually quite a number of titles already on Switch that do this as well, and honestly I’d say Rise Eterna War only manages to get to the middle tier with its implementation. One disappointment for me was that the active skills I could use on a cooldown to try to help turn the tide, more often than not, felt utterly ineffective. Whether they really helped out my units or not wasn’t always clear, and that felt like it ripped away one of the best opportunities to keep me engaged and invested in the battles. Instead, I tended to lose interest as battles could drag on and even if I eventually prevailed the lack of intensity and excitement tended to be pretty deflating. This is by no means a terrible game to check out, but I do think a few of its peers made me feel more engaged in the action than this did, and that can make a big difference.