Those Who Rule Steam Charts & Stats

This game is amazing. large number of opponents and larger pool of your own units. Interface is easy to pick up, and simple to play, but retains a lovely depth of play. The graphics are perfect for top down strategy- character models pop from the background, are easy to see, easy to identify , and are pleasant to look at. The setup to each encounter has a solid campaign story to it. It features shades of grey in the morality. 10/10, puts other modern offerings to shame. This is my favorite genre. and this game crushes it in the same way the original 1995 very first xcom crushes it to this day.

A great game with a great Manichean story. Unlike Fire Emblem or other games in the genre, you’re not playing as the typical heroes fighting against a god of death or some ancient evil. Instead, you’re just a group of humans trying to decide what’s best for your country and that's really a new thing for this genre of game. The story can be completed in 20–30 hours when playing on normal mode. I recommend saving in two separate slots at Chapter 19 just do it, trust me.

Overall a good experience. The writing is well defined, the characters are believable and the gameplay loop is fun. This is basically an indie Fire Emblem Path of Radiance. Main difference being that you get hexed tiles and more choices when it comes to your units' gear. You do get a good variety of difficulty settings and some maps are much bigger of a challenge than others (in a good way.)

Terrific game. Good variety of promotions, weapons and armor add great variety to your party as their skills direct them to different modes of play. Yes, it is a more difficult than average game with the possibility of critical hits costing you a side-character or even one of the three main characters, thus necessitating replaying the scenario. However, I think I only had 2-3 restarts out of the 20 chapters on Normal. Turn off permadeath, protect your main trio and conservative play should save you from frustration. I was losing side-characters a little faster than I gained them, so by the end I was going into missions well below the max limit, but it meant my survivors were tough. That in turn led to an interesting last fight where my main characters were stalwarts facing multiple opponents most turns and the remaining side characters helping to thin out the enemy and protecting the mains' backs. I'll likely play again on Veteran and try the other ending.

Could have been very good, but it's really quite irritating. Way too hard, even on EZ mode. With no opportunity to grind for money or gear the RNG is very punishing. Only a handful of save slots, why? UI is clunky as hell. No character creation and almost zero character customization feels bad. Prevents you from properly getting invested in the game, especially since the story is Meh at best. Feels like a poorly done port of a mobile game to PC, just some many QOL features missing. I'm a huge fan of turn-basted tactics but with so much geared to crank up the difficulty and so little fun for the casual player, I can't recommend.

This game is kick ass amazing. Why do i say this? Read on to find out. Great characters and characters who you think are going to be cliche at first? Change rapidly. I honestly don't hate ANY of the characters in my lineup, and that is beyond RARE for me. As for the combat, it is purely turn based tactical. If you liked games like X-COM, Final Fantasy Tactics, or Hard West (or hell ANY of the truly amazing turn based tactical games from back in the day), you will seriously enjoy this. The story is interesting enough you want to know whats happening and read every dialogue, no urge to skip through it to get back to the action. All in all, this is a great game for a more than fair price given the length of it and how well made it is. I highly, HIGHLY recommend this game to any fan of turn based tactical games with depth to them. Game play? If you have played turned based tactic games before, its going to be pick up and play easy. If you haven't, yeah you got to get used to the game style but it tells how to do things and you'll know how to do everything needed in about 10 minutes or less. That does not make it easy however, far from it. Key word is tactics and that makes sure you not only take the time to figure the best targets to weaken the total force against you but also use the terrain to your advantage and making sure your group works as a team. it will take some practice and you will likely fail a battle or two at first if you have never played this kind of game before. Don't worry though. While there is a hardcore permadeath option, you can turn it off and also select how difficult you want it, so new or expert at these games, there is a good challenge level for everyone. Another feature that helps make this game stand apart is something i have rarely ever seen in a turn based tactical game: Moral choices. Do you try and talk the enemy around so you don't have to kill them? Do you execute a pirate raider on the spot or let him live to stand trial for his crimes? All of these choices can have consequences. including who may join your crew, so it is worth taking the time to consider rather than just trying to kill everything in your path. it also effects the story arc a bit as well so you could also have some added replay time trying for the different moral outcomes to see how it effects things. The music is nice as well. when doing a tactical turn based, the music needs to fit the piece but also not get on the nerves as such battles take a while. The soundtrack for this game meets that need and adds to the total enjoyment level. Finally, playtime. this game has more than decent playtime. I played it for 4 hours in a single stretch-and am only past the third chapter as a well seasoned turn based tactical player. All in all, Those Who Rule is a hidden gem i wish i had heard of earlier and a perfect game to grab for yourself if you like what you read here OR as a gift for someone you know who does. Retail pricing is more than fair for what you get, so on sale or not, totally worth it - and that is hard to say about many games out there.

