Strategy games are pretty rare on a console. It's difficult to argue that RTS titles are better suited for the PC, which offers precise movement and numerous hotkeys. We've seen plenty of attempts, ranging from voice-controlled games to fast-paced heavy metal action games, but all have been found wanting. Bladestorm, released in 2007, was one of the more memorable attempts. It was partially a spiritual sequel to a now-obscure franchise called Kessen, an attempt to mix army-based RTS gameplay with the larger-than-life historical heroes concept of the Dynasty Warriors titles. Unfortunately, it was dragged down by console limitations and some design problems. With Bladestorm: Nightmare, the console limitations are no longer a factor, but despite some noble attempts to update it, the gameplay still feels hopelessly dated.

The story consists of two parts.  The first part is a fairly straight retelling of the Hundred Years' War. Players control a freelance military commander who's seeking fame and profit on the battlefield by joining the French or English side — or swapping between the two during the battle. The second part postulates an alternate history where Joan of Arc makes a deal with dark forces to raise an army of mythological monsters. This mode features dragons and feels more like Soul Caliber or Zelda than any form of realistic history. It's ridiculous but in an enjoyable way, although sadly, Evil Joan of Arc is a flat character.

Unlike traditional Dynasty Warriors games, you are not a one-man army. You have a singular commander unit, but you can't win fights on your own. The gameplay revolves around finding different groups of soldiers to take on enemies. Scattered throughout the battlefield are various types of soldiers, ranging from swordsman and mounted units to archers and wizards. Once you've allied yourself with a group of soldiers, you can also access their strengths and special moves. Unit types can be slightly customized between battles, and you can swap between armies at will. Your goal is to obliterate enemy bases and destroy their armies.

Combat runs into the problem of not being very exciting. Most combat involves just holding down your attack button while numbers pop out, and then you occasionally hit a face button to use special moves, which can be useful but have lengthy cooldown periods. New to Nightmare is the ability to swap between multiple commanders, so you can approach battlefields from multiple fronts to take on enemies from multiple directions. This much-needed gameplay element prevents battles from having too much downtime, which was a serious problem in the original Bladestorm.

Unfortunately, jumping between unit types is far from being exciting. For much of the game, there is no need to consider unit swapping. You're powerful enough that the strengths and weaknesses of individual units matter less than using familiar units. The enemy AI isn't aggressive to punish you for mistakes, and once you get some upgrades, you'll quickly overpower your foes. It's briefly fun, but it quickly becomes tedious due to the more simplistic gameplay.

When the game does put on the pressure, you'll notice that the actual strategic gameplay is awkward. It's frustrating to fumble for the correct unit type. Sometimes, you're forced to wander as you try to find the right one so you can swap to it. The new swapping feature alleviates this somewhat. If it were a harder game, this issue would be crippling. Due to this issue, it's clear that Bladestorm's better off as a game that is too easy instead of too hard. This way, you can at least have some fun smashing through enemies with your well-upgraded army of soldiers.

Bladestorm's biggest problem is that it doesn't know what it wants to be. It feels like it simultaneously wants to be a strategy game and a Warriors-style light action game, but it doesn't capture the strengths of either. The strategic elements are too shallow, but the combat isn't fun enough on its own to grab the Warriors audience. The result is a game that feels like a relic of a bygone era. While console-based RTS titles aren't common, it will take more than something like Nightmare to change that.

Despite that, there is an absurd amount of content in the game. The original Bladestorm is present in its entirety, including multiple plot branches and various sub-missions. There's even a host of customization options for your player-created mercenary. The Nightmare missions are the highlight of the game. They might be silly, but they're more creative and varied than the main story missions. Magic, dragons and weird creatures give the developers more leeway to make things distinctive and memorable. If you enjoy Nightmare's gameplay or were a fan of the original, there is a lot to do here.

The original Bladestorm wasn't a graphical powerhouse on the PS3, and while some visual upgrades were made in this PS4 release, it's still a rather poor-looking game. The character models are quite bad, and the environments are drab. The combat interface could have been cleaned up and smoothed out. Likewise, the voice acting does little to immerse players in the game world. Some of the French accents are atrocious. There have been some high-effort HD ports in the current generation of consoles, but Bladestorm isn't one of them.

Bladestorm: Nightmare is a game with a limited audience. RTS fans will find it too simplistic, and Warriors fans will find the pace to be too slow. It doesn't hit the correct buttons to competently fill either role. The Nightmare-exclusive additions are almost all positive and well-implemented, but they're a thin coat of paint on an increasingly dated product. The game lacks any punch, and it has too many problems for its strengths to shine through. If you're desperate for a RTS on consoles or were a fan of the original, then give this a shot, but most fans will get more enjoyment out of playing as Joan of Arc in Warriors Orochi 3.

Score: 6.5/10