Game Review #187: Swords & Soldiers II: Shawarmageddon (Nintendo Switch)
Reviewer: Jordan M.
Developer: Ronimo Games BV
Publisher: Ronimo Games BV
Category: Strategy/Action
Release Date: 03.01.2019
Price (at time of review): $14.99
Buy Swords & Soldiers II: Shawarmageddon from the Nintendo eShop here.
It's Shawarmania, Brother. Oooh yeah.
Swords & Soldiers II originally released in 2015 and has now been ported to the Nintendo Switch. You are leading Redbeard and his vikings on an epic quest through Vikingland and many other areas for what else? To retrieve sheep to make the most delicious Shawarma in the world! You will command your troops as you unlock new abilities, learn new spells, and control different types of soldiers as you play across a broad map with many different sorts of challenges.
Swords & Soldiers II: Shawarmageddon takes you across a broad map, encountering new types of fights and new types of enemies and abilities.
The gameplay is very much a straightforward 2-D side scroller. Most of the gameplay is the same: troops and structures are built using ZL, and special abilities are available using ZR. All your different types of soldiers available, as well as structures, require gold. Gold can be acquired in several different ways. One way is by finding a mine and hiring workers to dig for you. Another way is by using your workers to grab random gold or other items scattered or dropped across the map. Your gold-gathering characters can be told what to gather by highlighting the available gold/air drops and pressing X.
Heading Into Battle
The game will give you the ability to hire several different types of soldiers. From your heavy hitters to your ranged attackers, you will need to choose who is right for your arsenal. Once you put one of your soldiers into action, they will continue to head in a forward right direction. There is nothing you can do to stop them, only heal him/them or add effects, etc. You have a limited supply of gold, so try to be smart on how you invest in your soldiers as you progress through the level. I found myself thinking I was smart, biding my time and hiring a full team of donkeys to mine my gold and ignoring hiring soldiers. I quickly got woken up. Being not the brightest at strategy, I found myself just lobbing bodies at some enemies. I guess I would be a pretty messed up warlord/leader.
Some battles are going to be open battles which allow you to choose a mixture of different soldiers you have encountered so far throughout the game. There are three different classes of characters you will experience throughout the game. You will have the ability to pick Tier I levels such as different types of soldiers and such, Tier II levels such as your healing or enemy damaging abilities, and Tier III levels which can buff teammates, etc.
Pretty Pretty Pictures
All the different characters look great, and I feel there was a lot of attention to detail creating all the different soldiers and structures. The backgrounds of different areas look fantastic and are well designed. Nothing about the soundtrack particularly stands out to me, but that really isn't a problem. It is fitting for the game, but nothing exactly I'd write home about. I'm not in any way trying to hate on it, just saying it fits, and is adequate for this particular type of game.
How Did it Taste?
I enjoyed this game. I think it offers some pretty challenging gameplay, and there are a lot of different levels. I like the fact it has the option for certain levels where you can assemble your own "dream team" of different characters. I didn't get to try the online gameplay, so I can't really comment too much on that. The game is difficult, but not so much it makes you want to not come back to it.
I found it easy to complete most levels, but some of the other accomplishments for levels could be a little tough. None of the matches last more than about ten minutes, which makes it great for a game on the go. Honestly, many of the levels require faster than that, as far as accomplishments go. Overall, this is a good game to grab for on the go if you're looking for a quick challenge and an amusing story.
Rating: 8.5/10
Buy Swords & Soldiers II: Shawarmageddon from the Nintendo eShop here.
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*Review Code Provided by Game Drive