I found out about Those Who Rule by a review on Dark Deity II to grab TWR instead, then being intrigued by all reviews calling TWR an "[indie version of] Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance." That appellation is *very* accurate at times, for both good and ill. --- The storytelling of the game is not really a focus and is even somewhat predictable. But TWR is respectable for its low fantasy setting and having an overarching themes of what cost is too high for societal change as well as what a leader should do. There's no evil sorcerer brainwashing and no evil god/dragon to slay, just the machinations of ambitious humans. I was pleasantly surprised by the gameplay to story integration, such as the hilarious scene of Marcus getting the HP growth increasing ring, as well as a Shura/Boots moment regarding a lategame character's stats/skills. I also was greatly amused by some of the setpieces being unintentional(?) Path of Radiance references, like an escape map in a pirate town while being chased by a greatsword wielding enemy general or a near recreation of the Mekkah's Bridge map (though without the pitfalls). --- The gameplay, by contrast, is the big focus. FE veterans should be familiar with traversing a map with a squad of characters in turn based battle, managing a budget of weapons versus gold acquired, hit chances, rules like doubling by having 4 or greater Attack Speed, who to prioritize feeding kills to level up, and so on. But TWR improves on FE ideas that either make the game more fair or add extra depth, to the point where I wonder if the developer has a FE romhack background. The obvious change is the hexagonal terrain instead of squares, but it also comes with big mechanical changes of flanking/backstabs and Zone of Control. Backstabs can done by attacking an enemy unit from behind, where the backstabber will have guaranteed hit chances, ignore shield block HP, and will deal bonus damage. Zone of control works like the wargaming term, imposing movement penalties on the hexagons in front of your unit and helping prevent enemies from sneaking into your flank. These changes not only emphasize better tactics, but it also is more fair system. Instead of making wall formation as in FE to bodyblock enemies from entering you backline, you can use interlocking zones of control to use a few units to prevent non Rogues from entering your backline. Backstabs replacing Critical hits means that you need to set up or outmaneuver enemies to delete tanky units instead of relying on Killer weapon criticals; conversely, backstab player deaths feel far more fair due to backstab deaths being on the fault of bad formation/forgetting about abilities rather than losing a unit to a lucky low% Critical. Another big change is the differentiation between weapons and the ruleset, where every weapon type is distinct beyond numbers and has a distinct tactical use case like the greataxe ignoring shields and one fourth of an enemy's defense. So your greataxe fighters are useful for breaking a tanky enemy, but your own defenders need to be placed cautiously to avoid getting brained by enemy greataxe users. You will want to bait the enemy greataxe users with an avoid tank sword user like Illyana or Reyson. The classes are also a welcome surprise, going for a branching path like Sacred Stones but importantly making sure each class has a distinct identity in skills and abilities. For example, all the defender classes are designed to tank on enemy phase, but they have different flavours: Champions let you taunt enemies and control where they face/attack, Centurions are focused around buffing others, and Paladins can heal adjacent units on kill/player phase start. It's not really a surprise that the best classes are any classes with the ability to refresh their turn like Warlord or Commando; action economy has always been king in any turn based games. But all the classes have a theoretical use cases, like the Ranger's ability to avoid shields making them great for hindering tanky units outside of greataxe fighters. The weapon changes and class changes go hand in hand with a playable cast which are generally distinct in gameplay and are interesting to build. For example, Illyana the sword protagonist follows the usual FE sword user with good speed and low Strength. The scrub lords like Roy or Lyn might be at the mercy of RNG, but Illyana can offset her poor Strength with a higher damage greatsword, leaning into backstab bonuses, or give her the Strength ring and watch her grow acceptable Strength. Then there's the little changes which are appreciated. The Constitution stat is re-imagined as Endurance, but Endurance determines how much gear you can carry into battle instead of handicapping speedsters with Attack Speed penalties. Another example would be growth rates that are plainly visible like in FE Romhacks, which give you a good indication of how a unit will grow. An amazing blessing is the possibility of Fixed Growths from PoR, avoiding the issue of bad stats due to poor RNG on growths. --- TWR isn't a perfect game and I have a few bones to pick with it. The FE9 comparison is unfortunately accurate with the extremely long enemy phases. I know there's a Rapid Animation speed option, but even that felt too long at times and I would like a skip enemy phase option, with the only pauses showing you what characters die. There's also no "checkpoint" style system, which got frustrating when I made an occasional mistake by the end of a map and then had to reset the entire map. Yes, I am aware that Shouzou Kaga designed FE with ironman playthroughs, but TWR is not a Kaga game. TWR indicates the developer likes improvement over strict imitation, so either Shadow Dragon mid-chapter saves or 3 uses of an Undo mechanic like Mila's Turnwheel/Divine Pulse would be perfect to limit those frustrations. Side objectives pretty much disappear after the first half of the game and the last quarter of the game has stale objectives. Coming off of the awesome Chapter 15, it was disappointing to have a bunch of rout maps afterwards with little loot to chase. There's also some of the poorly written parts of the interface which require you to go on the forums to figure out, a disappointment for game that's generally intuitive without outside research needed. For example, Chapter 6's green unit side objective requires you to save 5 or more green units (as per dev responses) instead of a scaling reward like "save x out of 6 green units" would imply. Chapter 4's side objectives are similarly confusing, with Illyana's Chapter 4 side objective is also written in a janky manner like "Illyana cannot have defeated more than 1 unit" instead of something like "Illyana did not kill any units in this chapter." The Noah objective is also weirdly written and has separate objectives of killing and sparing him, leading to the confusing interpretation of being able to talk to him and then backstab him for full rewards. Another example would be how recruitment works with some units. Chapter 10's recruit has an intuitive recruitment condition, since the recruit more or less says to talk to them with Slyker and this lines up with typical FE recruitment. But Chapter 8? (the one in the fort in the mountain pass) has two recruits who have hints to talk to Slyker, but actually can be recruited by talking to them with any character. Another example would be the "support conversations" in the base camp, which make you think there's a support system considering the game's FE inspired gameplay, but they're really base conversations that only add to the fluff/worldbuilding. The last example would be not making the class tree visible in game, to better help players plan out their builds. --- Those Who Rule's improvements to the FE gameplay are worth the price of admission, even considering the slight grievances.

