Now, I don’t know about you, but an RTS launching without advertised features and having a roadmap just doesn’t sit right with me. In fact, it pretty much was as it launched without its advertised co-op mode and has a roadmap laid out for its first several weeks. The sheer simplicity of these mechanics, along with the game’s straightforward combat, leads me to believe that this is a game rushed out of development and released unfinished. And you can’t even build these, there’s a limited number per map that you fight for control over. That’s it, that’s the extent of resource gathering. You’ve got your mines and your oil pumps. The same could be said for resource management. Sure, you can build cover using engineers or deploy an aid station as a medic, but compared to what we usually get from RTS games, Iron Harvest offers the bare minimum. You get your HQ, your barracks, your workshop, and that’s pretty much it. This is perhaps most noticeable with the base building side to the game, which, for an RTS, is laughable. Not only is the gameplay slow and clunky, but it’s also lacking in depth. So, this is kind of an extension of the previous con. The overall gameplay is just not intuitive, and it felt like I was spending more time wrestling with units and movement then actually playing the game. Given that, you’re kinda forced to micromanage a little, which can be a bit of a pain when you have a bunch of units fighting in one small area, and even more of a pain if you’re trying to get each unit to cooperate with the game’s dodgy cover mechanic. The pathfinding in particular is terrible, as the game does not appear to calculate for moving multiple units, instead just clumping them all together and slowing down the whole pack in the process. For example, managing multiple units can be a bit of pain, with units constantly getting stuck on the terrain, pushing each other around, and taking the most awkward path to get to where I want them to go. It’s hard to describe, but the combat just doesn’t quite “feel” right. What makes it worse though is how clunky it is. The game attempts to break up this monotony with unit abilities, but you usually get one per unit and most of them are situational, so the most I would end up doing while in combat was shuffling around units for better positioning. It takes forever to kill things, takes forever to move anywhere, and by the time you actually get in combat, all you do is hit right click and wait, there’s not a whole lot to do after the fact. This is the kind of RTS where you’re going to be spending more time building, moving, and managing units than actually taking down enemies and completing objectives. Okay, so I did just praise the game’s campaign mode, but the overall gameplay is ultimately brought down by just how slow and clunky it is. And while the writing may not be the best I’ve seen, it was fine for what it was and was nice a complement to the gameplay. There’s a good amount of variety to go around and it didn’t feel like I was simply repeating the same mission type over and over like a lot of other RTS games end up doing with their campaigns. The levels can have you do anything from escorting an artillery train across the map to finding and rescuing citizens in the middle of a city-wide battle between two factions. This isn’t just a campaign thrown together as a series of skirmish matches, there’s a full-length story told from three different perspectives with cutscenes and actual writing to back it up. Not only is the campaign an excellent teaching tool, but it’s got quite some effort put into it. Iron Harvest is one of the few I’ve played where I actually did the reverse. Usually, with RTS games, I try out the campaign, but ultimately end up spending most of my time in skirmish and multiplayer. Sure, the graphics aren’t really pushing any boundaries here, but I gotta give the game some credit for taking such a cool setting and really embracing it, giving me a ton of cool wallpapers in the process.Ĭool campaign mode. When you add onto that setting the excellent art, you’ve got quite the package, one that is dark, gritty, and honestly one of the coolest I’ve seen for an RTS. The game pretty much already had me at alternate history 1920s, but mechs on top of that just makes it even better. In fact, the two share the same universe, that being an alternate 1920s Polish-Soviet War with mechs. If you’ve ever played or seen the board game Scythe, the same artist lent his talent here in Iron Harvest. I’m gonna start this review off with what originally brought me to this game: it’s aesthetic.
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