One Troll Army – Review
There have been many strategy games on the market in all shapes and sizes, ranging from the classical Command & Conquer games toward more modernized titles such as Battlefleet Gothic: Armada. Every single one of these games revolves around getting powerful, often by building up a massive army, or strengthening the one you currently have. This is where developer FlyAnvil gives the well-known formula a spin. Don’t worry, you’ll still have an army to command, it’s just an army of one.
Story
Nature always has creatures that are weaker than others, but those who perhaps lack strength seek power and support in other things like intelligence or even faith. When a small Goblin tribe has settled down and wants to create a viable home, it seems their peaceful life will get disrupted soon as more and more monsters are closing in on the borders of their domain, and it’s clear they will not just pass by idly. In a moment of despair, the Goblin chief prays to the gods for guidance and possibly help to fend off the invaders. Little did they know their prayers were disturbing the slumber of one, big, cranky and overpowered Troll. Reluctant at first the Troll gnarled at the chief’s request, but because of the little Goblin’s spirit, he is determined to help them settle and destroy everyone who comes after them.
The above is pretty much all you’ll get, and with what the game is about, you won’t need much more to keep things interesting. At the end of the different areas you’ll get a bit of extra story content, but overall it’s negligible.
Graphics
Graphically One Troll Army does not have top notch visuals and is rather rough around the edges, but it is still rather pleasant to look at. You’ll have your small village in the middle and you’ll see it slowly transforming into a solid keep, if you play long enough that is. The lonely Troll and the Goblins do have a certain early World of Warcraft kind of vibe, but they are charming in their own way, even though the Goblins only have a handful of different character models depending on which job they are practicing. Enemies are diverse enough, but easy to recognize, making sure you will know which one does which attack.
Even though this is only a small game, it would have been nice if there was a bit of extra diversity when it came to the backdrops and the environments. While the overall appearance matches the rest of the game, you’ll only have rather empty areas you’ll have to defend and fortify. Perhaps some weather conditions or other ‘events’ could have livened the place up a bit.
For some reason the game feels as if it was originally developed for mobile platforms, as the menus look like a very standardized mobile game choice. Not only do the menus look rather poor for a game such as this, they are not that intuitive at all. Other than that, this game also suffers from frame drops, which is quite odd for a game of this size.
Sound
One Troll Army has only around three different tunes to enjoy and while they are very entertaining at first, they become horribly annoying after longer playing sessions. It’s quite understandable if after a while you’ll simply mute the audio and put on some of your favorite tracks. The sound effects are rather standard, but they do the trick.
Gameplay
One Troll Army might find itself in a more strategic genre, yet it is still a very laid back game. While you’ll have to occupy yourself with choices that will either improve the stronghold you’re defending or improve the abilities of your lonesome Troll, the game is very forgiving, as you are pretty much unable to lose. Nonetheless, the concept reigns supreme in this small quirky (and now free) title.
The basic concept of the game is that you defend the little Goblins until their town is prospering and they can fend for themselves. To do so you’ll need to work together to get some work done. During the neutral phases where there is no hostile opposition, you’ll get to assign the Goblin workers to specific tasks, such as building, repairing, lumberjacking and picking up loot from the fallen enemies. As the game progresses, you’ll also be able to harvest iron and stone in order to go from wooden shambles to a solid fortress worth fearing. The more you upgrade, the more little Goblin workers that will join your posse and thus allow you to get rich and stronger even quicker. Even though the title of the game is One Troll Army, you’ll soon find out that your city can also build towers, which pack a few soldiers that will shoot at the oncoming horde of monsters. Other than that, you can hire a few Orc mercenaries, which can also help quite a bit.
Secondly there’s the combat phase and keeping your Troll ready for every battle at hand. The battle phase itself is simple, you just click and target enemies, you will walk over to stomp them, and you can also use the skills you have unlocked so far. When you finish off all foes, you’ll go back to a peaceful state and the chief will start healing you. You will need to see if the city needs repairing and thus you’ll have to assign tasks in order to use the combat-less phase to the fullest. Thanks to loot and money you’ll be able to upgrade the Troll’s life, power, speed, skills and so on.
The game will often present you with the choice of either upgrading your city or your Troll. While it’s not easy to find a balance, mistakes aren’t really a big deal. So if you wish to invest on quicker harvesting first, go nuts. If you want to build towers for your city, thus granting some extra muscle to your Troll, you can easily do that as well. If your city’s HP or your Troll’s health reach zero, the game will still reward you with the money you earned during the last wave, and it will put you back on your feet, allowing you to continue playing. Perhaps this takes the edge off quite a bit, but it also grants casual players to enjoy themselves.
While the overall formula for this free quirky game is rather solid and amusing, it certainly has a reasonably long list of flaws. For starters, the controls are not even close to what one would call responsive. Not only does your Troll often not register your commands, you will constantly run over money without picking it up, or you’ll have to run a few meters next to it, and then suddenly the game recognizes the money pick up. More than once the game doesn’t activate the skill you wish to use, even after clicking on it several times, there’s also, since the last patch, a sudden bug where the hit detection windows of the buttons are totally crooked, as you’ll sometimes have to click next to the button to actually activate things. For some reason the developers also removed the chance to do some managing options when you freeze time for a moment, something that was initially possible. There is still a lot of work to be done.
The game implements a feature where, if you have a Twitch channel, you can invite your viewers to fight against you. While this is basically still the same game, it’s simply a fun addition that allows for very amusing moments. Users will be able to type in certain commands for the next wave, allowing them to participate in a semi-active way. Perhaps in many ways, this might be the feature that puts this game on the map.
Conclusion
One Troll Army is an amusing free title but it still has a lot of issues that need to be resolved before it can truly shine. The overall concept and forgiving gameplay allow for many gamers to invest some time into building up their goblin fortress, but some might get annoyed due to the horrible controls and other small annoying bugs, which combined can certainly turn into an annoyance for many who try out the game. That being said, even with the wonky controls and the poor hit detection, this game is still worth a try.
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