“XCOM 2” for swords and bows – Review of the game “Fort Triumph”

Before setting off, you should assemble your party

We start the game in Gospoda Pod Kipiącą Zupą, where the three heroes decide to join forces to earn a little money. Classically, they are: Warrior, Hunter and Sorceress. It could not be otherwise in this game. In the meantime, a hooded figure (by the way, he probably has a problem with his spine – he walks terribly bent) – concludes a mysterious pact with goblins that will affect the fate of this world. We will find out about it later. Before that happens, we will have to gain some experience, improve our base, and gather more members for our trip.

Do not judge a book by its cover

Fort Triumph may seem almost childish at first glance. Simple and colorful graphics only reinforce this feeling. The fairy tales and magic that pour out of the screen can scare potential buyers away. It would seem that under such graphics there is a simple game intended rather for a younger audience. Such thinking, however, is wrong. And I had the opportunity to find out about it myself …

Underneath all of this there is a really heavy title. It is far from the honorable title of the hardest game I have ever played, but it is still a production that requires thinking and planning its moves. Having chosen the almost highest difficulty level, I had to really show my tactical sense. My way of operating required careful thought. There was no randomness in my doings.

Therefore, it is worth telling a little about the combat mechanics itself, which actually gives us a lot of possibilities. The battles themselves are based on a turn-based system, known for example from the XCOM series. So we have access to several Action Points within which we can move and use our skills. Their most interesting aspect is the interaction with the environment. By using a kick, summoning a tornado or firing an arrow with a rope, we can make such an inconspicuous stone hit directly at the opponent and stun him. An enemy hit by that boulder may be additionally pushed towards e.g. a tree, which after contact with it will be knocked over to another cunning, hiding goblin. There are a lot of such situations and they are really fun … unless something falls on you – then it’s not so nice anymore. However, this means that sometimes you really have to figure it out a bit to get out of the fight intact.

The corpse is thick

The worst thing you can do in this game. I made the same mistake while watching Game of Thrones. Imagine a situation when you already have quite a developed character. You put on all the best pieces of equipment on it and in fact it makes you win everything. You are so connected with it that you already feel as if it was your brother … who suddenly dies as a result of an unfortunate clash. You have a choice: either him or the rest of the team. You can try to load the save, but your hopes are in vain. I was in such a situation myself – and even if I doubled and worked hard, I was not able to lead the duel as I wanted. Fortunately, we have access to the castle, where we can hire new members to our team. Thanks to easy and transparent character development, they will soon become a new legend. Exactly, character development. Let’s stop here for a moment. It is not complicated, so you can easily learn how to use it, and this is a huge plus. For each new level, we get a skill point that we can use to develop the existing ability. After a few such improvements, we unlock completely new slots, which we can choose from three random skills, differing in rarity. Nothing hard. In this way, you can quickly shake off the loss and have a new favorite – who will probably die too.

Each hero must have a hiding place

After a whole day, sometimes even a week of adventures, it is worth giving our heroes a moment of rest. After all, they must gain strength for new challenges. This is where the castle comes in handy and we can come back to it at any time. In it, we have access to the Guild, where for the gold we earn we will buy interesting improvements for our characters – for example, increasing Action Points or Armor. In addition, every day you should build a building (which of course will bring us some benefits) or improve the existing one, including the main one, the largest one, allowing you to raise others to an even higher level. Thanks to this, we will improve the predispositions of our characters, as well as increase the amount of extracted resources for further improvements. Fortunately, many of these activities can be performed remotely, even outside the walls of this place.

There was XCOM, time for Heroes

World exploration, like combat, is turn-based. Like the one from the Might & Magic seriesso we have the possibility of going a certain number of steps. When we complete our movement, we also end the current day and start a new one. During our turn, we can start a fight – before we start, the game informs us about the degree of difficulty and about whom we will have to face. We will also have to collect some raw materials for improvement, look into every nook and cranny of this world in search of treasures and help the inhabitants of this land by fighting all filth. By searching every corner, we have a chance to really get stronger, and treasures can be anywhere. Whether hidden in a chest, or in a tree trunk, sometimes even donated by some traveler. However, we do not always have to get just pleasant things. It may happen that the price for the item will be a minus in the next fight.

It is also worth mentioning that our opponent is not idle. Between our actions it can strengthen itself, collecting all the treasures that we planned to get. It may even happen that it will take over our base. Then we will have to take it back, and this is not an easy task.

What about this mysterious pact?

Unfortunately, I have to disappoint everyone who would like to play Fort Triumph for a decent and extensive story. This is not the Witcher. Here, we are unlikely to pick the jaw off the floor after some sudden and unexpected twist. Like all production, it is simple. Sometimes even infantile. However, it has its charm and I have smiled more than once. Even the creators themselves, through the characters’ dialogues, ridicule certain stereotypes, such as this “distorted character from the introduction”. After all, the evil one is always hunched over and hides his face in the shadow of his hood. However, this kind of humor is not a problem. The story seems to fit perfectly into this fairy-tale world. Over time, we will even learn about the past of our main characters. Also, this story is not outstanding, but it adds a bit of realism to the presented world, it is also a pleasant break from our adventures, and at the same time allows us to get close to the characters a bit. I just don’t know what will happen if one of them dies.

10 hours later

Is this a perfect game then? Of course not. And it is still far from this ideal. And it’s all because of something I hate – monotony. Unfortunately, although I had a great time at the beginning, after a dozen or so hours, the gameplay began to bore me. Randomly generated locations eventually become similar to each other. I had the feeling that I was fighting in the same arenas over and over again. For example in the aforementioned XCOM 2each map was different and delighted me with something new. Of course, there were similar maps, but they were usually some less important missions; the main ones usually stood out. It was missing here. Only the story quests seemed interesting in some way, but because of how much difficulty increased between them, they were just too rare. Before I could do it, I had to strengthen my team a lot first. The small variety of opponents doesn’t help either, because I was fighting the same opponents all the time. During the three-hour game, I quickly became bored.

Smaller problems with the Polish localization and the irritating work of the camera during duels are also worth mentioning. The main thing is that there is an occasional untranslated word or a strange string of characters – @ # $ %% $. However, this did not affect the gameplay.

The work of the camera disturbed me during the opponent’s turn. If our character was attacked and as a result pushed somewhere, the camera did not show what happened to us, but was still focused on the enemy. The same happened in the case of killing the monster. When he died, there was an unnecessary zoom in on him, which artificially lengthened the game. Apparently nothing significant, but it bothered me a bit.

[Update]