Warning: Lots of glazing and ego coming up ahead
Back in October of 2023, ShadowMarioXLI (henceforth referred to as Eric, and found here, amongst other places) started creating a campaign in Wargroove 2; a sequel, to the one he made back in the original, featuring a story centered around the 41 Alliance + Mega Squad community. This endeavor would eat away hundreds of hours at this poor retired content creator and father, but it was a labor of love. Now, it's finally out!
Now you may ask, why do I care? This isn't even the main Wargroove 2. You haven't even played Wargroove 2. You haven't even played Wargroove 1. Well... I'm a part of the community! I've seen this campaign personally rip and tear Eric until he was done; so when I see that, plus I know that me and my friends are gonna be in it? I mean, I'm buying the game for this alone; and holy shit. All of the effort he put in was worth it.
The reason I'm writing this post, is because the man made A Full Game. Well. Obviously the Wargroove team made the game. But like, map design, story, you know. Full game! I HAVE to consider this as its own entry! Let me just barf the adoration I have over this wonderful experience for a million paragraphs.
Now, to clarify. This is not a Wargroove 2 post. I am not talking about the main game at all. Maybe I'll play it one day, but to be honest it's just not my concern right now. But to get some initial groundwork done, my background in strategy games is more Fire Emblem than Advance Wars, which Wargroove seems to be a lot more similar to (similar! not same. don't kill me.) But I did get the hang of it. I'll probably use that comparison a lot going ahead, so bear with me.
Anyways, what's really special and unique about this campaign is the map design. Every single map feels like it's not the same as the other. There are some more traditional maps, such as the first; capture buildings, build your army up, go fight the enemy commander. But then as you progress further, even the more traditional style maps have some kind of gimmick. Fog of war, magic items littered around everywhere, the enemy commander getting buffed for your units dying, it makes the whole experience feel super fresh; and that's not even talking about the not traditional maps! From a combatless puzzle map, to things that felt like Fire Emblem, with no buildings, just your units as you escape from a sewer, to a full on Zelda dungeon???? Dude. Even when I didn't care so much for the map, I could still appreciate the concept and creation behind it (there's really only one example here, where you're controlling 2 separate armies that eventually converge. I struggled.). They all have a unique identity. I liked being able to see the intended pathway through, as there was usually a very clear flow; such as going upwards and left, progressing as well as running from the horde of mobs running down the right, or swooping below an army to take a back path to the objective. I never felt Lost.
While most of the maps are super exciting and filled with combat, my real favorite maps were the ones where you just... walk and talk. There's about 5 of them? I think? They remind me of the inbetween sections in modern FE games, like the Monastery in Three Houses or the Somniel in Engage. A nice time to breath, explore, and relax; continuing to make progress in the game, but also resting. I think these sections helped me power through (I word this like it was a chore, it wasn't I promise), as not only was I able to progress the story, but my energy could be conserved for longer sessions. With the nature of the combat flow of this game, maps do take a while for the most part, and starting out, I could really only get through one or two a day (this sped up over time) due to Personal Energy Banks. The breathers were great.
Back to in the maps, I loved the usage of mechanics in the game. As someone that has not played the main game, I was learning as I went; and some of these maps were actual tutorials for me, without Literally being a tutorial. Some maps would teach me how to use a character's groove (their ult, basically) successfully by giving reoccuring usages, and/or building the map specifically around it. Some of my favorite examples are giving me a bunch of 1 HP idiots to learn how to Tee Off properly, or the aforementioned puzzle map showing me how to connect units to make the proper electrical shock. It's not even just the characters with grooves, I also got the hang of individual units with this. My top example of this is that sewer map I mentioned; it gave me an army of frogs that I could use to pull my enemies into the water, which I proceeded to never let go of and tried to abuse as much as I possibly could throughout the whole campaign LMAO; by the end of it, I feel like I had a really good sense for the game (to give credit where it's due, it wasn't just Eric's awesome map design, but the codex in the base game was very helpful.)
More things that made the maps fun and engaging; bonus objectives and secrets. Most every map had side goals to get higher star rankings for the map (I'm fairly sure this is a main game thing so I'm sure I'd like it there too), and they absolutely affected how I would play out the map, plus give it replayability if you didn't manage to get them all in the first try. As for secrets; there's a lot. A carry-over from his last campaign in the previous game, every* map has one space that if you bring a commander character there, will give you a fun little cutscene, developer commentary, and a bonus unit. Once I learned about these, they became a primary objective for me as much as I could. Not only do I get to hear my friend's thoughts, but then I also get something that helps me win my struggling battles!... most of the time. Or Eric will fuck with me and give me the most useless thing to exist. Jerk. Those of course, aren't the only secrets in the game. He hid a whole extra mechanic behind one, not to mention countless other lines of dialogue or alternate paths.
