Lornsword Winter Chronicle Reviews

Loved playing the game. It took a few missions for me to fully get into the flow and the atmosphere, but once you are in, you will love it. It is a very interesting blend of RTS and action-oriented mechanics. I really liked the story/setting, the 2D art parts were very nice. The visual effects are quite nice, the persistent effects on the ground from battles and footprints from soldiers.. I thought the soundtrack was amazing, was surprised to hear such a good soundtrack from a seemingly not so high production. The only negative might be that in some of the longer missions and over the course of the game it felt some of the tracks got a little repetitive, so a little more variation could have been great (for example creating two variations of the main OST to limit the amount of work). I think the ramp up of mechanics and difficulty makes you realize slowly what the game has to offer in a very accessible way, this could be why it takes some time to fully get in, but in the long run I think that was a good choice to make the game more understandable. I think some things could bring the game to the next level like a better reprensentation of the setting/story through a World Map through which you see progress between missions (the setting was so full of new lore and factions that recap pages and a map would help to visualize things), the ability to create your own/modify existing "attack paths" for troops. Also, in some missions you knew if you made some wrong steps in the beginning you were going to fight a losing battle, and once that is the case there is not a lot you can do to tip the balance. The problem is sometimes you realize you are going to eventually lose 20 minutes into a mission. This brings us to the only big frustration I had, the lack of saving inside missions. Missions can be 30 minutes long or more, so losing at the 40 minute mark makes it feel like you wasted a lot of time. This is also a very big problem if you need to quit the game.. you will lose all progress in the mission. But the positives in my opinion far outweight the negatives and I would recommend people to play the game, this is a hidden gem and should be more popular. End of story spoilers: [spoiler] I thought the game left on a pretty open ended note which calls for a sequel, so I am hoping for a sequel to be made to revisit the world of Lornsword Winter Chronicles! [/spoiler]

[b]This is a fantastic controller-only RTS made more interesting by a high quality split-screen co-op mode.[/b] [h1] Controls - 8/10 [/h1] You have to go into this game with the awareness that it does [i]not[/i] support mouse-and-keyboard controls, and that you need a controller for both players. However once you accept this design choice, it becomes evident how well they have engineered the control scheme. You hold down one trigger to add nearby troops to your squad, making them follow you, and another trigger to let them loose to attack enemies. By making you control an actual character, you get to participate in the battle itself, and you have to weigh up how to spend your mana/stamina: on troop movement, on elemental summoning support, or on ranged attacks. It's a very clever system that in some ways makes the RTS gameplay even more thrilling, because you are at risk of dying yourself in each skirmish. One flaw in this system is maybe that you can't actually direct your troops to attack a specific building or enemy, only to attack in a general area. This mostly works fine, but a lot of the time you want them to focus on the enemy tower, a crucial structure, and it's impossible to do this, which is a bit frustrating. [h1]Gameplay - 8/10[/h1] The gameplay broadly consists of a series of missions (scenarios) where you have to complete certain objectives in the game, like destroying certain bases, holding a position from waves of enemies, or protecting an ally. With those objectives in mind, you need to gather resources (food and gold), and allocate your money into different buildings and upgrades, including 3 types of unit-producing buildings, defence towers, summoning altars, and numerous upgrades for all buildings. These core mechanics work very well, and are explored thoroughly in the many missions, where you have to prioritise different things. Without revealing too much, the game later lets you play as other factions which have different units and technology, which keeps the game fresh. [h1]Co-op - 9/10 [/h1] The split screen co-op is first-rate. Unfortunately this isn't explained well, but you only unlock this mode after the tutorial missions are finished, so your co-op partner might be sitting there waiting for a while, but you can pass the controller around so you both learn the basics. Then, during regular missions, you and your partner take control of two military commanders, each with different powers and strengths, which does a great job of making it feel like we can specialise in different parts of the strategy. Other than your abilities, both commanders have access to the same buildings so you can split the work however you would like. I really have no complaints about how this was implemented. [h1]Graphics - 6/10[/h1] The graphics are fine. Kind of the simple 3D models you'd expect from an RTS, but without much of a distinctive personality. You can have a look in the screenshots above. They're serviceable and it runs well even on my ancient hardware so that's a plus. Unfortunately the almost top-down perspective means it's hard to see any more than just the tops of the heads of all units. This makes it hard to appreciate some of the more interesting and grotesque units you encounter later on, and causes some difficulty distinguishing different human soldiers from each other. Still, they try to make them unique with different colouring and such. [h1]Story and Worldbuilding - 9/10[/h1] Wow. I think this is one category where [i]Lornsword[/i] truly stands out. The writers have put an incredible amount of effort into the story, much more than I would expect for an RTS of this size. Firstly, they have populated an entire world full of different factions and civilizations, each with their own goals, culture, religion etc. The conflict between these factions is mostly what drives the plot, but for the most part there is no black and white "good guys" or "bad guys". In addition to this background is the particular story that the game follows, which has surprisingly powerful characterisation, driven by fully narrated cutscenes. My only criticism is just that the different factions and their beliefs (particularly religions) are so complex that there almost needs to be some kind of encyclopedia within the game to remind yourself what is going on at times. The game itself doesn't give you the means to re-watch the cutscenes or access any of the information you've been given, so it's quite difficult to keep track of everything. [h1]Music - 6/10[/h1] Music is fine. Mostly generic orchestral military tracks from memory. Not memorable but effective during the game. [h1]Linux Support - 6/10[/h1] Not Linux native, but this runs well on Proton/SteamPlay (Steam's compatibility layer).

