Battles of Norghan

I'll be straight with you: I came into Battles of Norghan expecting a lightweight distraction and left with an embarrassing number of hours logged trying to keep my barbarian star alive long enough to see Division 1. This is not a shooter, not a brawler, not anything with a mouse polling rate anywhere near relevant. It is a slow, system-heavy gladiatorial management game that rewards patience and punishes anyone who skips the manual. If you can accept that upfront, there is a genuinely layered experience waiting here. The loop is two-part and both halves matter equally. Between fights, you are running what amounts to a fantasy sports franchise: bidding at auction for mercenaries across 22 races and classes, signing them to short-term gigs or full salary contracts, buying from a pool of 200 items ranging from bows and two-handed axes to magical staves, and spending gold on monthly training to build out secondary skills like dodging, shield blocking, and dual wielding. The economic pressure is constant and real. Losing bouts cover only part of your wage bill, dead fighters cost resurrection fees, and selling old gear back returns only half the purchase price. You can absolutely bankrupt your clan mid-season if you overspend on equipment too early. That tension is the best thing in the game. When the fight actually happens, you are on a tactical grid moving 2D sprites in turn-based exchanges. Ranged units like elves with bows can chip enemies before melee contact; witches using poison bolt ignore armor entirely and can swing close matches; barbarians hit hard but age out and retire. The combat is short and readable. Early divisions feel thin because the AI is simply outclassed, but the difficulty scales up meaningfully and opponent composition starts to matter: a team heavy on melee with zero ranged attacks is a different problem to solve than a magic-heavy squad. There are 48 AI clans spread across 8 divisions, and working your way through them takes serious time. The honest negatives: the visuals are from 2005 and the Steam release did not change that. Sprites teleport rather than animate, and the UI is a wall of brown menus. The in-game tutorial leaves gaps that the PDF manual fills, which is a 2005-era onboarding problem that remains unsolved. Some features, including clan scouting and custom difficulty sliders, are gated behind the Gold Version upgrade. That is a reasonable value proposition if the base game clicks for you, but it is worth knowing before you buy. The local multiplayer option supports up to six players on one machine controlling separate clans, which is a genuinely unusual feature for a game this niche.

Fred · Scout Team

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