Liberty or Death (1993 SNES):

It's an American Revolutionary War Strategy Game! Well, Calling Liberty or Death a strategy game is a bit generous. It's much more a resource management game with a historical framework. Every move you make takes a certain resource, whether its food, gunpowder, or troops. The battle system is really limited. You move one square at a time, and troops need to be right next to each other to attack. For this reason, it doesn't hold up. I always wanted to like this game more than I actually do.

It's quite literally just whoever has the most things wins. For a historical game, I understand this. It puts the pressure on the players to launch quick and smart attacks, but the one move at a time mechanic really limits your paths to victory. For the British, you want to use your Navy to quickly cut off America from Europe, and capture Philadelphia, or the American General. (Washington)

Now, if you're the Americans, you want to seize Boston to cut off the English Navy immediately, and send delegates to Europe to gain support and allies. Just like Washington did. You can also capture the English General. (Cornwallis.) If you can gain enough support/denial for American independence by running newspapers and delegates to states, they can switch sides from the British to the American army or vice versa.

The resource management and delegate processes can actually be pretty fun, and it's always satisfying to gain support from such-and-such new state. However, the battle system is just tedious and not fun, when it should be the focus of the game, because you'll be doing it a lot. Like I said, everything moves one square, and everything has to be close up to attack. Even the guns. Add to this that you need to manage each resource before battle (Troops run out of food and powder.) and it makes the gameplay very dull...you'll have to use bayonets if you run out of powder, or the battle just ends if you don't have enough food.

In spite of this, I just thought I'd write about this weird historical strategy game because it had so much promise. Some of the resource management is fun! It's always fun to get new troops or new support. But, the part that should be fun, battling, isn't. If you don't end the game before 1800, the game ends with British victory automatically, and Thomas Gage becomes Lord Governor of the 13 Colonies. It's a shame then, that America only has a small path to victory. It's historical, but that also means it's limited.

Surprisingly, I thought the strongest point of the game was also it's biggest weakness...the music. The same 1-minute battle ditty plays on loop for every battle, which gets annoying when you're moving square by square. Now, during the resource management phases you get rousing midis with flute noises and drums, and even “The Star-Spangled Banner". An upbeat continenntal theme which calls America “The Land of Liberty and Justice” plays in the event of an American Victory.

Overall, “Liberty or Death” is a nice educational resource management game. There's sort of an idea of a strategy game there, but it falls flat and the most exciting parts quickly become the most tedious. I'd say unless you really like historical tactics games, you're better off skipping this one. It has some cool ideas though, as sort of a historical “what if?”. Unfortunately, as much as I want to wonder “What if the Spanish had helped American independence instead of France?” I just keep wondering “What if this game were more exciting?”