Unholy Heights

Genre: Strategy / Management Simulation

Players: 1

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Review:

Unholy Heights is an odd game that combines elements of a Management Sim with elements of the Strategy genre (toward the Tower Defense end of the pool, but not quite in it), placing you in the role of a demonic landlord who is both managing an apartment complex full of monsters to try to attract tenants, as well as rousing said monsters to fight off angry villagers and heroes who come attacking every once in a while. It’s a fun, original premise with a lot of potential. Unfortunately, it generally fails to live up to that potential.

As with the premise, the gameplay in this game consists of two main parts. First, you must try to attract tenants by filling rooms in your apartment complex with amenities that could interest them. Different monsters have different tastes, so you’ll have to keep in mind who you’re trying to entice into your space when you’re buying furniture. And secondly, when attackers arrive, you must knock on the doors of tenants to determine the order that they will approach the attackers to fight them off.

However, there are a few problems here. Firstly, buying items for rooms is little more than spending the cash and ticking a selection on a checklist. You don’t really decide placement and don’t get any visual indicator of how the room has changed. There’s little art or skill to it – if a character likes a thing and you want the character, get the thing. Ho-hum.

The other problem is that the strategy in battles is heavily curtailed by the fact that the monsters have a mind of their own, and often that leads them to heading out to goof off somewhere else right before a battle commences. Hard to plan for a battle by attracting the right, specific goons to your building to mount a measured defense when you can’t even be sure what goons will actually be there when you need them.

As far as the presentation goes… this is really basic. I like some of the character designs here, but characters are simple and poorly-animated.

Frankly, while Unholy Height’s premise and art style are both good, everything else about the game is a disappointment. You’re not given enough control to enjoy the management sim elements, and your units are so unreliable that the strategy part of the game is a crapshoot. As appealing as this game may seem, it’s simply not worth it.

tl;dr – Unholy Heights combines a Management Sim with a Strategy game by having you manage an apartment complex with monsters and then rouse those monsters to fight off invaders. It’s a cute premise, but the game doesn’t give you enough to do in the management part of the game, and makes your units far too unreliable in the strategy part, resulting in a game that’s just frustrating. Skip it.

Grade: D+

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