Bonaparte: A Mechanized Revolution Review – Big Ideas, Shallow Execution

Bonaparte: A Mechanized Revolution Review

Amidst the backdrop of the French Revolution, a new turn-based strategy game aims to make alternate history. Bonaparte: A Mechanized Revolution arrives to a heavily populated genre with an alternative take on one of the most famous events in world history. It is a game that has all of the pieces of something great to it, but when the chips are down all that remains are just pieces. It is the essence of something incredible, but when thrown together, just misses the mark on truly sparking the revolution it desires. The game’s approach to turn-based strategy tactics, to political depth, and to 4X grand strategy style map development, are all familiar and not particularly expounded upon. At the same time, the game does retain a very simple charm that makes it enjoyable enough to play. 

Taking on the role of either Céline or César Bonaparte players find themselves caught up in the budding revolutionary war in France. However, there is no time to be neutral as history waits for nobody. Joining one of three factions, the Jacobins, the Moderates, or the Royalists, players must build their army, capture provinces, and establish their political power. Yet, the invention of the colossi, towering constructs of war, are shaping the battlefields across France. All of this while the story of the French Revolution continues to unfold in a narrative around the player and their choices.

Importantly, the narrative of the Revolution is the driving factor of the game. Of course, outside of the true events the game is built around, it isn’t exactly as revolutionary as one would hope given the context. The combat is basic, and the political and ideological pathways are lacking in depth. Yet, there are some shining features of the game that are not to be overlooked. 

 An Uncontested Revolution: Force Over Strategy

The French Revolution was violent. Bonaparte does a great job of displaying that. Of course, the game has some great narrative scenes, displayed through text boxes. They capture the terror and violence of the Revolution well. Yet, one of the key aspects of the gameplay itself, the combat, is a little shallow for a strategy game. Despite a variety of units, and varied battlefield backgrounds, the game heavily rewards you for just having bigger units than your enemy. 

Now of course this sounds reasonable. Yet, the tactics actually involved in combat don’t really matter when the player has the bigger army or hell even just a couple more colossi. Importantly, this fact renders the more interesting mechanics of Bonaparte’s combat null and void. Why would the player care about flanking or proper positioning if they can just crush the enemy troops with a few colossi? Additionally, enemy colossi were never as scary as intended when the player can force them into repair loops while whittling them down. 

A pro of the combat however, is that the unit variety is nice. The game is great at allowing units to do different things. Of course, this means using cavalry to trample infantry and get into melee was viable. Additionally, making a firing line of soldiers felt historically accurate and real. Yet, after getting the swing of combat and realizing rushing the enemy with my big robots and waves of troops was the way, the rest fell to the wayside. 

Obviously, it costs money to field such a large army to make the overwhelming option realistic. Yet, this opens up another shallower aspect of the game. 

A Revolution With Little Consequence: France as 4X Strategy 

When not on the battlefield, players are met with a political and military overview of France as a whole. Divided up into all of its provinces, the nation sets its divisions. The introducing of political sway of a province is an interesting aspect to the game that we will come back to. However, where the shallow pool of the game emerges is when the player pays attention to the provincial upgrades. The upgrades themselves all feel quite basic. There exist upgrades to make the player more money per turn, generate more influence, and more resources to build colossi. Yet, that’s essentially the just. The overworld map of France basically just serves as a tedious bit of micromanagement between battles. 

Unfortunately, the grand strategy portion of the game was the least engaging. It felt almost meaningless in the grand scheme as the areas that had been taken never really felt threatened. All that took place was accumulating more and more money to build more troops. The map function was bare bones and the visits to the various faction clubs yield very, very, little after the first visit early in the game. Another facet of the overworld is the ability to use your forces to spread propaganda to sway the populace of each province. And yet, this is where the game once again demonstrates that it is the essence of something great without the capture of the greatness: its political musings. 

A Shallow Revolution: The Surface of the Time

Where Bonaparte: A Mechanized Revolution shines the most is in its introductions to some of the schools of thought of the actual French Revolution. Interestingly, the game utilizes real historical figures and their philosophies to make the distinction between the three factions. Yet, this is about as far as we go in the depth of understanding. Yes, Bonaparte uses terror as a game mechanic, which is really quite brilliant. Sadly, it doesn’t really seem to impact anything in the grand scheme. 

The political vying is really not that deep. So for players looking for just some basic choices to make, and to sit through a couple of executions, than this is a fine game. If a player is looking to truly immerse themselves in the ideologies, figures, and fighting of the French Revolution, then this game doesn’t really provide the depth. 

In essence, Bonaparte: A Mechanized Revolution great game. It has so much potential on its face. For instance, it has some great additions in the idea of the colossi, the rival factions, and the inclusion of historical events through an alternate lens. Yet, it despite some charm and a reasonably fun gameplay loop, it just doesn’t reach the depth it needs to in order to truly make a revolutionary impact in the genre. For those looking for a quick game to play when they want some decent tactical gameplay and big robots, this might be the game for you. Yet, any gamer looking for a truly in-depth tactical strategy game may be left wanting more than Bonaparte has to offer. 

***PC code provided by the publisher***