THE GRINDSTONE TRIBUNAL:

In a game with 3v3 modes at the max, it’s hard to get a good amount of Grindstone in on the game at once. Here’s the takeaways of Dreskar and myself at the least.

Dreskar:

Battlerite is a game that initially put me off, like something about it just instantly made me dislike the title and that stuck with me for a long while before we started playing it again for the review. Once that review started it felt much better, I am not sure anything actually changed or if for whatever reason the old problems seemed less apparent but now I certainly can say Battlerite is a game worth dipping your toes into at the very least. It strips away most of the traditional aspects of a moba, and hell would honestly be the only true MOBA to begin with if we went by the acronym, and instead replaces it with timing and movement based fighting using cooldowns over mana to keep things fast paced and interesting. I am not sure if I will be jumping into Battlerite all that often but I don’t mind the occasional match or two before moving on, and perhaps that is what this game will be for a lot of people.

Recommended?:  YES

ChaosD1:

This will likely be one of those Tribunal entries where it’s not really necessary for me to explain my thoughts, as I came across pretty clear in the video, without too much pushback from other opinions I had to also reflect.
I like Battlerite. It’s competent, simple, fun to play, with some interesting and fun characters.
I like facing down other characters and working on using the control and counters to take down the more threatening opponents.
I like not having to worry about farming XP and Gold to build a confusing item list.
I like the ability to choose the Battlerite cards to customize my character and give the sets a corny name to reflect its purpose.
I like spinning around in a circle on my mount to watch Freya’s braid stretch out with the physics engine.
I… am not as keen on the Overbox cosmetic earning system, but nothing is perfect.
I can’t even consider it a downside, despite how much I want the Arcane Moose, and the fact what I consider the two coolest mounts I’ve seen in the game, the Thundercloud, and the Razer Serpent are locked behind promo crap and impossible to get without luck for various reasons.

But the cosmetics aren’t why I play.

Battlegrounds is.
No joke, I was just as “oh no… they couldn’t have!” when someone first told me they made a “MOBA mode, but finding out it was not only the best parts of Battlerite, but my favorite parts of Gigantic and Heroes of the Storm all rolled into one made it a mode I could really appreciate when few others in the community could. (Seriously check out the Reddit threads about it sometime. You’d think they were being held hostage… even though for a while Casual Mode kinda WAS, which I will fully admit was a bad and short-sighted move.)
Still even arena has its benefits to how you play, and I find some characters really lend themselves better to other modes. Now that an Arena meta has formed, I found Freya to be someone who gets torn to shreds in those 3v3 matches, but I’ve easily swung the tide in Battlegrounds with her, while they exact opposite happens to me in each mode when I choose Pestilus. I might be settling into my favorite, but I’m still looking forward to seeing what comes next.

Fav Melee: Freya
Fav Support: Pestilus
Fav Ranged: I hate ranged.

Recommended?: YES