Wiiware Review: Swords & Soldiers

I have to say this first before I give you my thoughts on this game; I am not really a fan of RTS games at all. When I heard that one was coming out for Wiiware, I was quite skeptical, and thought it was going to be quite a boring experience, holy crap was I wrong. Swords & Soldiers is a simple, action packed RTS that will not only frustrate you, but it will also make you happy at the same time.

Developer: Ronimo Games
Publisher: Same as Developer
Genre: Side Scrolling RTS
Rating: E10+ (Cartoon Violence)
Price: 1,000 Wiiware Points ($10.00)
# of Players: 1-2 players (2 player vs. only)

The story goes like this, there are three factions (Vikings, Aztecs, and Chinese) that are trying to either obtain an item, get to a barbeque, or get a red pepper for a roast. Honestly, this is the best way I could explain it to you, but do not worry, the story is not the most important part of the game. All it really does is slap a reason on top of why you are killing everybody, and it does an adequate job. There is no voice acting, but the written text is humorous most of the time, not to mention helpful in certain situations, so try to pay attention as much as possible.

The music is great, and really adds some unique flavor to the game. As the Chinese, you will hear softer, gentler music with flute and chime sounds occurring in the background. The Vikings music is more intense, with a lot of pulsating drum beats going on. finally, the Aztecs have that strange Egyptian, belly dancing music vibe going on. Each set of background music is great, and gives each campaign a unique sense of style.

You will also hear a lot of booms, ahs, crushes, smashes, zapping noises, and so on as you play throughout each level, and they sound good enough, but of course are not entirely realistic. Each character that you command will say something unique once you have command them into battle(ex. Goldfinder, I am Tiger Man, etc.), some of these are funny, but most of them get repetitive after awhile.

Swords & Soldiers looks great, and almost makes you feel like you are playing castle crashers, the side-scrolling RTS edition. Each character is designed unique according to their factions, and there are a wide range of characters for each faction. You will have anything from big bearded guys with axes, bald monks, Aztec wizards, Indians who shoot darts, and so on. Each character looks like they should, and do have some personality as to how they die, and how they move. The backgrounds are adequate at best, they mostly consist of rock pathways with two statues at each end. More variety in level design would have been nice, but what you get is not necessarily bad either.

Getting a grasp of the controls is much easier than you think. You use the pointer icon by aiming your Wii remote on the screen, and then press the A button to select whatever icon you want, which is displayed on a bar at the top of the screen. You can access magic spells, each different member of your team to create a new unit, and so on. The idea of the game is to gather as much gold as you can to build enough troops, and to learn enough spells, so that you can make it from one side of the screen to the other. You access your upgrade menu by hitting the B button, select what upgrade you want, and wait for it to upgrade. Each selection you make has a timer as to when it will be activated, when the circles fills up around the picture, you can use whatever is associated with that specific icon.

As complicated as that sounded, it really just comes down to pointing and clicking to get what you want. The game is not easy to complete though, let me just remind of you that. You could have every healing and attack spell in the world, mash as many enemies as you want to the side of screen, but it does not mean that you are always going to win. Sometimes you might have to divert from enemies to save your health, take down towers to move across areas, have no money to create more troops, fight against a number of enemies that could take you down easily if you do not plan ahead. It becomes a tug of war match between you and your opponent, just hope that you are the one who takes down their base first.

As hard as Swords & Soldiers was for me at times, that does not mean that it was not fun to play. The level of difficulty made the game challenging enough for me to keep going, but not too frustrating that it made me want to quit either.

There is a lot of replay value in this game as well. There are 25 achievements that you can earn as you progress through the campaign, as well as 3 challenge minigames to unlock (Survival, Berserker Run, and a Boulder game). They were fun, and did have leaderboards for you to show to your friends, but there is not much more to them than that. You can also have a skirmish match against the computer, or play against a friend locally in a multiplayer battle. While all of these extra modes can be fun to play, the ability to share your scores in the minigames, and to play against other people online would have been nice to see. I am still stuck trying to finish the last two levels of all of the campaigns, and I have already been playing the game for over six hours, so you do get your money’s worth.

Swords & Soldiers is a fun, addicting, and sometimes frustrating side scrolling RTS game. People who are fans of RTS games will appreciate the difficulty level, while others will appreciate the simple control scheme. To put it in simple words, just buy this game, you will have a good time with it, enough said. (A)

- Matt H