Swords & Soldiers II: Schawarmageddon

Genre: Tower Defense

Players: 1-2 Competitive (Local Split-Screen / Online)

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Review:

Swords & Soldiers II is a side-scrolling Tower Defense game originally released on Wii U in 2015, and then remade for multiple platforms in 2018, with the Nintendo Switch getting a version of the game in 2019. Like the first game, this game has players managing resources, summoning armies of fighters, building up defenses, and using magic spells to combat a competing army to try to win the day (as well as winning the feast they’re all fighting over).

Much as with the first game. this game’s visuals are cartoony in style, but this time around a lot more effort has been made to differentiate units, as well as giving every character in the game some really nice animations. While still not technically impressive, and while the game still has an issue with large numbers of units bunching up on each other, this is a marked improvement over the original. This game also adds some amusing and silly voice acting beyond the simple expressions characters in the first game had.

While the presentation here is slightly improved, the gameplay has received multiple improvements over the original game, including custom loadouts, hero units, a lot more variety in the different units you can send on the field, and now, yes, you can send out resource-gatherer units to collect supplies off the field, which now take the form of air-drops.

While this game still lacks the level of strategy I’d want it to have (ranged units still can’t be commanded to wait behind defensive towers), these additional options manage to make this game much less of a strategic mess than the first game, and while I’d still say I prefer the similar game CastleStorm over this one, Swords and Soldiers has a lot to offer in its own right.

This game also retains the excellent touchscreen support the first game had on the Nintendo Switch, which can be invaluable with all of the new types of attacks on offer. What’s more, this game also adds in online multiplayer support in addition to local split-screen competitive play.

In the end, Swords & Soldiers II is a game that improves on its predecessor in pretty much every way, and while there are certainly areas where the game has room for improvement, and it’s still not quite on par with the likes of CastleStorm, this is still a solid game that fans of Tower Defense games should give a look.

tl;dr – Swords & Soldiers II, like the first game, is a side-scrolling Tower Defense game that has you managing resources, commissioning troops, and competing with an opposing army. However, this time around, the game improves on its predecessor in virtually every way, addressing most (but not all) of the issues I had with the first game and adding a wealth of extra features. While there’s still room for improvement here, overall this is a solid Tower Defense game well worth playing.

Grade: B

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