TL;DR – The Bluecoats: North & South is a fun little TBS/RTS/FPS hybrid (yes you read that right!) that proves that the whole is worth more than the sum of it’s parts. While each layer might be shallow, the overall combination of a modest TBS layer with a handful of fun and frantic mini-games results in a game that is highly engaging and enjoyable. The campaign content is pretty short, but the game also comes with a 2-player mode (including local split screen) and free play modes so it’s not a huge deal. Plus the art-style is charming and the gameplay is easy to learn, even if it can be a bit tricky initially.
Now first thing’s first, I haven’t played the original game (released back in 1989) so I can’t do a comparison for you guys between this latest remaster – as there was one back in 2013 – and the original game. Second thing’s second, The Bluecoats: North & South is a game that I picked up in a bundle a while back, and as such I didn’t pay much attention to it when I first bought it. It turns out this was a mistake on my part, as The Bluecoats: North & South is actually a really enjoyable game even if it’s hard to pin down exactly what kind of game it is. It’s got a Turn Based Strategy layer, which is arguable the meat of the game and is fairly simple. Basically there’s a map of the (Dis)United states as of the time period, with each state functioning as a region and each region being able to hold one army at a time. Some of these regions contain forts, which are connected by railway lines and if a player owns both of the terminus points of a railway line then on the start of their turn a train will run along the line and generate gold for them. Generally you get two or three gold for each train that moves between your forts without a hitch and as such maintaining control of the railways is crucial to success. There are also some other minor factors to consider, such as a wandering storm cloud that affects one region per turn and paralyses any army contained within it (unless you pay some gold), the potential for Western states to be attacked by Mexicans and American-Indians and North Carolina having a port that provides free armies every few turns. Generally there isn’t too much to handle on this overall strategy layer, but as armies can only move to one neighbouring region per turn and as you can only have one army in a region (although you can merge two armies together up to 3 times) you do still have to carefully consider your moves. One other twist is that if you have 3 Gold, you can buy a new army but only on regions without an army already on it – but that army can then move as per usual, so it’s possible to lose an entire army in an attack and then buy a new one to send in against the harmed enemy army. If you have the money of course!
Which brings us to my favourite part of this game, namely the RTS-esque battles that take place between two armies. These are frantic but enjoyable and involve juggling between three unit types on the fly (as you can only control one unit at a time). You’ve got Artillery which are seriously powerful and can 1-hit KO entire enemy units if you get the perfect shot in, but need to charge each shot and they can only move left-or-right whereas the other unit types can move forwards. Then you’ve got Cavalry which are fast and lethal against all unit types (including other Cavalry) but melee only, so they need to dodge incoming fire while rushing towards the enemy. Finally you’ve got infantry that can advance like the cavalry, but have a ranged attack albeit one with a slight delay before firing. As mentioned earlier in this paragraph, part of what makes these battles so engaging is the fact that you need to keep switching between units to make the most effective use out of them. So you’ll need to be moving your artillery and firing shots, while manoeuvring your infantry and advancing your cavalry so that no unit is a sitting duck or about to be outflanked. Of course having a larger army does provide some advantages, as you can field more individual soldiers per unit type, but newly created tier-1 armies already have the maximum number of soldiers in the infantry unit. In these cases you have reserves which are instantly spawned when the units you initially deployed with are wiped out (e.g. you have 9 infantry soldiers in your army, 6 deploy at the start then if they all die a unit of 3 soldiers spawns). As such effective use of a smaller army can easily lead to victory against a larger force.
