I’ll admit, I’m not the biggest strategy game player, but I have always appreciated the genre. So when Prodigy Tactics came along I was very much intrigued, it looked like something fresh. Prodigy Tactics is a beautiful turn based strategy game in which you battle opponents on a board. The objective is simple: kill them before they kill you.

The first thing you will notice when you boot up Prodigy Tactics is how wonderful the visuals are. Character models are nicely detailed and look incredibly distinctive, like something straight out of an Unreal Engine tech demo. Attack animations are displayed in beautifully rendered animations which is a joy to look at, for awhile. The same animations are played over and over again, and after the first few tutorial missions some animations already felt tired. You can speed up the animation to get through it faster, but it’s not a solution since it destroys the pacing.

Sound design doesn’t add much either. It’s passable, but the only purpose it serves is to fill a space that would otherwise be empty. Little of the audio makes for an improved experience. Sound effects are decent enough and the soundtrack is entirely forgettable.

Gameplay has two sides facing off against each other on a grid formation. You move your characters around your tiles to position them for attacks. Split into two stages, you will be either attacking or defending each round.

Attacking is where you have the most control. In the attack phase you will control one of your heroes and position them on your tiles to make an attack. Each character has access to a very small pool of attacks, some are more interesting than others. There’s your standard set-up of tanks, DPS, and support characters that can heal. They are all visually interesting and allow for experimentation with your team set-ups.

The Harmony and Dissonance system is a unique system that encourages risk vs reward plays. Harmony attacks are pretty standard that deal damage on the lower end, while Dissonance attacks deal a massive amount of damage with some consequences. As you use Dissonance attacks the tiles across your board will start turning red, meaning you won’t be able to use Harmony attacks whilst standing on them, basically limiting your options. The more red tiles you have, the higher the chance they will explode dealing damage to your entire team. It’s an interesting mechanic that sets it apart from others in the genre but it’s not enough.

The defending phase is interesting. In many situations your character won’t actually be the target of the attack so you have to consider your characters positioning on the board ahead of time. You have two basic modes of defense; protection that will severely reduce the amount of damage you take and counter-attack where you instantly attack the enemy after their attacks. If you are grouped up with other characters, you can initiate defense abilities for them in certain situations as well.

The gameplay loop is just too repetitive for me. Doing the same thing over again whilst trying to skip through the animations you’ve seen dozens of times just doesn’t make for the best gameplay experience. Everything you do in Prodigy Tactics just takes way longer than it should.

In the end, Prodigy Tactics has some truly unique and interesting ideas, but what’s been built around those ideas leaves much to be desired.

Graphics: 8.5 Undeniably beautiful, but the lack of variety and repetitive animations bring the presentation down.	Gameplay: 7.0 Unique mechanics are interesting enough to make the game stand out from the crowd.
Sound: 6.0 Really not much to say about the sound design, it exists.	Fun Factor: 5.0 Prodigy Tactics is a missed opportunity, the core foundation is there but that’s it.
Final Verdict: 6.5

Prodigy Tactics is available now on PC.
A copy of Prodigy Tactics was provided by the publisher.