A couple more things that helped my experience, are base game creations. Sorry man, can't give these to you. The adjustable difficulty was a god send. I am Not great at this game, and the ability to make it easier (but not Too easy) was so needed. Plus the option to undo turns helped me learn the game properly/help me when I make stupid misclicks. Other than that, I really do love the groove system. Each character feels unique, and a lot of them felt super fun + turned the tide of battle. Tee Off is my absolute favorite. Finally, units. Golems and Frogs are my absolute joy. When I can flood the map with my army? I'm living on top of the world.
I think that even if you aren't able to appreciate what I'm going to be talking about going forward, you can appreciate everything here, and can still get something from this campaign. Now:
I'm gonna be an Absolute Mess in these next parts, I Apologize.
The text is the other reason that this campaign brought me so much joy. A very, very, Very large script full of jokes and references in the form of a very silly yet creative plot, delivered from the mouths of caricatures of members of the community. From frame 1, it is a delight to read every text box possible (and there is A Lot holy shit); I don't think it's even possible to read every line of text, cause he just accounted for so many edge cases.
I think before I talk about the actual plot or anything, I have to talk about what it contains and why. Like I've said, this is a story that's a celebration of a community. Most every character is a real person with their real username. Other characters that inhabit the world are our Discord server's emotes (I'm not kidding.), and then a fair couple others that are either a video game reference, or a reference to something in the past relating to the community; and speaking of our Discord server, that's where it takes place. A very silly combination of an actual fantasy land and an online community that when you think about it too hard makes no sense but it believes in itself and it's great. Everything. is related to Eric and MegaFreak400 (like and subscribe and follow and donate to him he's my very good friend)'s creations and history, including their old Youtube Let's Play collab group of CrystalStarStudio. So you're gonna get a lot of silly video game references, a lot of mentions of trivia, of Maze Games, of naming game tunes, cause that's what all of this is! So now with that kind of background base knowledge, Hopefully what I'm about to say won't sound as insane (I mean, it's still gonna be insane. But insanity is fine if you can follow it).
The first campaign follows the adventures of :blueghost: the emote as they make friends and enemies through the Discord server, preventing it from falling under the clutches of the evil Pond (very funny) and the Star Warriors, led by the villainous SlimKirby (also very funny). So then what is it followed up by? Well, after a bit of a cast switch up, as people have left, joined, or became more prominent in the community (me!!!!), we get less of a lone character's journey, and more of Avengers: Infinity War/Endgame. In a plot that tries its best (and in my opinion succeeds but I am biased) to give a highlight to each Actual Person behind this, that also expounds on some story beats from the last campaign, the people of the 41 Alliance + Mega Squad band together... against Discord itself. There isn't a main character, the entire server is the main character. Sure, there are points of view you follow more than others (ME BABYYYYYY I'M THE MAIN CHARACTER), but it presents a bunch of storylines that are all able to tie together very nicely, especially right at the end.
Not that I would have been able to make anything close to it myself, but I genuinely think this is the best thing Eric could have had as the concept for this campaign. Having the enemy force be an entity rather than a specific person leads itself to a lot of very funny bits, but I also feel gives more respect and love to the Actual People that are referenced in the game. It was also very clever, taking the minor mention of Discord Nitro, and turning it into a whole plot arc. For one, the Star Warriors color just matches the Nitro color irl, so it works great there, but also it continues to feed into that reasoning for the antagonistic force to be something beyond a person. Also from there, I feel like the story follows up very well from the last one; especially in the way it handled new characters, or "dead" characters returning (using Discord and Nitro as the method for this as well was a very smart play). Another thing I think was a WONDERFUL play, which was not needed at all, was the prologue chapter. A walking map that contains as much cast/references to the last campaign as possible that gives people that don't know what anything is background knowledge, including a complete retelling of the first campaign in a massive cutscene, very similar energy to ATLA's Ember Island Players episode (this was on purpose, I'm directly referencing the dev commentary).
As this was my first experience with this fictional world, the novelty of it was nice and fresh for me. I loved how most areas, behind the veil of being a fantasy location, were just channels of the Discord. Others were locations that continued to fit into this universe by being a video game reference, or a community reference. It all fits together very nicely, where despite being ridiculous, it stays consistent. There's an arena, every fantasy world has an arena, but the combat is referred to as Smash. The administrators of the server are treated as the rulers and have their own island instead of a mod channel, but they are still referred to with the normal phrasing. Our never used #tv-spoilers channel becomes a desert, our #bulletin-board channel and #scheduled-events channels are still called those, but in universe serve an actual societal function of being the news network or a location. It's very silly, but very clever, and the way that it's all treated as normal helps suspend disbelief. You don't think about how this society works, you're just able to accept it.
If you're reading this far, you probably know me, or have read another one of these posts. You know how I get about characters. This isn't any different. I'm sorry.
I think the best possible experience I could have had reading the dialogue of these characters, is thinking of the real person behind it. Yes, not a single person is exactly like their real life counterpart. Some are caricatures, some are a single bit turned into a whole person. But behind all of that, is a bit of the soul of that person. I absolutely love reading a piece of dialogue and thinking "yeah they would say that.", even if it was just one line for some, or every single piece of dialogue for another; and I think this really shows the love that was put into this project.
