Thronefall Review (Jasper)
What I liked
- Easy going RTS: It reminded me of how relaxing but still active Vampire Survivor was. The impact you have during a wave is small but still detrimental. This keeps you busy without feeling like you have to play perfectly.
- Predefined building placement: Having all the buildings in predefined places makes you focus on just one aspect of RTS games, what to buy next. It also gives you nice looking towns without having to put in any work.
- Townhall building expansion: Its nice how you only get a limited amount of building options until you upgrade the townhall. This makes you less overwhelmed by options.
- Upgrades: The upgrades feel good. They give you interesting ways to play and things to focus on. Like the townhall upgrade that will upgrade 1 free house every round. It makes you want to have a un-upgraded house ready every round.
- Unit strength and weakness: Instead of going for the standard rock/paper/scissor model there is more depth to your units.
- Steam friend list highscores: The highscores are a nice add especially if you have some friends on Steam that you can compete with. Having a time bonus for the scoring means that there is many ways to make a difference.
- Unique boss: The boss fight was a surprise. It’s simple but I think it works for this game.
- Suicide Mills: I thought the mill upgrade where you turn them into a self detonating weapon when they are destroyed were pretty funny and unique.
What I didn’t like
- Units > Towers: It seems like the towers are significantly weaker than the units you can recruit. But maybe I have not played enough to see how to make them work. In general the balance might be something that needs work.
- Units keep resetting to spawn: You can move your army around and have them wait at a position and even hold their ground but after a wave they will walk back to their original spawn.
- Flying enemy: The visuals of the flying enemy and an enemy that rushes to your buildings are not different enough. I kept mixing them up. Using some sort of wings in the icon and model of the flying enemy should help.
- Tree visuals: The visuals are basic but fine though the yellow blobs that I assume are supposed to be trees don’t look very good.
- No back button in settings: The game is certainly focused on playing with controller. The first time I started the game I had trouble figuring out how to get out of the settings menu. With the ESC key, there was no button.
- Tutorial annoyance: It took me a while to finish the part where you have to kill units with your ability. My passive kept killing them.
- Mission setup UI: It's hard to see what weapon is selected in setup menu. The highlight is very subtle.
Why others should try it
Even in this early stage it is a fun game to play around with. It’s an elegant design that keeps things simple but provides surprising depth. Even if RTS games are not your jam you might still like the simplicity of this one.