A very binge-worthy game! Played the game on the second-hardest difficulty, so I had to restart my file a few times, but I felt like the gameplay was very balanced as far as TRPG's go. Having played enough Fire Emblem, I can tell you that AT LEAST I didn't randomly miss a 95% Attack and then proceed to get Crit 3 times in a row. lol. Story was good! Made me think a lot of Path of Radiance. Characters were likeable, though there were no opportunities to get individual support with any of them. All-in-all, I don't think I'll crave to replay the game, but 100% worth the time invested. Onto the bad side (which some of these are nitpicky, but it seems like the Developer reads the reviews and can potentially make some QoL improvements). The character models leave a little bit to be desired. There was a few times that I didn't realize what enemy I was aggroing and then proceeded to get shalacked by an enemy who can Attack 3 times instead of 2, or by a Ranger that engaged in battle and negated all my buffs when I thought it was a Commando. The shop could stand to have just a couple of Price Changes. I finished the game w/o any of my Tanks having a Crucible Greatshield cause it was 3.6k for a Shield! Which, btw, there was only 1 Unique Shield which was a bit of a letdown. The Parrying Daggers were cool, but the mid-size to greatshields didn't get hardly anything. As a sword/spear and board enthusiast, I was a little sad. There was a couple of visual irritations. The two biggest that are sticking with me is that every time I would try to press "wait", the screen would pan to the bottom right. I eventually compensated by just pressing spacebar, but still something that was irritating. The other thing was trying to read ability or item descriptions. Sometimes the textbox would appear with half the box off the page. So nothing big, just a thought. The last thing was the end of the game. I don't mind the decision that has to be made, but when I made it, I happened to lose 3-4 upgraded/unique weapons which I didn't have for the last battle. The only other thing would be some kinda NG+. I normally run games on the second to hardest difficulty first, then the hardest on NG+ when I have a couple of cool things that I can bring to a new game.

