Blood Battalion keeps the vampire theme of the original, but adds a unique spin with a variety of classes, including a healer, mage and others, led by the brave Galbraith the Lionheart.
The story doesn't matter because battles jump around too much to comprehend anything. Before learning about your chosen character, the game throws you into a fight. Regardless, at least leveling up helps them grow, so they can unleash even more devastating "skill proc" attacks when the situation calls for it.
Oddly enough, there's not much to the gameplay. Your main job is to set up the formation of your characters and then let them go at it, watching them select their best attacks to defeat adversaries. This simplicity may be a big draw for some, but it feels like something's missing.
There is one interesting tactic - being able to raise the undead. If your comrades croak in battle, you can call them back for a limited time to do extra damage. You lose them after that fight, but at least they return for one last push.
Since it is a Mobage effort, Blood Battalion allows you to log into your account and engage in PvP battles, as well as trade items with other users. It's a good system, and considering the popularity of the original Brothers, you should have no problem finding community members to interact with.
Unfortunately, this comes at a cost. There are times you'll need to put down some money in order to have the necessary energy to compete in later battles, unless you have the patience to wait it out. It's a freemium game, after all.
The presentation is along the same lines as the original. The board game set-up has charm, but also limits character movement to simply hobbling around. The backgrounds don't show much variety either. Sound fares a little better, with each character having his/her own humorous death noise as they fade off the board, and the music's not bad. The battle effects get a little tiring, however.
If you're a big fan of the original Blood Brothers, you'll play Blood Battalion no matter what score we give it. It continues the same type of gameplay that worked so well the first time around, and adds a little bit extra. It's just a shame the developers didn't push for that next level of involvement, as the "press go and wait it out" function may not cut it for some. Still, it's worth a look.
