Recent reviews by Askalan

Game is out for a year now. I bought it during sale, cause I was interested in the campaigns...And well guess what after 16 hours, dozens of battles and nearing the end of the first campaign I started, the last minor update apparently broke all savegames...yeah ...not nice.

I really like this game... it is fun, it is challenging the cutscenes are well made the characters unique.

But HOLY HELL the lack of any save/load system in the campaign or even a emperor damn "restart mission" button is mindflayingly annoying.

Like i love hard strategy games, but i am also a perfectionist who wants to preserve units and do well.

and the fact that for restarting i have to go back to menu, back through (skippable) mission briefing, back through some skipable cutscene and NON-skipable second mission briefing is really really really damn annoying.

I am sorry, I really am, but that is such a basic and common quality of life feature missing, I have to give the game a negative review...

which is sad, cause that is the only negative point about this game, but is pretty much experience breaking

Okay, finished both campaigns and some skirmishes now, so here is my fazit:

It is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ amazing!

Two detailed campaigns with great cutscenes, interactive missionbriefings, some strategic decision making (what doctrin you wanna go for aka what set of boni fit your playstyle).

Both factions feels unique with strenght, weaknesses ad clearly different playstyles without being better or worse than the other.

This is what command and Conquer felt like in its haydays, yet while it is very clearly inspired by C&C (i almost expected Kayne to jump out from a corner any minute now XD), it still has its own character.

Overall, this is what classic, base-building RTS could take as the new standard, a worthy and cherishable successor to C&C. I firmly look forward for what will come in the future from this game and these devs.

No...just no

3 crashes, 2 game breaking bugs, 5 more annoying bugs within the irst 20 minutes of "trying" to get the game working.

10 minutes game play...and it doesn't even feel remotely like the old games. The characters feel flat, the voices don't fit, the controls are okay.

Seriously, for that price, this is just a desicration of the series.

I gonna refund, maybe in a few months, when the game has been finished (cause this is beyond polishing) and with a heavy sale, one can consider it, but thats the most positive i can say right now.

TLDR: Great game for its scope - This is an example of an amazing Indie game.
Game is Early access with a good 15 hours gameplay per run (replayability is good). With the previous game (of the same style) the Developer communicated actively and updated regulary, so I have a good feeling being patient about this one.

+ This game has a simple pixel graphic that manages to still immerse you in your role.
+ Combat as well as most action is mostly virtual dice rolls, yet you still have a surprising depth of tactical decision to make.
+ Initial tutorial gives one a decent overview of how to train yourself and your century
+ The game does an amazing job of telling the story of Cearsars campaigns in Gallica (today's france).


- Either I was REALLY unlucky or RNG needs some tweaking. The amount of times I missed in combat despite having +20-40 modifiers was baffling....
- Game could do a tad better explaining when which combat action (attack, feint, shield bash) makes sense. It would also be really cool if you had a "wait" button. Cause sometimes it is simple not worth attacking and wasting energy.
- You start with 74 Man in your Century. I never got any reinforcement to come to my full 80 (lost 4 more men througout the campaign) Not sure if that feauture is missing or if it is so hidden i never saw it.
- I managed to get promoted to the highest Rank of Centurion, yet never got command over a chohort. Would be really cool if you at some point got a bigger body of man to command, and therefore a bigger influence on battles.

Interesting game. It is still rather rough, with quite a couple of bugs. For example pressing "M" (for Map I assume) instantly crashes the game. And the tutorial screen that say "press any key" often don't register any key being press, so one has to restart the game.

Other than that neat concept, looking forward to what this game can eventually become, but right now it is only to be bough if you are A) very much into World War I RTS and/or B) you are willing to put up with an *very* early version of the game.

Dear Developers.

Please, have eyes and observe the world.

This game has immense potential, and I look forward to what it might become, but first impressions matters, and this game's first Impression? Unplayable nothing.

Early Access is not a carde blance to get out the first workable prototype.

As a Demo, this might have been, okayish, but for a full game's price, this borders on a scam.

You have not done yourself a favour with this release, and i am stil debating if I want to refund the game, or give you guys a chance, cause i WANT this game to fulfill its potential.

My suggestion? Get your guts together, communicate clearly, frequently and honestly with your community. We gamers are very (maybe too) forgiveable if we feel devs try their honest best and are in an active conversation with us.

But with a release like this you easily look like a scumbag, and if that reputation sticks, your are done for.

I hope you get the curve guys

A number of people are moaning about the Price. and 95% of those have comments turned off.

This isn't a paradox DLC or some Creative assembly BS. This EXPANSION offers easily 5 times the content of the base game. It brings tons of quality of life stuff, offers gate and door for future mods and most of all, the base game is still there. you can still play the base version of Factorio.

I can understand that some people dislike the "no discount" policiy. But in all honesty we gamers constantly get ♥♥♥♥ on by companies who try to sell us low effort, cut out dlc-crap in tiny slices. They do discounts by the dozens, bundle discounts, sales, summer sales, black friday mega sales and what not.

Here we have a damn good quality, high content exspansion, and the dev ask to get paid properly for their work. Quality has its price, and this expansion? it would be worth double the price and still be cheap!

Quite the amazing game. Cool story, plenty of freedom on how you wanna design your ship and a lot of stuff to explore.

This is why Indie games are suprior in my opinion. You have a small studio doing a passion project. There aren't many animations, designs are well made but simple and no one tries to inject any kind of politics into it.

Overall, i can't find a single negative point about the game, unless one counts the wish for more of it. (and no I am not finished with 5 hours, just felt like writing the review now)

Edit 1 Year later:
Game just got "released" out of early access...and I am sad to say that this is a scam. This game got into early access with barely enough content to count as a demo. And it has not got that much more content. 90% of what devs promised is still missing.

The promise that they will keep developing the game after its "full" release...I am sorry I can not belief that. Other games have been in EA for YEARS, constantly developed and updated (Example 7 days to die, or Volcanoids or Blade&Sorcery), the only reason to leave EA at this state of the game would be to cut their losses...which is nothing but a rip off.

It is games like this that give Early Access a bad reputation, so please do not give these scumbags another cent.

********************
First off, this is a very early version of the game, so i recommend judging it as such.

Right now the game is very barebone, with 1 tutorial mission and 4 campaign missions. Thats it.

The graphic looks good, the animations fit well and the landscape is quite rich in details. So the looks of the game do a fine job of giving you proper vibes.

The Cover system is a prototype as far as i hear/read, and as such it is okay. Units could utalize cover better and it is a bit annoying, that only the units that have a spot move, while the rest remain where they were.

Vehicles are only used by the AI so far, and can be pretty hard to deal with (for lack of any AT option beside AT grenades, and giting a moving target with that is tricky.)

The different faction all look distinct with different weaponry and the effects of gunfire, gas and explosion are pretty neat.

Summery: As proof of concept and a foundation this version of Rattenreich works pretty good. But that is really all it does. It gives you an idea what the game will look like, shows that what trailers and dev-diaries promised is indeed becoming reality and gets you hope for more.

BUT: Barebones is really a generous way of describing this demo. If you want to support the devs, go ahead and pay the reasonable (I think) price. But if you want a fully playable game that can entertain you for hours, you better wait to avoid spoilering yourself.