Post by Gilvan Blight on Jul 4, 2007 12:02:57 GMT -5
[glow=red,2,300]Quickly:[/glow] not bad, not what I expected though.
[glow=red,2,300]Summary:[/glow]
This is one of the first if not the first ports of a PC game to the DS. This one takes the Award Winning Age of Empires RTS PC game and shrinks it down to a turn based strategy game on the DS. The game is played either sandbox, on a randomly generated map, where the player decides how many enemies and allies he has, or through a series of set campaigns. There are four campaigns in total each set in a different historic period. There is a Joan of Arc campaign, a Feudal Japan campaign, an Arthurian campaign and one other. These range in difficulty of laughably easy tutorials to hardcore strategy. The game is turn based and plays more like a Generals game or Empire (or Advance Wars for portable fans) then it's RTS PC counterpart. There are a variety of units at your disposal and they all work in the tradition rock paper scissors format of turn based strategies (archers are good against horsemen, horsemen are good against infantry, etc). There are enough types of units to make it more complex then rock paper scissors but it's still the same basic gameplay. Each unit has a series of stats, like attack, defense and movement. In addition they have one called sight that is new to me. This stat determines how many squares away a unit can see an enemy unit and is affected by the type of terrain they are on (for example units up on mountains get a +2 sight bonus). This is a big part of the strategy as being able to see the enemy means being able to attack first which is much better then defending in this game. Added to the basic here's your force, here's the enemy force gameplay are some Civilization style elements. You have Settlers that can build cities, which give you access to better units and a defensible area. There are resources to be gathered (food and gold) also done using the settlers. There is Technology to research as well. The Tech works a bit different from other civ games though as you can pick one new one a turn, and after getting a set number you can advance to the next Age giving you access to more modern tech. The age of Kings part of the game is in relation to your leader on the battlefield. Each army gets a leader who has some sort of special powers that can be used each turn. For example Joan of Arc can heal herself or her units and The Japanese general can cause fear in enemies. This adds a wee bit of RPG feel to the game as you play a character, and in the campaign is based around these historic figures telling a story.
[glow=red,2,300]The Good:[/glow] This is a good semi historic turn based strategy game. It's fairly light which appeals to the handheld gamer: no game will take you more then one night to play (very different from many PC strategy games). The graphics are pretty good for the DS, the sound is even better. The controls are nice as you can use the stylus like a mouse or you can use the control pad to move around, it's nice having the option. The tutorials in game teach everything very well. The addition of the leader abilities are a nice touch and the stories in the campaign featuring these leaders are well written and interesting.
[glow=red,2,300]The Bad:[/glow]Not what I expected. I expected more of the RTS/Civilization feel to this game. This is a lot more like Advance Wars or another military strategy game then it is a civilization building and tech research game. I personally would have preferred a lot more resource gathering, city building and tech researching. As it stands every city is the same, on most maps there is really no reason to build more then one, and after your settlers have grabbed all the local resources they become useless. Tech development is just a matter of clicking on a menu and getting some behinds the scenes bonuses and it just doesn't feel like you are 'growing'. All of this pretty much made me give up on the game after the second Japanese campaign mission, I just lost interest in playing.
[glow=red,2,300]The Ugly[/glow]I found some issues using the stylus, where it would tap areas I didn't want to and I would end up moving units to squares I didn't want them in, totally messing up whatever strategy I had planned. There isn't an undo button either so this could often be a frustratingly fatal mistake. I found this problem quickly fixed by swapping to the control pad to make unit moves, which greatly helped. After about 6 missions you will start to realize that every mission is pretty much the same. There just isn't enough variety. Sure you face different foes, but in every game you build pretty much the same units, then slowly upgrade to better units until you are tough enough to take out the enemy.
[glow=red,2,300]Overall:[/glow]If you like Unit based turn based strategies you will probably love this game and it will fit in well with your Advance Wars and Fire Emblem collection. If like me you prefer games like Civilization, you may be disappointed in this one. One good thing, this game can be found for $20 so it's probably worth trying out if you like either type of strategy game, unlike me though you will know what you are getting into.
