Brown Dust is a Pretty Good Anime Strategy RPG

After I posted a video a few days ago on what I can only explain as the worst mobile game I’ve ever played – Dragon Blaze, it was refreshing to play something that actually involved me as a player.
I’m a fan of playing the games I download so.. you know, being able to play them is kind of a pre-requisite for me. Fast-forward to today where I got to play Brown Dust – a strategy RPG suggested by a couple of you guys.

I know Brown Dust is a very.. descriptive name. Like, I get it. They couldn’t just call the game “fart,” so they used “Brown Dust” as a.. euphemism.
Jokes aside, though, Brown Dust is a game that puts you in the shoes of a Mercenary captain – a brand new one working out of the local inn.
The game boasts “captivating and stunning artwork” and they aren’t wrong. The game looks beautiful, as do most strategy RPGs these days it would seem.
There are hundreds of mercenaries to recruit and add to your roster of heroes, taking them into battle and formulating strategies to one-up the enemy team.
There’s a lot to the game from what I’ve seen – a very detailed story featuring a campaign with over 1,200 stages, mercenary upgrades, leveling, the ability to group together with other players to tackle world bosses, and.. well, it’s a strategy RPG.

We all know that combat is an important part of every game. If the combat sucks, then why would you continue playing, right?
Thankfully, even though Brown Dust is a turn-based strategy RPG you have a certain degree of involvement in the course of the battle.
You have to decide which mercenaries you want to take into battle with you, you have to decide on a formation to fit the enemies – because let me tell you.. there are enemy units that just mow you down if you don’t pay attention.
I had that happen once or twice when I was trying to just skip through as fast as I could to make it to the next stage.
You also have the ability to choose an attack order, which – you know, doesn’t really add much more to the gameplay, granted, but it’s still not a bad feature to have.
But other than formation, attack order and mercenary selection, your characters do battle pretty much all on their own.
But that’s alright – that’s to be expected from the kind of game it is.

It’s a very beautiful Anime-inspired strategy RPG.
I’m not sure if all mobile RPGs just look amazing like this or if there are exceptions to the rule and this is one of them but I’ve played a few since beginning the channel and.. I’m impressed.
Characters are all very detailed, units, when deployed in battle are all crisp and the environments, although I didn’t make it too far through the game were gorgeous.
Unfortunately I didn’t have the ability to create a character. I began as a dude in dire need of a haircut ’cause I’m gonna be real here.. there’s no way you could see with those bangs.
You start off with a few friends and everything is more or less pre-determined. But that’s more than fine. It’s a game where your character talks and has an actual personality, so that makes sense.
I still prefer being able to create my character, honestly, but.. I’m not picky.

I had fun. I had a lotta fun.
Yes, the auto-combat can be a little slow at the beginning – especially when your mercenaries go about 1-shotting everything and there’s little to no difficulty at all.
But that changes quite rapidly. I saw the increase in difficulty happening every new chapter I went through with the addition of new enemies, mechanics and introduction of bosses.
And I like difficult games. Not Dark Souls level of difficulty, but.. this was pretty good.
From what I read online the game isn’t riddled with pay to win since every mercenary is capable of maxing themselves out without paying so that’s a plus. Unless I’m mistaken, in which case.. feel free to correct me!
I only made it a certain duration through the game after all!
All in all, again, I had a lotta fun. Brown Dust is a beautiful game with some pretty awesome combat.. if you can get around it being auto after you set the battle up.