Swords & Soldiers HD

Game Info

As this is my first written and published review, I’d thank my good friends at GameGravy for having me join them, as well as the wonderful gaming companies that allow us an early chance to play the titles that they’ve spent countless hours of their hard work on… But I digress, onto the review!

 

It was quite interesting to me to review this game, not being too familiar with Two Tribes former titles.  But delving into SWORDS & SOLDIERS made me quite interested to check out their other games.  SWORDS & SOLDIERS is a fun little game, akin to the tower defense/destroy genre in which you control a massive army of Vikings, Aztec or the Chinese.  You’re able to send out  melee fighters, long range fighters (throwing axes, bow & arrow, or even a catapult!), as well as spells to attack the enemies.  Your resources are controlled by having a set of characters that do nothing but mine gold for you to expand your army, as well as a mana system that allows you to heal your soldiers, or for instance, cast lightning at your enemies.

With levels lasting an average of 3 to 8 minutes each, SWORDS & SOLDIERS is great game to be able to just pick up and play, even just using the Wii U touch pad (you’re also able to play using the Wii remote, if you’re into that sort of thing).  The first few levels are given to you as a chance to learn the ins and outs of the gameplay, and to learn about how valuable the mining characters are, as you can only have a max of 10 of them at a time.  I quickly found myself getting them out there ASAP to not waste time.  The upgrades you can receive for each army are topped off by your ‘ultimate’ spell, be that Thor for the Vikings, who will throw down his mighty Mjolnir hammer, electrifying all the enemies with the radius, or the Chinese army, who has a mighty dragon fly over the battlefield, using the touch screen, to breath fire down upon your enemies.

The sound track is enjoyable yet forgettable as an almost Lord of the Rings-esque soundtrack guides you through the game, while the actual gameplay sounds found me turning the volume off after the 5th or so level. The graphics are fun, cartoonish and have lots of bright colors thrown in that takes advantage of our luscious HD tvs.  There is also a slight diversity in each army unit enough so to easily distinguish them, but the actual icons you’d click to spawn them are very similar and I found myself repeatedly spending money on a unit I didn’t want or need.  My main gripe with the game seems to be that at certain points in the level when you get barraged with enemies, is that your victory truly relies on how quickly you can spam your warriors out onto the battlefield, and you’d be easily pressed to find similar gameplay on a free flash game, yet not nearly as many levels.  Also a clunky healing spell that will sometimes cast and not be able to save your soldier can leave you frustrated at a pivotal moment in combat.

 The Recommendation

All in all, this would have to be one of the more fun downloadable games I’ve played in recent memory.  I’d highly recommend this game to fans of the tower defense/Worms genre, as well as anyone that’s looking for a quirky pick-me-up-and-play-one-round game.