Cannons! Rifleman at the ready? Bowman at the ready? We`re about to be stormed by an army of fighters, and we must take them down! We have to keep the castle safe, and it cannot be breached! Is everyone ready! Guys? Anyone? It`s just me. Great. Looks like I`ll be taking them out on my own then. Well, get ready to fight! Yes, get ready to fight, in Castle Invasions: Throne Out. Is it a game that that`s going to be a winner? Or is it a game that`s going to be a bit of a stinker? You better get your aiming skills up high and your speediness on point, because it`s going to take some defending.
Castle Invasions: Throne Out is a game developed and published by Cat Trap Studios, and was released for Xbox One players last month. Xbox is not the first console or market it arrived on, and arrived on Steam for PC players back in July. The game focuses on the main character defending his castle and to fight to save it, after the King makes an ultimatum to hand over the keys to the castle, or to be “throne out”. Refusing to give up, you`re going to need to survive and make sure the castle does not take damage from enemies who will come at you with swords and more, level after level. Each level equivalents to a wave, and you`re going to need to make sure that your castle survives the wave in order to open up the next level. Each level also gives you the option to earn up to three stars, and you earn the stars by not only completing that level, but by also completing a series of optional objectives, all of which will earn you the max of 3 stars in a level. Using a bow and arrow to start off with, the further into the game you go, the more advanced weapons you`re going to get, all of which will increase the damage hit on your opponents. Starting off at round 1, you`ll find little soldiers flock in their packs to come and attack the castle, and with each one taking 3 hits before dying, it doesn’t fare too bad when you reload and shoot quite quickly. There isn’t too much of a delay in re-loading and firing the arrows again.
The further into the game you go the better weapons, but the better they get in terms of increased damage, they do take a bit longer to be able to re-load and get firing. Which can prove to be rather tricky in the later rounds when the enemies appear to be swarming in from nowhere, and you`re needing a pretty quick firing range. Using different weapons on different enemies will prove to be rather effective than using perhaps a more powerful weapon on a basic enemy, as the re-load times will outweigh the damage that it takes on the enemy, and therefore could prove to be quite costly, especially when you`ve got loads of enemies swarming at you.
Now, I have to say, I found this game quite fun and quite enjoyable. There`s something to it that will get frustrating when you reach the later waves, as enemies appear to swarm in huge packs later, and when you`re trying to defend the castle and you have 7/8 hacking at your wall to get in, it can be difficult, and you`re going to fail and give up the castle a few times. You`re going to need to be effective and quick in taking out the enemies far away, and making sure that you keep the enemies at your wall to a bare minimum, and ideally, not there at all. The more you`re wall gets hacked at by the opposition, the quicker your castle health (think of it as a wall health, the more it gets hacked, the more it caves in) and once depleted, that`s the round over, and a re-start is going to be needed. It`s a fun game and does offer a good challenge later in the game in terms of rounds, as you`re going to need to be smart and effective with your speed and weapon choice in order to take out the enemies.
There`s enjoyment in the game, and I found it by trying to not only beat the level, but to also try and go for the optional objectives within each level that offer you the max stars. It`s pretty easy to be able to complete a level and not do any objectives, and only take 1 star, but I don’t tend to find any enjoyment from just doing that. Sure, it`ll get you through the game quicker, but I do find that it`s a lot more fun to try and complete more than just the basic.
Castle Invasion: Throne Out is a fun, wacky game that transfers well to the current-gen consoles. Perhaps a game that you`d also see on a mobile device, it`s a game that offers fun and enjoyment, and a game that both kids and adults will enjoy and find challenging but fun.
A huge thank you to XCN for supplying us with a review copy of Castle Invasion: Throne Out
Game: Castle Invasion: Throne Out
Developed: Cat Trap Studios
Publishers: Cat Trap Studios
Genre: Action/ID
Price: £3.99 (From Xbox Store)