Difficulty:

Very Easy

Time Spent:

10 Hours or Less

The Bottom Line:

"Just plain fun"

DISCLAIMER
Reviewed for The Autonomous Regime Union.
Review copy of software provided by Ronimo Games.
Use only as directed. Batteries not included.

Swords & Soldiers is a side scrolling real time strategy (RTS) game from Ronimo Games, the same creative team that came up with de Blob back in 2006. It was originally developed for the Wii but was recently given a facelift and re-released on PS3, PC and Mac. This review is for the PC version of the game.

The game offers 30 levels spread across three campaigns; Vikings, Aztecs and Chinese. Level design is very basic with most levels simply requiring you to make your way from your base on the left to an objective on the right whilst enemy troops flow in a steady stream towards you. To achieve this goal you have a variety of troops, skills, spells and towers at your disposal. These vary significantly between the three races, keeping the game fresh and enjoyable as you play thru the story.

Despite a potentially large arsenal you start most levels with nothing and must unlock the units, skills and spells you wish to use. This is very simple and achieved by purchasing upgrades in a tiered upgrade "tree". Initially, you are only able to purchase upgrades on the top row. However, once they are unlocked, the upgrades directly below them become available. In the early stages of each level your gold is scarce, so a good upgrade strategy is important. Do you concentrate on gathering gold, build lots of basic troops for an early win or go nuts upgrading to get the best spells? Whilst the upgrade tree adds strategy to the game it unfortunately falls short of adding any real meat as there are few upgrade options and you can afford all of them in a very short period of time.

No RTS game is complete without some sort of resource gathering and Swords & Soldiers is no exception. There are two types of currency in the game; gold and mana. Gold is used to purchase upgrades, troops and towers whilst mana is used for skills or spells. Gold and Mana steadily increase over time, however you have a few options to speed up the flow. To increase your gold income you can create Gold Miners whilst your mana can be raised by using skills, finding chests or building statues.

Aside from gold miners you can create many different offensive troops. The majority are simple close/ranged melee units with varying power or health, but there area few truly unique units as well. For example the Aztecs can build Necromancers which raise the dead whilst the Chinese have Zen Masters (weak but with 1 hit kill attacks) and Ninja monkeys which attack and then teleport past each bad guy. You can'tprotect your base with just troops though so each level comes with a few locations where you can build a towers. The Vikings and Aztecs can build offensive towers whilst the Chinese towers increase the rate of your mana regeneration.

Upon creation, offensive units will immediately start moving towards the enemy as they wouldin a tower defence game. Unlike a standard RTS there is no need to micro manage your troops however youoccasionally have the option of sending your troops on a high or a low road. Although the end result is the same,the different paths often contain varying enemy numbers and types. Considering you have such limited control over your troops be prepared for heavy losses and remember that steady income and fast troop creationare essential to your victory.

Whilst the levels and base game play are entertaining the real fun in Swords & Soldiers comes with the special skills and magic employed by each race. The Vikings are the most simplistic of the three with skills like healing, shielding, snowstorms (slows the enemy down) and Thor's lightning bolts. Their simple magic and strong ground troops make them a formidable foe and the easiest to play.

The Aztecs have the weakest soldiers. However they have some great skills like poison bombs, mind control and the ability to raise the dead. Whilst strong, these powers cost a lot of mana. Luckily the Aztecs also have an ability where they can sacrifice their own troops to get more mana! Double bonus, you can then use your necromancers to raise the guys you just sacrificed :D

The Chinese have a nice mix of strong soldiers and powerful magic however the best part about the Chinese missions is the way the levels are designed. You're up against the strongest opponents but using your unique soldier cIass and magic you can overcome each obstacle. Enemy giants or catapults can kill tons of your ground troops, however one Zen Master or magic arrow storm and they're toast!

Combine the easy to play mechanics with an amusing storyline, funny sound effects and cartoony graphics and you have yourself a title that is brimming with personality and a load of fun to play. It's a very well put together game abundant in humour and a unique styIe of game play most likely not seen before by most gamers.

If that's not enough for youRonimo have included a bunch of additional modes to keep you playing. First up is challenge mode where you can play mini games and see how you rate on a global stage. Challenges include tasks like seeing how far you can advance with a single unit, seeing how many enemies you can kill with a rolling boulderand a survival challenge where you try to stay alive as long as you can.

Next is a single player Skirmish mode. In this you choose your map, race and CPU level then go nuts to see who wins. An advantage of this mode is that all your race's skills are available to unlock from the start (in campaign they are made available as you progress through the levels).

The final additional mode is online multiplayer (Steam compatible). Whilst this is just skirmish against another human it can be an interesting diversion if you get tired of the scripted AI opponents. One particularly nice feature of the multiplayer is that it will search for a multiplayer game whilst you are playing single player. If it finds a match it will join up and, upon completion of the multiplayer game, will return you to your single player game exactly where you left it. This is a great feature as I found matches to be fairly scarce. The ability to send friend invites and leave the game finder running in the background means that you are free from sitting in a lobby waiting for a game to become available.

Achievement wise Swords and Soldiers is fairly easy. There are 20 Steam achievements and all are fun to go for. You get 3 for completing each of the 3 campaigns, 1 for completing 20 online matches and the rest are challenges like finish level X without losing a tower. My personal favourite is "Son of Norris", which you earn if you're able to kill 36 units with a single guy :)

The only negative side of this game is that it is short and not very difficult. The first half of each campaign teaches you how to use the race specific skills and the only really challenging level is the very last one in the Chinese campaign. Each level can be completed in 5-15 minutes and the entire campaign only takes about 2-3 hours to complete.

Whilst the side scrolling RTS format works very well for consoles it remains to be seen how a PC market will take to a simplified RTS title. This simplified control coupled with the game difficulty and short length certainly work against it, however the low price and charisma of the game are enough to get it over the line as a great title for me. Swords & Soldiers is a unique title with spades of charisma that everyone should play!