Vikings are legendary people who, even in this age and era, continue to be inspiration for many works of art. They are know as violent and ruthless warriors by some and as adventurers by others. It is a long gone culture that lives on by the many representations it has…but this one has to be the most wacky and fun ever done.
Swords and Soldiers is a game that had been released in previous consoles like Wii, 3DS and many others. Even so, it makes sense to have the game that started it all, especially with the sequel coming soon. The game is a real time strategy game with tower defense elements in which you play as one of four different factions: The Vikings, The Aztecs, The Chinese, and the DLC quest Chief Meat, each one with its own wacky story line.
The game play is presented in a 2D lane in which your ultimate objective is to defeat your enemy. However, you need to think on how to approach said enemy. You have a your disposal limited gold and mana at the beginning of each phase, so how should you spend it? Should you invest everything on gold gatherers (miners), so you can have a steady flow of gold and therefore recruit powerful units from the beginning? Or, do you take a more careful approach and even the spending in miners and soldiers? These are tough decisions to make, especially since the enemy is sending soldiers to attack you.
Once you have made up your mind and invested in the units, you need to just sit back and enjoy the show, since your units move and act automatically. However, that doesn’t mean that the battle has been won, since if you scroll over to get a better view of the battlefield, you can see that there are mines that are not occupied. If you send a miner there, you can claim it for yourself and get more gold, raising your changes to success and allowing you to send more units to the battlefield.
You also have some magic skills at your disposal. To use them, you need enough mana. Some of them heal your units. Others empower them, and there is even a powerful skill that damages all enemies on the field. However, besides mana, after using them they have a cooldown period, so you need to be careful how to use them.
Another thing I like a lot is that on the field there are branching paths. These paths offer two possibilities: one a safe route and a dangerous route. You can choose from which route your units can travel. The safe route offers little treasure and dangers, but the dangerous route offers more rewards. However, as the name implies, the danger level is quite hard. Knowing when to venture through these routes can mean defeat or victory.
But where the fun really starts is in multiplayer mode. This version of the game even has touch screen multiplayer (not fan of it; joycons are good enough for me) with the same rules of the campaign being applied here. I played with my kid a lot, and we had some long gold gathering matches, waiting to get enough to send a battalion to see who will win. It’s really fun, and there were some hectic battles indeed.
The game looks good with a really colorful cartoonish style. The music is good, and while sometimes the text on screens looks a little blurry , once in the heat of battle that is nothing to worry about.
Bottom Line: Swords and Soldiers is one game that has aged really well, and the Nintendo Switch version can be considered the definitive version. With fun multiplayer action and four really wacky and hilarious stories, if you haven’t played the game yet, this is your chance.
A Review Code was provided for this review.