14 DAY TRIAL // I was raised in a time where RTS games where the pride and joy of any gamer’s digital library, so whenever I hear of a title that has even a shred of RTS feel to it, I am immediately drawn to it out of curiosity, if not just a plain old sense of nostalgia.
The plot
As such, when I looked over Lornsword Winter Chronicle I was immediately intrigued as it look quite promising, and has an art style that reminded me of some of the good old RTS games of the past. Here you rise up the ranks to become the general of an army, and your goal is to take direct action to command your soldiers and set up your economy. The lore blends fantasy elements seamlessly, with elemental magic and eldritch creatures being nothing more than a normal Tuesday for the inhabitants of this world. The game has everything you’d expect from an RTS, including resource gathering and management, army building, the ability to build defensive constructs and more.
A non-typical way of playing an RTS title
The game seems extremely promising at first glance until you realize that you actually need a controller to play it, which seems a bit odd as where are talking about a genre that practically screams “Mouse and Keyboard”. This method of control over the general will make the game feel more like a hack’n’slash title, and this is also because he doesn't respawn and losing him means losing the match, therefore keeping an eye on him is crucial
Where did they hide the mouse and keyboard?
The lack of mouse and keyboard somewhat limits the control you actually have over your soldiers and summoned minions, but the game compensates by having an extensive form of AI that pretty much involves you leading your soldiers towards threats or friendly structures, and they pretty much figure out what to do all by themselves. Another thing you may not like is the lack of visibility when it comes to combat stats. Attack damage values are nowhere to be seen, and besides your general, you can’t see the HP bars of neither your troops or your enemies’, making large-scale combat the subject to guesswork in the likes of “my army seems bigger that his, then it should be enough”.
One silver lining is that if you get in trouble with a mission, you can always ask a friend to join in, as the game seems to support split-screen play, as long as you remember that you will share resources and have to coordinate your actions together.
