Getting Blood All Over the Snow in Bad North
I am the queen of judging books (and video games) by their cover, for better or worse.
And in Bad North's case, I'm so happy that the Scandi aesthetic and foreboding vibe of the cover caught my attention. As of writing this, Bad North is on Xbox Game Pass. In one of my classic episodes of "let's download every game that looks interesting and maybe play one of them", Bad North was in the haul.
And I'm so glad I got it. It's addictive, simple, engaging, yet challenging- and that's all I ask for out of a game most of the time.
Bad North, in it's purest form, is a real-time strategy game where you use and move units to fight off incoming invaders. You start out with 2 or 3 units, gaining more along the way. Unit types include archers, pikemen, and infantry- all of which have different strengths, weaknesses, and abilities. And just like your units have types, enemies come in different types with different appearances, strengths, weaknesses, and abilities. All of this impacts your strategy in each battle.
Each battle takes place on different islands, as you hop from island to island along the map. Each island is designed differently with its houses placed in unique places. Protecting these houses and your units is at the heart of Bad North, and even though sacrifices can be made, your goal is to save them all. Island designs, enemy types, house placement, and your unit types all influence your strategy.
They also help make each playthrough and new island fresh and interesting as you rarely can use the same strategy twice.
Island design and house placement deeply impacts gameplay. My boyfriend played on Xbox and, even on easy, he was telling everyone to be quiet by island three. However, when I played, I could place units, put down the controller, and wait for the level to be over several times. Thus is the beauty of the randomly generated maps, they make every single playthrough different.
Also one of my favorite elements of Bad North is how it lets you choose your level of challenge. Want a really unforgiving experience where you can't restart levels, hardly get new units, and get new kinds of enemies every island? Go for it. Want a chill time where you can restart anytime and you're not challenged till island 25? Totally possible.
Even if you set it to the easiest difficulty, you will still face challenges (especially if you're extra like me and try to do as many islands as possible per turn).
Even in game you can choose your challenge. You can play more than one island per turn, given that you have enough units to win. So if you want to play for hours and hours, trying to win every island possible- that's doable. You can never go back to islands after playing them and islands die out if you don't play them by a certain turn, which adds another level of challenge. This also lets you just play the islands that lead to new units or items or ones that lead you to checkpoints faster. You can also opt to avoid islands that look too challenging or easy and go a different path instead. All of these are ways that you can adjust the experience to your preferences.
One of the most beautiful aspects of Bad North is all the ways it gets harder, even without you noticing.
Bad North is such a clean and focused example of a battle strategy game and you can tell the amount of thought and care that went into honing its concept. You never know what Bad North is going to throw at you, never. It's so seamlessly challenging and engaging in how it gives you new obstacles, enemies, and island designs that force you to learn new strategies and tactics.
As you progress, islands will have different weather- impacting your visibility, the fog will intensify- not allowing you to see enemies coming until much later, and the islands themselves become much more complex- forcing you to stretch your units and adapt strategies. I still have it out for lightning storms and those enemies who shoot spears because they both thwarted my strategies time and time again. But it made the game fresh for me right as I was beginning to think I had it all figured out.
I beat the game on easy, but it was not an easy ride by any means.
Bad North can be absolute madness, forcing you to use all your abilities, make sacrifices, and change strategies in a second. As the game gets harder, it only reveals more of its beauty rather than its flaws. And I love that.
My only complaint about Bad North has nothing to do with the game but where I played it. Bad North is not great on console. It just isn't. Split second decisions and unit movement doesn't mesh well with joysticks and imprecise controls. As the game got harder, I lost a lot of islands due to Xbox controls rather than my own mistakes. However, once I tried it on PC, it was a much better experience and the control scheme was perfect. So, you can try it on Xbox to see if you like it, then move to PC to experience it at its best.
All in all, Bad North is a solid experience that I will always love and come back to. It's beautiful in every way, from the soundtrack to the art style to the gameplay. It takes what I love about games like Party Hard to a whole new level of class and thoughtfulness, like any good Scandinavian aesthetic always does. I'd highly recommend this game on any port you can find and I promise you, it'll be a satisfying and wonderful ride.