So I played the game for a solid 2 hours, I can say it progressively got better. The more you played the more you can upgrade and do more things, different troops and what not. The feel is great, the graphics are good, the music is good, I just feel maybe the individual you are controlling could be more satisfying and powerful. That is just my opinion, I will have my video on youtube later today if you want to get a good idea of how it looks and sounds. Overall it's a well polished game and I do recommend it, but it's up to you if you want to fork $17 for it, but it is early access so I am sure you will get your moneys worth in the long run.

A seriously underutilized genre this. I personally find the action RTS is just the place. This one does it in a Fun way. And the art is really quite nice. OK, it Might not be the absolute best game in the universe. But it is fun and action RTS. Action RTS. Action................Are.........Tee........Esssssss..........

Interesting RPG/RTS game. The only issues is that this game seems to built for the consoles and some gameplay decisions. Being on the pc, I had to change the keybinding of Attack from Numpad to 1 on Alphapad near my WASD keys. I don't like to reach too far on the right side of the keyboard. Only has Single player and Co-op system. Why is there no multiplayer feature? I do like the catch and drop mechanic however there are many ways to improve an rts game. By adding rallying points, retreat commands, and formations. This game mostly hinders the player with gameplay mechanic decisions more so than innovate. Sometimes when you release your units, they attack any random building instead of the one YOU WANT!!! There is no way to select targets unlike a typical RTS game. There are NO checkpoints in this game and you CANNOT SAVE between the missions. Once you die, you have to restart from the very beginning. A bit irritating but you have to deal with it. (Updated: Apparently there is autosave. But it's bugged. My computer crashed and I lost my progress and it sent me back to the first mission cutscene.) Presentation and artwork isn't too bad. Artwork is drawn with sketch details in dialogue. Game graphics are ok. Nothing too spectacular. The factions seems to be a wierd mix of different cultural influences. Aboriginal, Aztec-Incan, Egyptian, Chinese-Japanese, European. I am getting a Warcraft 3 vibe from this game. Maybe it's good. Notable features: I do like the altar mechanics and the RPG mechanics. Your hero is able to pick up artifacts to boost his stats. Teleporting and warping around is great. But it is very typical in RPG/RTS games these days to teleport and warp. See Starcraft 2 and Warcraft 3. Interesting waypoint system. Building along the waypoints, troops will follow the waypoints, and the waypoints will lead you to the enemies. So far no bugs and strange glitches. No game crashes. A very irritating issue is unit pathing. Units do get stuck behind rocks and get left behind. If you leave the units alone and near the waypoints, they go on a suicide mission to the enemy base and die. But if you leave them by the farms and mines, they will go on patrol inside the area. Comparable to Warcraft 3: Lorn Empire-Human Alliance The Wilds-Night Elves and Orcs The Shadows-Undead/Burning Legion Overall I am enjoying. But, I feel that this game could be much better. Please add multiplayer or skirmish mode with CPUS.

Quite a boring game. Poor unit control. There is no mouse. And there are more things to fix in the game.

This RTS game starts off fine and then after the first few tutorial levels it settles into a highly repetitive and tedious tug-of-war type game where you are constantly rebuilding more soldiers and leading them into battle while the enemy is doing the exact same thing. The problem is that this drags on for hours and hours of doing the same thing and there is NO way to save your progress. So if you play for hours and need to stop playing for any reason, you will lose all your progress and have to start that campaign chapter completely over. You also never really get the feeling that you are making any progress in wiping out the enemy because they are constantly rebuilding structures and respawning more troops and there is no indication that you are winning the battle. You are also discouraged from participating in combat yourself and are instead directed to keep leading your soldiers into battle where they can do the fighting for you. There is also no difficulty setting and I found the dialogue boring and the story silly in that it focuses too much on your character's family. Overall, I did not enjoy my time spent with this game once the actual campaign started and I cannot recommend it.

This game is a bit tricky to recommend. The gameplay is unique but also strange. Most of your time is spent running and later teleporting around the map, simply grabbing troops and dumping them where you currently need them, or to refill your mana back at your base to call more summons. The entire waypoint system is weirdly designed. Once you cleared a lane your troops are stuck in defensive mode and you need to manually reposition them into other lanes. I have no idea why this was done this way, instead of making them simply go to the next closest lane by themselves. Then again it doesnt matter that much because most missions are quite easy, until you get near the end of the game when the game gets somewhat of an uptick in difficulty due to your new enemies being able to kill your hero easily which will stall your entire push. In the end you are left with a fairly relaxing game to play from your couch. It's saved by an amazing soundtrack, especially the wild themes are beautiful. The price is fair but whether you will be able to enjoy the gameplay at all is really hit or miss. I think the game wouldve been alot better without the mana system and simply making everything cooldown based, as this would allow you to stay in the frontlines more instead of running around. You can tell that the game is a work of passion, made by a small team, which in itself is worth a buy from my perspective. Keep in mind that this game has no keyboard & mouse support whatsoever.

Latest update disabled keyboard & mouse and a controller is now required, despite the misleading system requirements indicating that a controller is optional. Otherwise an average game with tedious combat.

[h1]WARNING: Only buy this game if you have a controller![/h1] [b]Pros[/b] + Interesting and unique mechanics + Graphics/theme and audio + No bugs, lag, or performance issues [b]Cons[/b] - You cannot use mouse! You can only use keyboard (and controller)! This is deal-breaking! - No minimap (is extra annoying due to the bad controls on PC) - Lack of visual cues (e.g. it is hard to see if soldiers are enemies or allies) I am probably not gonna play this game again, but I will still recommend it since I want to support the RTS genre and indie studios