I'm not friends with absolutely everyone mentioned in the game. Not that I hate anyone of course, it's just the nature of community that you don't get to know everyone. It happens! But the people that I DO know, that I talk to near daily, it made me so happy to see what was done with them. Some of my personal favorites (personal bias/knowledge coming up ahead I'm very sorry, but also know there's more than just this):
and the part where I get to have the most ego
Again, there's SO much more love and accuracy beyond those examples. These were just my favorites. (IF YOU ARE A MEMBER OF THE SERVER I PROMISE THIS IS NOT A REAL RANKING OF YOU I'M TALKING ABOUT THE CHARACTERS THIS IS HARD)
Of course, while they aren't real people, I have to give credit to the Actual main characters of :blueghost: and :greyghost:, the Maze Game duo. A couple silly sprites made by Mega for Eric's game turned into full on characters. You could make a whole video essay of how their single expressions and horizontal/vertical movement turns them into the positive leader and vengeful warrior they are in the games. It's honestly astounding how Eric was able to turn some molehills into mountains here.
I was originally going to talk about the character of the Discord army in the last section, but then I realized; the reason why it's so enjoyable is something that's in the entire game. I gotta section it out. Bots in real life are nearly infinite. They're everywhere, they're annoying, they hurt people's accounts. It's why we don't have em in the server. So to turn that into an endless, alien invading army of robots? That's amazing. To have an abuse of a system given turn into a terms of service violation, leading towards deletion, and to turn that into an uncaring force ready to destroy the world? Perfect. To take the name of Discord's logo, and to turn that into the main villain. Outstanding. It is such a creative way to take the inspiration behind the campaign, and to turn it into a storytelling medium; and that's true of the entire game. It's creative! Like I was saying with how the world is presented as a fantasy land, but referred to with real life online terms, that's such a fun concept. Then you go into the map design, and of course the fact that they're all so unique is even more proof. To combine these two, I think the greatest shine of creativity in this format is one of the final paralogues, where :greyghost: and PK are in an ancient archive searching for a copy of Banji, :greyghost:'s friend. It takes the concept of file storage, turning it into a literal library. It's full of puzzles and mini battles. It takes that library concept further by placing books of trivia of the community, and fun references to the past. To tie all of this together, to have a really cool experience narratively AND mechanically is a wonder.
To get back to the writing aspect of this game (and probably a shorter section but still just as important): it's very funny. Sure, humor is subjective, and of course a lot of the content matter is community injokes, but I think Eric's writing is absolutely hilarious; I found myself laughing INCREDIBLY loudly at at least one moment in nearly every chapter. (The reveal in the puzzle level was the best thing ever, not to mention the nearly never ending mini Stanley Parable he put in Nina and I's first map) Beyond the injokes, there's a healthy amount of fourth wall breaking, poking fun at gaming and the world with topics like remakes and AI (not just those but those are the ones that stuck with me) that serve both entertainment and a bit of coping with the state of what we all love. So many characters speak in dumb bits and references, and for the most part they really just appeal to my stupid sense of humor (I'm in this community for a reason I suppose). So many puns. So. So. SO many puns. I would love to see Eric's search history when it comes to this game's script. Gotta be(e) hilarious. The best part of this being a custom campaign for a game rather than its own entity, is that it's ABLE to be this too. It feels free.
I've been writing this off and on all day. Continuing to read this back and make sure it's like, legible; I feel like I could continue on forever, but I also feel like I'm gonna go in circles, so it might be time to wrap up.
This campaign was such a joy to play through. Eric put so much hard work into it, and like I've said to him a bunch, and will say again: it was worth it. The joy of a strategy game with awesome map design; the novelty of seeing my friends and all the members of the community past and present represented in this story that's more coherent than it has any right to be; the video game references, the internet humor, the absolute absurdity of it all, with love baked in.
In a way, I almost feel like this is a case study of sorts. You know, several times when playing it I was surprised. "One guy made this." Granted, some might say an entire community made this, but come on. One guy made this. And I think you could really look at a piece of media like this, and not only learn a lot of the people it represents, but the person who's lens you're looking through. I dunno. There's something kinda artistic about it that I think someone with a degree could do better than me at talking about, but it does help the experience.
I do not think that anyone not in the community, not Literally in the game like I am, will get 100% the same amount of enjoyment that I did. But I do think; that this is something that anyone who has knowledge of video game internet communities, modern and classic, or someone that likes strategy games, CAN get enjoyment out of. It's a very special beast.
The download code is 35LG5DUA. I have links to both Eric and Mega, the most important people in all of this up above, plus a couple other things, please check them out.
10/10. A labor of love that's also impressive in gameplay, and has brought me countless amounts of joy through laughter and heartfelt smiles