Most games would be content at this stage to be a RTS/TBS hybrid, but The Bluecoats: North & South is not most games and adds an additional layer in the form of two FPS mini-games that largely play the same. When you attack an enemy fort on the TBS layer, you will initially have a normal battle if they had an army defending and if you succeed (or they didn’t have a garrison army hanging around) then you start playing a FPS mode. Don’t get me wrong, this mode isn’t going to compete with Doom or even most bargain bin FPS games, but it does have it’s own charm. When these battles start you’re given a 4-minute time limit to gun down a dozen enemy soldiers, each of whom die in two shots or one headshot. The twist is that you have a limited amount of ammo and unless you hit 12 consecutive headshots, you’re going to need some extra ammo. Fortunately your enemies are kind enough to occasionally drop ammo (and sometimes even health!), which is a clever way of the game discouraging camping as you’ll run out of shots and need to dash out into the fray. This is where you can get overwhelmed, as reloading takes some time and the enemy is accurate even if they’re slow to fire. To prevent these FPS battles from being punishingly difficult, the enemy only has 4 active combatants at a time and you have a rough idea of where they are thanks to a mini-map in the upper right corner. In spite of the relatively modest amount of enemies at any given time, you’ll need to be careful when playing these battles as enemies can bum-rush you with melee attacks and if you need to reload at the wrong time you can quickly burn through your health bar. You do have two NPC buddies with you during these missions, but they don’t deal damage and instead can only stagger enemies with their shots.
The game also has another FPS mini-game that is very similar and which takes place during train robberies. These robberies happen when a player has an army occupying a region with a railway line that is running between two enemy forts. If an army is placed in this way then when the train reaches the occupied region a train robbery mission will start. These missions are essentially the same as the fort missions, but instead of wandering around a fort you’re rootin’ tootin’ shootin’ your way up the train. If you can make it to the locomotive engine within 4-minutes, then you steal the gold and the enemy gets nothing. Alternatively if your train is under attack, then you need to defend it from the enemy lest you suffer the same fate! These missions are short and easier than the fort attacks, but still enjoyable and can be tense as often successfully conducting a train robbery (or train defence) will decide whether you or your enemy will get to buy an additional army.
And that’s about it as far as The Bluecoats: North & South goes, as while the game has a myriad of game modes each is short but sweet. The campaign is essentially four scenarios back-to-back which are loosely based on the historic progress of the war in each year from 1861 to 1864, with some tweaked starting armies and regions pre-allocated. The game also has a free play mode which lets you select either the RTS or the two FPS modes and gives you some choice with regards to settings so that you can play each mode at your leisure without needing to mix and match them as per the campaign gameplay. Finally you can play each mode either against the AI or against a friend, acquittance, lover, relative, or exceptionally-intelligent-pet either online or in split-screen. Ultimately this is a game that’s intended for short bursts as playing through each of the campaign scenarios shouldn’t take you very long (around 2 hours), and if you win a handful of the initial engagements in a campaign it’s entirely possible to win in only one or two turns as the game has a powerful snowball effect in play. Part of this is that the more armies you have, the more regions you can capture. Another part is that you gain a bonus for having more regions/states at the start of each turn, which gives you one extra gold. When you consider that having more regions almost certainly means you have more forts and are thus earning more money anyway, it puts your opponent at a serious financial disadvantage. To win all you need to do is defeat every enemy army and make sure they can’t afford to buy a new one on their next turn, at which point you get a cute little victory screen and not much fanfare.
In conclusion then The Bluecoats: North & South is a short but sweet hybrid game with a charming art-style and a handful of relatively simple gameplay modes. It’s not a deep game by any means, but it’s a blast to play and manages to keep mixing things up so that it never feels stale at any given moment. The developers have done a good job of making every engagement feel important, as you can easily snatch victory from the jaws of defeat (or vice-versa) with a hard well-fought battles. Plus as you’ll be switching between TBS, RTS and FPS frequently you need to become competent at each to have any chance of victory, lest your brilliantly capable army fail to storm a fort repeatedly. While the AI is a little easy on normal, it’s a decent challenge on hard and of course the multiplayer mode provides plenty of opportunity for glory or upset. As such I’d have no problem recommending The Bluecoats: North & South to anyone regardless of skill level or even fondness for videogames, especially as it’s priced as a budget title and has full multiplayer support.