EDIT: I rarely write reviews and the fact that you're reading this already speaks volumes about the quality of this tight little niche gem of a game. 2 hours, 2 battles on record, fire emblem fan here. Can't say much about the story so far, though it seems adequate. I find that initially some characters aren't introduced at all, merely added to the roster, which feels like an oversight. Combat: The directionality is wonderful, the hex system works, finally a tactics game in which positioning is a little mini puzzle game in itself and counts for something. It all seems tight, efficient and fun. Weapon effects are well thought out, and the progression system does what it should. All in all I am left with the impression of a game that is lean and mean, effectively achieving what it has set out to do while trimming the fat to create great synergy and a fun experience. Might update the review after playing more, but so far combat beats any fire emblem game I've played so far. I am excited. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---EDIT--- after ~58 hours, 1st playthrough finished on normal difficulty with permadeath and random levelups (and currently on my 2nd one). I have mostly praise for this game, TLDR 8/10 STORY: Serviceable, no eye-roll-inducing contrivances, instead the plot focuses on what the party needs to do to survive and the internal pressures that creates. A story that never really touched me, but that I can see has a lot of thought put into it and is competently told. CHARACTERS: To get the negative out of the way, the main character Slyker suffers from main character syndrome, and is just wonderful and a genius, damnit. He gets thrust into command for an insufficiently plausible reason, walking all over his commanding officer who suddenly goes from from competent to washout to accomodate the main character's plot needs. Otherwise, he is relatable in his struggle with the responsibilities of command. That said, characterisations of the other companions remain coherent, with a roster of characters that feel distinct and mostly authentic, with a few clever funny lines that never seem out of character. GAMEPLAY: Oh boy, how fantastic. The meat of the game, and if feels GOOD. Everything matters, from who to bring, level progression and promotions with their abilities, loadouts, and most importantly, synergies. On normal difficulty for FE veteran like me it's a fair challenge, but I never felt like I was snowballing the enemy. Permadeath makes for some nail-biting moments even if you do everything right. The UI is perfectly adequate, telling you what you need to know to make your decisions. If I have a gripe, it's that you can't see the enemy's combat range while having a character selected, but that's minor. All in all, I had a lot of fun learning the different synergies and strategies that work in different scenarios. I usually never restart a game after I've finished it, but this time, I'm coming back to apply what I've learned and get a roster that really works well together. SOUND DESIGN AND ANIMATION: SFX are punchy and distinct, I will always enjoy the USB toggle sounds when gaining a positive or negative status effect. Battle animations are mostly satisfying, though one of the wild swinging spear attacks looks like it wouldn't work in real life. And that's it, hope this was helpful

Those Who Rule - A Promising SRPG Held Back by Poor UX Decisions I have mixed feelings about Those Who Rule. As a turn-based SRPG, the game is solid in several key areas—its level design is engaging, the job system offers good variety, and the core mechanics are genuinely fun. However, several quality-of-life (QoL) issues significantly hinder the overall experience and, in my case, made the later parts of the game more frustrating than enjoyable. 1. Poorly Implemented Skip Function The skip dialogue feature is unintuitive and even harmful to gameplay. If you fast-forward through a scene that includes a choice—even after making your selection—the game will override your input and pick an option for you. This is unacceptable in a game that clearly encourages multiple playthroughs and branching choices. 2. Inconsistent Stat Calculations and Balance Critical RNG elements, such as getting one-shot by a "lucky" hit from a late-game two-handed axe enemy, occur across all difficulty levels. This kind of punishing randomness may be tolerable on harder modes, but it undermines tactical play and progression on standard difficulties. 3. Tedious Troop Management and Clunky UI While I understand the intent behind resource and unit management, the process becomes overly tedious. Manually checking each character's endurance (equipment capacity), personal traits, and gear quickly turns into a chore—especially when combined with a buggy interface. Tooltips and windows often freeze or disappear off-screen, further worsening the experience. 4. Unclear Design Philosophy on Growth vs. Customization The game seems caught between two philosophies: encouraging players to use their favorite characters, or incentivizing optimal builds based on growth rates and job composition. Unfortunately, it supports neither path well. Growth rates are visible, but not easily accessible or comparable, making party planning cumbersome. Meanwhile, job flexibility is limited. If the game wants to reward character loyalty, it should provide more flexible class systems; if it expects min-maxing, it needs better tools for information management. Those Who Rule has a strong foundation and plenty of potential, but right now, it's stuck in a frustrating middle ground between accessibility and depth. With better UI, more intuitive systems, and thoughtful design adjustments, it could stand proudly among the greats of the genre. Until then, it remains a flawed but interesting attempt.