Those who love the old school grid based tactical JRPGs will rejoice with GOD WARS: Future Past. Players will fight on different terrains to strategically attack and defend against enemy units. Every character can use a multitude of different jobs such as warriors to mages and equip skills from each to make their own style of warrior. Want a close ranged fighter who can heal? Equip the fighter and priest class and equip various passives to make your warrior a side healer. Those who love old school titles like Final Fantasy Tactics will find a true love in GOD WARS: Future Past.

With most tactical JRPGs, players control over a dozen units — usually eight per map — to do battle against the enemy forces. GOD WARS: Future Past challenges the tacticians in all of its players as the AI will not let up providing a solid challenge that is both fair and brutal in the same beat. The concept of the game is to travel from land to land as Lady Kaguya’s escorts to help her rid the land of the evils that have befallen it all while helping the Gods regain their peaceful mindsets. This means players will go from various locales to recruit new allies and learn more about the lore of GOD WARS: Future Past. If you love ancient Japanese folklore and a solid tactical turn based game, you’ll easily find love for GOD WARS: Future Past.

Once the three nations Fuji, Izumo and Hyuga found peace and prosperity with one another on the land of Mizuho. However, when technology, such as metal, became a viable option versus iron and wood tools, the various factions began to fight over land dominance. This angered the gods who were once worshiped and revered. Now the gods watch as the humans destroy their blessed land. The gods began to show their powers causing natural disasters to befall the land, but even that didn’t stop the humans from their own internal battles. Believing there was no other means to stop the Gods from bringing catastrophe and possible extinction to the land, Tsukuyomi gave her daughter as an ultimate sacrifice. Her other daughter was taken away to be held as a secondary sacrifice in the future. Over a decade passes and Kintaro, an old childhood friend of Kaguya, decides to break Kaguya out no matter what the cost.

GOD WARS: Future Past is your typical turn-based JRPG with some dated mechanics that work and fail in equal measure. Players take control of several characters such as the young warrior Kintaro or the priestess Kaguya as well some odd warriors like a giant bear who use to be a god. Once battle begins, players move their characters on a grid like map to take advantage of terrain and their unit’s ability to defeat the enemies on the map or sometimes reach a location. Thankfully, the battles are fun but difficult, requiring players to really debate moving a character in an open area unless they want that character to be bait. Outside of battle players will enjoy the ho-hum story, as well as do the usual concepts of buying items and raising stats on characters. GOD WARS: Future Past doesn’t reinvent the wheel but it does follow the best concepts of the genre to make an enjoyable title.

What stands out in GOD WARS: Future Past is the large amount of stats and customization options for units. There are over a dozen units the player will receive in this 50+ hour title. While they may be set as specific units, players can easily alter their jobs before a new mission. Want Issun to be less about close up warfare and ranged abilities? You can do that by switching his jobs to a ranged warrior, the same is applicable to all characters making it a fun challenge to see what works and doesn’t for a unit. Trust us folks—you’ll need to make strong units as GOD WARS: Future Past on normal was a challenge for us. The game doesn’t back down and will lay waste often to those who are ill prepared for a fight.

The other beautiful element to GOD WARS: Future Past lies in the manga-like animation cut scenes that are peppered through the game. These scenes are so amazing and full of vibrancy you almost wonder what happened once the game returns to the bland textures and environments of most of the areas you’ll be visiting. Thankfully the character portraits and sprites are impressive, but once combat starts their sprite versions won’t do much for you. If this was the PS Vita version, these graphics could be described as weaker, but on the PS4, this would barely pass at times for an early PS3 title, and that is a shame. Unfortunately it doesn’t help that battle animations aren’t much better, making GOD WARS: Future Past one of the weaker tactical turn-based JRPGs we’ve seen as of late.

The sound department is where GOD WARS: Future Past shines a bit better. The music is very form fitting and enjoyable, especially when you could be on a map for twenty minutes fighting a tough boss. The voice acting is one the weaker spectrum in terms of the English Dub. We here at Honey’s Anime are not one to ever side with either Dub or Sub, but we will say that we think you should put GOD WARS: Future Past on with the included Japanese audio to really get a better experience. We do appreciate that NIS America and Kadokawa Corporation gave the dual audio option allowing players to enjoy whichever floats their boat. Honestly, though, regardless which you choose, the end result is that GOD WARS: Future Past passes with flying colors in the audio concept.

Overall, GOD WARS: Future Past is that great turn based JRPG gameplay we all know and love, which is a double edged sword at times. While there are some neat ideas in terms of job customization and the animation is beautiful with its manga like cut scenes, GOD WARS: Future Past doesn’t feel like anything we haven’t seen before in the genre. What doesn’t help is the lackluster story and the almost paper thin character types. Nonetheless, what GOD WARS: Future Past does wrong it makes up for in strides making it a solid entry in the turn based scene. We whole heartily recommend it if you’re a fan of this genre of gameplay but those who don’t like it won’t find your mind changing because of GOD WARS: Future Past.

GOD WARS: Future Past isn’t the best turn based JRPG we’ve played here at Honey’s Anime but it does hearken to some great concepts from days old. While the story isn’t anything impressive and the characters are very trope like, the setting is unique and luckily the lore is intriguing. What really makes GOD WARS: Future Past stand above the rest is the solid gameplay in terms of switching job classes and customizing characters to really cater to the player’s style. Honestly, we enjoyed our time with GOD WARS: Future Past and are sure fans of the old school turn based JRPGs will find plenty to love as well. Let us know down below if you tried or have played GOD WARS: Future Past and if you agree with our consensus. As always we hope you continue to visit our amazing site for even more awesome game reviews and articles.