[glow=red,2,300]Summary:[/glow]
This is one of the first if not the first ports of a PC game to the DS. This one takes the Award Winning Age of Empires RTS PC game and shrinks it down to a turn based strategy game on the DS. The game is played either sandbox, on a randomly generated map, where the player decides how many enemies and allies he has, or through a series of set campaigns. There are four campaigns in total each set in a different historic period. There is a Joan of Arc campaign, a Feudal Japan campaign, an Arthurian campaign and one other. These range in difficulty of laughably easy tutorials to hardcore strategy. The game is turn based and plays more like a Generals game or Empire (or Advance Wars for portable fans) then it's RTS PC counterpart. There are a variety of units at your disposal and they all work in the tradition rock paper scissors format of turn based strategies (archers are good against horsemen, horsemen are good against infantry, etc). There are enough types of units to make it more complex then rock paper scissors but it's still the same basic gameplay. Each unit has a series of stats, like attack, defense and movement. In addition they have one called sight that is new to me. This stat determines how many squares away a unit can see an enemy unit and is affected by the type of terrain they are on (for example units up on mountains get a +2 sight bonus). This is a big part of the strategy as being able to see the enemy means being able to attack first which is much better then defending in this game. Added to the basic here's your force, here's the enemy force gameplay are some Civilization style elements. You have Settlers that can build cities, which give you access to better units and a defensible area. There are resources to be gathered (food and gold) also done using the settlers. There is Technology to research as well. The Tech works a bit different from other civ games though as you can pick one new one a turn, and after getting a set number you can advance to the next Age giving you access to more modern tech. The age of Kings part of the game is in relation to your leader on the battlefield. Each army gets a leader who has some sort of special powers that can be used each turn. For example Joan of Arc can heal herself or her units and The Japanese general can cause fear in enemies. This adds a wee bit of RPG feel to the game as you play a character, and in the campaign is based around these historic figures telling a story.
[glow=red,2,300]The Good:[/glow] This is a good semi historic turn based strategy game. It's fairly light which appeals to the handheld gamer: no game will take you more then one night to play (very different from many PC strategy games). The graphics are pretty good for the DS, the sound is even better. The controls are nice as you can use the stylus like a mouse or you can use the control pad to move around, it's nice having the option. The tutorials in game teach everything very well. The addition of the leader abilities are a nice touch and the stories in the campaign featuring these leaders are well written and interesting.
[glow=red,2,300]The Bad:[/glow]Not what I expected. I expected more of the RTS/Civilization feel to this game. This is a lot more like Advance Wars or another military strategy game then it is a civilization building and tech research game. I personally would have preferred a lot more resource gathering, city building and tech researching. As it stands every city is the same, on most maps there is really no reason to build more then one, and after your settlers have grabbed all the local resources they become useless. Tech development is just a matter of clicking on a menu and getting some behinds the scenes bonuses and it just doesn't feel like you are 'growing'. All of this pretty much made me give up on the game after the second Japanese campaign mission, I just lost interest in playing.
[glow=red,2,300]The Ugly[/glow]I found some issues using the stylus, where it would tap areas I didn't want to and I would end up moving units to squares I didn't want them in, totally messing up whatever strategy I had planned. There isn't an undo button either so this could often be a frustratingly fatal mistake. I found this problem quickly fixed by swapping to the control pad to make unit moves, which greatly helped. After about 6 missions you will start to realize that every mission is pretty much the same. There just isn't enough variety. Sure you face different foes, but in every game you build pretty much the same units, then slowly upgrade to better units until you are tough enough to take out the enemy.
[glow=red,2,300]Overall:[/glow]If you like Unit based turn based strategies you will probably love this game and it will fit in well with your Advance Wars and Fire Emblem collection. If like me you prefer games like Civilization, you may be disappointed in this one. One good thing, this game can be found for $20 so it's probably worth trying out if you like either type of strategy game, unlike me though you will know what you are getting into.