Story Mode

Band of Bugs has a fairly decent story mode where the lead character Maal takes center stage. Maal is to be a commander in the Queens army, a bug army consisting of a grasshopper, butterfly, a prying mantis with a prothesis, and a couple other bugs that he meets along the way. It is not really clear what is going on at the beginning except that the kingdom is under attack. Although, you’ll quickly find yourself skipping through the cut scenes simply because they are not really talking but making strange noises while you read through the plot. The main story line “Maal’s Story” can be beaten in about a 2 or 3 hour stint and most of the levels seem fairly easy to beat with the except of one or two which are increasingly more difficult for some reason. Once you go through the story mode you can choose to replay the mission to achieve a better score but each mission remains the same and becomes a bit repetitive after playing it the first time around.

Multiplayer

The online aspect of this game consists of a few game modes such as: Spider Hunter, Elimination, Capture, and Escape. In Spider Hunter the host can choose to leave the game open to the public to join throughout the course of the match while everyone tries to achieve a set point limit (usually being 30, the highest it can be set to) by killing a couple bugs on the field. Elimination is a bit more straight-forward as the objective is to destroy the other players or teams; the host has the freedom to choose between many different game settings. Capture consists of each team trying to reach the other players capture point which is usually at a high point that can be easily guarded by the other team. Finally, in Escape the objective is to reach the other side of the map with all your players intact, simple enough.

Spider Hunter seemed to be a crowd pleaser but nobody liked it when you killed another player instead of the bugs even though you were knocking out a better player to try and shave some points off the leader. Not many people were open to communication and after a while the maps seemed to become a little bland. Each landscape seemed fairly familiar and the gameplay basically consisted of every person looking out for themselves. They could have put a little more emphasis on a random map generator which would have created the sense of a new landscape instead of the same symmetrical maps that kept appearing and added to the appeal.

Level Editor

The level editor in this game gave the player the chance to create a new map with many customizable options and take it online to play but I didn’t even see one out there. It seemed like too much of a hassle to make a map that no one would play unless it was even for all players. This feature could have turned the game into a hit by itself although nobody wants to take the time to make a map that no one but themselves wants to play.

Gameplay

Band of Bugs is a turn-based RPG game, reminiscent of Final Fantasy Tactics. Each species of bug had a unique set of attacks, skills and weapons they could utilize. Although, each bug is already equipped with the most effective weapon and it is not worth losing a turn to simply switch them. This takes the whole feature of changing weapons out of the game itself. Some of the skills that could be utilized were the ability to heal, hasten a bug, slow a bug down, shoot elemental spells, and boosting attack and defensive abilities which add to the dynamic nature of the game and add an extra level of strategy to it. Although, the major drawback was that each units health points seemed extremely low considering the power each bug could inflict. Some attacks are more effective behind the opponent while others have a weak effect when confronted head on, but no matter which bug you were controlling a good three or four hits would eliminate them from the battle. It also seemed difficult to recover after a bug or two died because then the opposing team would gain your extra lost turn.

Overall Impression

Band of Bugs is an entertaining turn-based strategy game but the single player aspect could have been developed to really enhance the story itself. There were many more characters within the story that could have branched off into separate stories themselves making for a more in-depth experience for the player. Ninja Bee catered to more of a casual gamer with this one but by doing so they isolated some of the more hardcore turn-based strategy fans that would of helped make this game a success. They might have had more success with removing the level editor and refining the gameplay to enhance the strategic aspects of the game. Overall the game will keep you entertained for about 5-10 hours after which you will find yourself becoming a bit bored and a little frustrated with the simplistic gameplay.

Final Score

6 out of 10 (Good style and graphics but the strategy aspect was not completely utilized)