Warriors Rise To Glory: Release The Bowels Of Mercy - Early Access

When reading the title Warriors Rise To Glory, two thoughts came to mind: is it an online multiplayer-only? And is it something you’d pick up on Google Play of the App Store for a farthing? Fortunately, only one of those is correct.

So yeah, it’s an online multiplayer game from Gavra Games, but before your eyes glaze over, and you start cross-examining why you’re so unpopular and have no friends, fear not: you don’t need friends. I don’t have any, and I’ve had a proper jolly with this.

A gladiator themed turn-based combat title, you create a character in Warriors Rise To Glory to, well, rise to glory, get yourself a name and feared throughout the internet lands. That name can be whatever you wish; give yourself a title from a decent selection that the UFC series could borrow from, then spread your stats seed.

Creating a character is good, but if you want to play as a woman with voluptuous breasts, you’re all out of luck in its current state. It’s not like male gamers ever pick female characters in games. All those women in Nioh 2 are gamer girls. Really.

There’s a bias from these waters for customisation features, so let’s cater to the masses and say there’s a fair choice here, such as beards, buzzcuts and mohawks. You’ll start fighting in your pants, and as your prowess continues, there’ll be a shop to spend your pocket money.

Let’s cover that now, so you know. Pick from melee and ranged weapons, though note it’s not a given that you come equipped with a catapult or bow. You have to earn it. So, you’ll buy new equipment such as shanks and armour, equip it, then head to the arena.

Comedy is a mainstay in Warriors Rise To Glory, with a focus on toilet humour. Before covering the combat side of things, you can entertain the crowd by doing random taunts. For each dig, the crowd grows in your favour, and you can unleash a special banana attack on your opponent. Max out the gauge, and you’ll be able to launch a toilet at them. A low bowl. Blow. Whatever.

Besides exposing (perv) yourself to an attack when performing a taunt, it also consumes stamina – your action points. That’s what gamers say. Each move, attack or taunt uses up stamina, but you can replenish that by resting (it also restores an element of health, which can be increased as you level up).

So that’s the basics. Moving onto the attack, there’s melee and ranged. I’m hoping you know the difference between the two as I’m not explaining. Melee is broken down into light, medium and heavy attacks, but you can also charge to cover ground and close the space between you and your fisticuffs lover.

But it’s easy to get complacent and moon the other player to fill your crowd gauge, so snares will be sprung, such as bear traps, fire pits and spikes. Common sense would have you move out of the way, but the other player (or you) can kick them back a space, often resulting in a quick punt to the goolies.

Other than that, it’s a to and fro sequence of hacking at each other until the other one dies. But death is not the end. Depending on the game mode, you can ask for mercy or accept death; likewise, as the executioner, you can pick whichever you prefer, and you’ll witness some of the most epic of finishing moves. I won’t spoil them, but you can do a fartality, and there’s a reference to manga/enemy with a JoJo reference and other pop culture setpieces.

Warriors Rise To Glory is primarily 1vs1, but you can go for 2vs2, free for all and a boss mode. The Free For All sucks if you’re underpowered as other players will swap sides, so you are in the middle, receiving attacks from both sides, but there’s also a larger arena for four players, and you can alliance with other players to take out the dicks with bows.

Matchfinding has been mostly good, but have had a fair share of games stopping short and being taken to the menu. It’s Early Access, so all is forgiven, plus it might be connectivity too. In short, it’s relatively quick loading, and you won’t have to wait around too long, considering that this is in the pre-order stage.

Overall, Warriors Rise To Glory is enjoyable, if repetitive. It’s nice to see your character and house level up, but I can’t stand games where you have to wait for the other player because they’re sipping their tea or trying to get away because they suck in melee and will spam the same moves. Aaccck! That can’t be helped, but what are you gonna do?