Battle Realms: Zen Edition Reviews

It is one of the classics I keep returning again and again and again. A must-have if you are into RTS genre.

old school stable game and fun to play to relax and do some strategy thinking. i really recommend this!

Great rework and re-balance of a classic early 2000 RTS. I'm genuinely disappointed that I haven't seen other RTS since Battle Realms implement some of the features found in this game. If you like RTS, East Asian (Primarily japanese) fantasy, this is one for you.

Mostly I play this game with my friends, great game but hate the bugs. Desync multiple times even with stable connections and annoying sound bugs will appear after playing the game for a long time. Come on dev, it's been 2 decades. AI is smarter in latest update, I think it's almost impossible to win 1 vs 2 or more hard bots in survival as they keep attacking you and they will find a way to put the building from original place if their base is destroyed.

I played this one not long after it first came out; I wasn't even ten years old at the time. I found it pretty hard then, but I was a bit young to be any good at RTS games (I didn't even figure out how to play as a clan besides Dragon until a few months later!). I have really enjoyed coming back to this game as a "reported" classic and an old favourite of mine, but this game isn't just hard anymore, it's impossible. The AI rebalancing that's been done to this game has been done in a similar vein to the all time classic Age of Empires 2, but the campaign modes have been royally ruined by this change. The game originally designed many of its campaign missions around fighting multiple opponents who secretly cheat, because the old AI was poor enough that this was warranted. Now? The AI is much better, but the oppressiveness has not been reduced to compensate. Kenji's journey was a hell of a slog to get through, much more than before certainly, but the real nightmare is the expansion campaign, Grayback's journey. Once you're out of the mines, the game gets BRUTAL extremely quickly. I am convinced that the sixth mission, where you need to protect the forest temple from Utara, is ACTUALLY IMPOSSIBLE to beat. There is simply no way to build a base from scratch and make your way to the temple area (past all the enemy outposts that you HAVE to get past in order to get there) before the enemy mounts a force 20-something strong and just flattens the place (which is essentially unguarded), causing a game over. It doesn't matter how locked-in you get, and even on Easy it's impossible (I tried that). With that, I can't recommend purchasing this one if you're at all interested in the single-player modes (which are certainly cool and interesting otherwise), but I still love the central mechanics of this RTS (many of which I haven't seen replicated in other games in its genre). So, if you're looking for a unique RTS to play with your friends, I would still recommend this, but against the AI? Give it a bit. I do want to finish Grayback's journey again, it's been a long time since I last did it, but I can't do it yet.

I really love ALL the changes made in the zen edition. The graphics are just the same which actually a good thing because I can run it even with my old low spec laptop. Even with the old graphics, the game is still immersive. I love the mechanics of the game which made it unique to most of the RTS games. AI is a lot better too, so be careful of your army from the dragon nukes!

love the work, its outstanding bringing this classic back to life. But Campaign-AI is a pain in the ass. Very hard to finish

Game is similar to what it once was, but multiplayer "balance" just f*cked the campaign and skirmish battles. as a casual who is absolutely not interested in pvp. Yeah I don't recommend it. - AI is smarter by that I mean they straight up ignore frontline troops and go on a beeline for you healers and ranged units. Making the game mircro intensive. In the original some AI profiles are like this, but now every AI does this. It's just tedious and repetitive. - Like I said balance just f*cked campaign, the devs are set on this "rock, paper, scissor" mentality screwing over campaign and making some later mission last 4+ hours. I remember finishing later missions in 2-3 hours before. - AI never quits, some circumstances this is fine. But it's so cringe for the AI to make a base some miles away from their original location prolonging skirmish battles and even the campaign. And you scouring every inch of the map just to find 1 peasant who built a hut somewhere. - The balance for T3 units the "best of the best" are no longer the best, Spending so much time effort and resources for "mid" units. Special mention Lotus clan and their midlock and the Mastermidlock, just to buff the T2 units especially when multiple diseased one would die they killed my entire army multiple times in the campaign. And also I'd rather have an army of Warlocks/Masterwarlock rather than "adapting" and adhere to the rock paper scissor mentality. Again Im a non-pvp casual so feel free to roast me for this fact. TLDR: I still enjoyed the game, its just not what I expected nor wanted hence as a player who bought this just for the campaign, I don't really recomend it. But if you're curious and just want to experience this absolute gem then go ahead.

My game since childhood. Really good gameplay! Honestly, it could diversify so much more and they could add so much more to the game.. I hope there's more bigger updates in the future, like new clans, new zen masters, new story arcs, the lore of this game is just too good that they could easily expand. Or at least, expand the current clan settings, a part 2 of the existing Journeys, or at least being able to play in Zymeth's and Shinja's POV!

As usual they "rebalanced" the game for the multiplayer/skirmish and fucked up the campaign. I would totally refound if I wasn't already over the 2h limit. Waste of money for those that wanted to play the original campaign