Castle Conqueror – Against

Genre: Real-Time Strategy

Players: 1

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Review:

The Castle Conqueror series began in 2010 with the release of the first game on the Nintendo DSi via the DSiWare service. While that series had numerous spin-offs, Castle Conqueror – Against marks the last time the original series would receive an entirely new entry, with subsequent games being either remakes or spin-offs. This game was released on the Nintendo DSi via the DSiWare service in 2011 and also released on the Nintendo 3DS eShop. This game re-uses a lot of assets and gameplay mechanics that were in Castle Conqueror – Revolution, which itself was extremely similar to the original Castle Conqueror. As such, I will be reusing parts of those reviews here.

This game is a touchscreen-centric Real-Time Strategy game where the player and AI controlled opponents both possess castles, and must draw lines from their caste to neutral or enemy castles to send troops to capture them. Both castles and troops have numbers designating their strength, with the strength of castles growing over time. Meanwhile, combat depletes these numbers, as does sending troops away. The winner is the first one to stamp out all opposing castles.

As such, the core gameplay here boils down to judging the numbers to see where you can spare some troops to attack a vulnerable position without leaving yourself too vulnerable yourself. And unlike prior entries in the series, this game only has one commander to play as, with special abilities they can charge up and use to tip the battle in their favor.

While there is definitely some strategy here, much of the gameplay feels chaotic, and while that can be fun in its own right, definitely don’t expect this to be a particularly deep Strategy game. Also frustrating is that this game’s simplicity seems like it would lend itself well to multiplayer play, but no such option is present.

There’s another problem here that wasn’t as noticeable in prior games in the series. Castle Conqueror – Against features a massive difficulty spike early in the game that will force most players to do some tedious grinding to raise their stats to be viable. This makes Against hard to recommend to anyone but the most diehard fans of the franchise.

I should take a moment to say something about the game’s presentation, and as I noted above, it reuses elements from Castle Conqueror – Revolution. As with that game, the presentation here is… adequate, using cartoony 2D visuals for its characters and medieval-sounding music that fits the game’s themes. It’s nothing extraordinary, but it’s better than what we had in the original Castle Conqueror.

At $2, is this game a better deal than the $4 Castle Conqueror EX? Well, no. With the huge, early difficulty spike in this game, even the tiny price doesn’t really make this game worthwhile. In fact, out of all of the mainline games in the series, this is my least favorite. Not only does it still have the series’ signature extremely simple chaotic Real-Time Strategy gameplay, but the issue with difficulty saps any fun that could be had here. If you’re even going to play this franchise at all, just get Castle Conqueror EX. And that’s if you even want to play these games.

tl;dr – Castle Conqueror – Against, much like the prior games in the series, is a Real-Time Strategy game that has players drawing lines between castles to send out troops to conquer territory. It’s a chaotic and not especially deep entry in the genre, and a huge early spike in difficulty saps any remaining fun out of the experience. Even the low $2 price tag doesn’t save this one. If you’re going to get one of these games, just get Castle Conqueror EX. Or just don’t get any of them, these aren’t exactly must-have games.

Grade: D+

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