Knights of Aira

Turn-based strategy games are more than capable to keep you busy for hours on end, at least if they provide you with a challenge and a fun way to tackle each situation. The recipe is quite simple, in theory, but it’s also very easy to mess it up if the developers do not pay attention to the right elements. Hence, while combat is indeed important, the interface and the story matter as well.

Knights of Aira is a basic turn-based strategy game in which your sole purpose is to complete every mission by any means necessary. There are no complicated storylines to worry about, no lengthy skill trees to disorient you and barely any tactical depth when it comes to the battles. As long as you complete the short tutorial first, everything should be very easy to understand.

There are two campaigns included with the game, and each campaign has several missions you have to complete. As you might expect, these missions get tougher and tougher later on, which means stronger enemies and fewer ways for you to overpower them. On the other hand, it’s a lot more fun to put some effort into each encounter, especially if you enjoy tactics.

In case you are expecting a true TBS experience, you should know that the game was designed for casual audiences, so it’s as basic as it gets in every regard. Hence, all you have to do is move your units around and click on the enemy when you are close enough. Positioning helps, obviously, but that’s a fancy way of saying that you’d better place your archers behind your knights.

The interface is facile as well, although there are some problems with it. The biggest one is the fact that the game was ported from Android, which means that it plays a lot like a mobile game. You cannot pan the camera like in a classic strategy game, since you are forced to click on arrows and nudge the camera in fixed increments, which is mighty annoying.

While Knights of Aira may not please seasoned players, it should be a great game to introduce new people to the genre. The combat is fun enough to keep you engaged, which is all that matters in the end.