Review written by KrustyManMeat
Star Hammer: The Vanguard Prophecy has been around on PC for over a year now and it's turn based gameplay received mixed reviews. It's now made the bold leap to the Xbox One but can it's deep strategy and complex controls survive the transition?
I have to start this review with a confession. I despise Turn Based games. I don't have the patience to watch an AI opponent do its own thing while I just sit and wait for my next turn. But the success of XCOM has convinced me to give this genre one more go. My first mistake was to ignore 0if tutorial. I did this knowing it would cost me dear later on but still went ahead and skipped it. Heed my warning and DO NOT skip anything in this game that serves to teach you anything at all. Every single piece of information needs to be absorbed and stored away in your memory for use later on. Hell, I even began taking notes. My mind was frazzled within minutes and that's no exaggeration.
This game is deep and unless you're prepared to spend a prepared to spend a ridiculous amount of time here this is not a game for you. The game's missions are played out on a 3D plane. You are Valeron Dyce and as part of a combat fleet you will have to complete various missions around the planet Novus. There are a total of sixty missions for you to complete which vary from mission to mission. Each of these missions are revealed via a rather impressive looking 3D map.
As with all Turn Based games you hand your orders out to each ship under your command first. While you are doing this your enemy is also issuing orders to the enemy fleet. During this process no actions are acted upon until you end this process by confirming your orders with the press of a button. Most Turn Based games allow you to move first and then your enemy counters those notes, Star Hammer turns this approach on its head because you and your enemy action your orders at the same time. This really adds a lot more depth to how you approach each combat situation.
So far so good but the sheer complexity of the game begins to bog it down. The game's controls are clearly displayed on screen which for a game that maps the PC controls onto a joypad is a Godsend. Without that HUD I would have found myself constantly going back and forth to the control menu. Each map is sectioned off into different planes with one placed above another. You can command your fleet to move up and down these different planes at will. The open layout of the maps and the freedom of movement they give you is quite stunning. But to use them to their full potential you will need to plan so far ahead it becomes like a game of chess which I have always been garbage at. Issuing simple commands to your fleet soon becomes a chore as you move from one ship to the next round after round.
Every aspect of every ship in your fleet is manageable from the engines, shields and weapons. This is all done via a neat slidable scale which is as simple to use as it sounds. You can beef up any part of your ship by simply diverting power from one department to another. You can even boost individual sections of your ships hull if you find yourself cornered in a battle and a particular section is taking heavy damage. This will leave one section of our ship weaker but sometimes it's a risk worth taking and it can be the difference between life and death.
There is so much going on here that it's easy to miss the finer details. Star Hammer looks gorgeous and the free roaming camera allows you to zoom right into the action pm you can really appreciate the amount of detail that has gone into the game. There are various ship classes in your fleet from small tugs to dreadnoughts and each class looks distinctively different from the next. The background also deserves praise for its liberal use of colour to depict the game's planets and nebula. Throw in a great soundtrack that seems to sore with each pivotal moment and you have an atmosphere befitting a grand space opera.
Star Hammer: The Vanguard Prophecy is everything I could have hoped for in a Turn Based strategy game. It looks fantastic and the setting harkens back to space operas of old. But and maybe this is an age thing, I found the whole experience extremely confusing and at times ponderous. I'm sure if you're someone who likes XCOM then you will find a lot to love here. Sadly for me all I found was frustration.
