Battle Brothers is, in short, xcom in a medieval fantasy world. Connections with interest, uniforms, trade, orders and severed heads - that's all about this game. And now, in order.
Gameplay. Very well-developed mechanics (fighting with initiative, trading with dynamic prices), which looks very simple, but has quite a lot of interesting pitfalls. The upgraded characters are much stronger than the newly hired ones, the panic and environment system works. The only negative for the sake of difficulty is that the enemies are ALWAYS stronger in characteristics than your fighters, even if you have the same level and the same equipment. Just take it for granted.
The AI in the game is extremely good, the developers have worked very hard on this. 9.5/10.
Graphics. The graphics are very simplified, the fighters and enemies here are something like chips, with a display of uniforms and weapons, plus a display of damage (torn clothes, wounds, blood). There is practically no animation like this. But all this does not interfere with the atmosphere of the game. 6.5/10.
Plot. It doesn't exist, it's a sandbox. However, the world is gradually becoming more complex; there are both global (war, attacks by evil spirits, etc.) and local events. All events, tasks and descriptions are made in the style of dialogues and narratives, which is very interesting to read. 8/10.
Management. It’s very simple, you can figure everything out logically yourself. 9/10.
Music. Oh yes. The developers did not skimp on hiring a good composer. The music flows REALLY well into this game, adding an incredible amount of atmosphere. Sorry, but 10/10.
Localization. Indie games are not supposed to be localized at all - this is quite expensive for developers. But the fan base in Russia for this game is quite large. There is a mod from fans that adds localization to the game. At the time of writing this review, it is almost completely ready, the translation is quite high quality.
But as an assessment, I’d better appreciate something else: the enormous elaboration of the text, even in English. You will not find a dry description of the task when taking it; everything is described quite “picturesquely” to suit the atmosphere of the game. The English is quite complex (since it is simplified by some colloquialisms (medieval)), but the satisfaction from the text is great. 8/10 for the lyrics. And thanks to the fans.
The main feature of the game is its high replayability. All fighters are different, map generation is different, tasks are different, enemies are different. Millions of situations. Especially comes to the stream, because... fighters can be given out to spectators. 10/10.
Overall, this is a masterpiece from indie developers. Judging by rumors, the developers have begun developing the second part of this game on a new engine. It is quite possible that they squeezed everything they could out of this engine.