Resume
- one Introduction
- two Real-time and linear strategy
- 3 Long and short multiplayer battles
- 4 Two mini-games to “end the party”
- 5 Conclusions
- 6 Trailer
Swords & Soldiers was a digital video game released in 2009, developed by the Dutch Ronimo Games (@ronimogames) who, by the way, also developed Awesomenauts. The first title combined real-time strategy linearly Y no troop control (That is, these move independently) along with a good sense of humor, some very attractive designs and a good execution in general. Swords & Soldiers is a proposal only within consoles, and rarely seen on PC due to its “basic” nature.
But just because a video game is simple in its mechanics, doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have variants everywhere, lots of fun, and on top of that it turns out to be a great game. One of the best examples of this would be Plants Vs. Zombies and its subsequent installments, each one an overwhelming success both critically and in sales.
Introduction
Swords & Soldiers, like Plants Vs. Zombies, is also a title that has been released for multiple platforms, and its second title installment Swords & Soldiers II it only came out for Wii U, in 2015. Although we had Swords & Soldiers on PS3, there were no plans for a second installment, until now, bordering on 2019, which we already have available an improved version from that Wii U Swords & Soldiers II.
Come on, we’ve basically waited almost ten years to see the second installment on PlayStation consoles.
Old Barbarossa welcomes us to the story mode, a mode the sea of fun where all the action is enjoyed with different characters, many scenarios, and above all, a lot of comedy. All this with 2D designs that are very well crafted and pleasant to look at. It goes without saying that the work on the animations has been improved since the first installment – which was not a bad thing, by the way. Offering us one of the most attractive digital video games with non-polygonal graphics of the year.
Real-time and linear strategy
In Swords & Soldiers II: Shawarmageddon a very old concept of video games of this genre is recovered, and that concept is none other than the mines and the workers, as happened in Warcraft: Orcs & Men, one of the first strategy video games, after the first title of this genre in real time that is remembered, of course, called Dune II: The Building of a Dynasty (titled Battle for Arrakis in the European version and in the Megadrive version). The mechanics are simple, we must create workers to send them to the mines, and they will return with a sack of gold on their backs, providing us with the most important resource in each battle: gold to be able to create units and research.
However, the main difference between Swords & Soldiers and the rest of the video games of the genre is that here we do not control the troops, these go freely in a straight line to fulfill their objective: Attack the enemy base, and of course, this makes each type of soldier go at a different speed, causing one and the other to go ahead from time to time, without us having a chance to make them stop, wait, move or patrol. Nor can we select which unit to attackthey will simply attack the first one they meet, and sometimes they will change targets due to their danger.
In story mode we will alternate between the three factions of the game, Vikings, Demons and Persians, due to the situation of each mission. You can also change the game concept and directly have no mines in some missions, and we will have to adapt to the gold that we have and that we collect by sending one of the workers to look for the gold blocks that fall from the sky.
Each faction has pros and cons. We can research combat units, but also spells powerful that we can launch directly at the units of the plane. All this with a very simple gameplay where we will only use some buttons on the controller, and the L2 and R2 triggers.
Each of the main missions of the game that make up the story, offers us two challenges in addition to the main objective, and they will assign us a medal every time we do it. In short, 3 medals per mission to make a total of 90 medals in his story mode. Of course, we should not expect these medals to be given to us, obtaining them will require us to do some missions almost to the millimeter accuracy. If I have to talk about it, I will say that there are few secondary objectives that are easy, most are usually difficult and complicated to achieve.
But apart from the story mode, we also have the mode Free Battle, where we can fight against the AI or against another player with any of the three factions. And just in case some faction doesn’t convince the player at all, we can customize with the units and spells of the three factions our repertoire for custom games, causing us to have spells and combat units mixed between the Persians, Vikings and demons. Do you want to have a Viking hero, two Persian spells, one Demon and one Viking, plus units of all three types? You can do it in this free mode.
Every stage, every unit and every animation look wonderfullythe level is as high as a Rayman Origins for making comparisons, therefore, Bravo for Ronimo Games for presenting us with the best possible version of one of its best sagas without a doubt.
And despite the fact that a fog hides the stage from us at the beginning of each game, as any video game of the real-time strategy genre would do, on the other hand, these stages with their enormous variety of locations that will take us to snow-covered Nordic mountains , and desolate nocturnal landscapes with rain, have a visual finish worth seeing.
Long and short multiplayer battles
As in any video game of the genre, there are online multiplayer battles that can last a few minutes, but nevertheless, some can last beyond 25 minutes, since it depends 100% on the skill and management capacity of each player.
We will be able to see combat statistics in any game mode, including multiplayer, and they have also added a mode local split screen multiplayerwhich is a detail that is greatly appreciated for those who want to play games at home with a friend or family member.
In addition, the split screen mode has the option to increase game speed, making our collectors go much faster to get the gold from the mines. Therefore, a game of ten minutes can last less than four if desired.
In short, it must be said that in terms of content the game is very usefuloffering us many things to do
Two mini-games to “end the party”
In Swords & Soldiers II they have come up with the fabulous idea of adding two mini-games very worthy and with global statistics, who take advantage of the universe in a wonderful way. In one of them we will become the demon Matt, and we will have to protect with our powerful meteorites a sheep that is located right in the center of the stage, only enemies come to the left and right, and our sheep is too weak.
These video games are very addictive and they also have their three challenges in case we are able to overcome them. If you’ve been playing these mini-games for the last hour instead of story mode or online multiplayer, don’t worry, you won’t be the first to experience this.
Conclusions
Ronimo Games is proving once again that it is a developer that takes your video games very seriously. Although they all have touches of humor and comedy here and there, they are works very well done in every way. They are experts on how a video game with such a basic concept can provide you with so many hours of fun, can work properly without failureand be made with love and care in every detail.
We do not know if one day they will explore other video games, let’s say, “less comedy and more dramatic”, but for now, despite having only a few developed video games behind them, it can be said that everything they do, you can be sure that it is an very high quality product.
If you are a person who is interested in trophies, say that Swords & Soldiers II: Shawarmageddon no platinum trophyonly 100%, just as it happened with its first installment on PS3 Swords & Soldiers. Their difficulty would be above 5/10 in this sense, as was also the case in the first part, they are not very easy video games, and they require practice and perseverance to achieve 100%. One of the trophies requires you win 100 fights online for example.
A fun genius both alone and accompanied, that perhaps if you had voices in Spanish it would be even more funbut it is a minor detail, because listening to the songs of the drunk vikings must be funny in any language.
