Publisher CE-Asia and developer Azure Flame Studio have just announced that they will soon be releasing their JRPG and turn-based strategy title Banner of the Maid for consoles later this year. Initially launched for the PC in China in May of 2019, it soon got a western release via Steam earlier this year in February and has since gathered a fervent following from RPG fans, currently boasting a Very Positive rating on its Steam page.
Banner of the Maid is a strategy-based role-playing game which is set in an alternate version of the French Revolution, littered with fantasy and magical elements. Players assume the role of the young Pauline Bonaparte (the sister of the up and coming general Napoleon). Through a mixture of cunning and courage, players must guide Pauline and her troops to victory while also treading the complicated political field of the time, making necessary alliances and winning the support of the different factions present such as the Royalists, the Club des Feuillants, the Jacobins, and the Malmaisons. Unknown to her enemies, Pauline has one more asset aside from her skills both on and off the battlefield: she is also a Maid, “one of the fabled women with mysterious powers capable of turning the tide of a battle”.
Banner of the Maid is not a game that a newbie to RPGs or strategy games might immediately understand. Most of the criticism against it is pointed towards its very challenging, sometimes unforgiving, difficulty, whether it’s through managing your troops’ skills, resources, and strategic locations while at war, or whether its walking through the bureaucratic and political muck faithful to the time period. With more than 30 iconic characters from history to meet (Napoleon, Robespierre, and Murat to name a few), players must also strike a delicate balance between victories on the battlefield through brilliant tactics, and managing intrigue, political connections, and relationships among the different factions present in the game, all while in the middle of the turmoil that is the French Revolution.
Fans of the RPG genre will surely appreciate this console release for Banner of the Maid. No exact date has been confirmed yet, but it has been guaranteed to launch for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch later this year.
