Developers: Foolish Mortals, Inc., Michael Long
Publisher: Foolish Mortals, Inc
Platform: PC, PS4, Xbox one
Tested on: PC
Kaiju Wars – Review
Turn based strategy games tend to be meticulous affairs in which players slowly plan out their movements in order to achieve their objective. However, as much as this methodical pace might be core to the genre, an excess of it is very much possible. Said excess might occur due diverse factors, but it is especially bad when it is caused by the game itself. Excessively long animations, constant stops and other such nuisances can bog down a game until its pace becomes a crawl. Such is the case for Kaiju Wars, here is why.
Story
Kaiju Wars’ story follows the player, a mayor whose city is being attacked by giant monsters against which the military seems powerless. Luckily, when all hope seems lost, the monsterologist Dr. Wagner announces she has come up with a serum capable of making the kaiju temporarily retreat. With help from this reputed scientist, the commando Major Danger and the mysterious Commander X, the player will have to protect the labs scattered throughout the city in order for Dr. Wagner to create a more permanent solution.
As a whole, this narrative is not particularly deep, playing instead into the genre’s tropes to provide a classic giant monster experience. The game itself wears its influences on its sleeve, with constant references and quips calling back to Gammera, Godzilla, and many other icons of the kaiju genre. Although it is not a masterpiece, it is nonetheless endearing to fans of the genre and even those new to it.
Graphics
The game’s graphics consist of detailed pixelart combined with vibrant neon colors for an aesthetic reminiscent of retro games. Despite being a somewhat small game, Kaiju Wars still manages to feature a decent amount of assets which alternate between the different acts the game is divided into. Although most of these are only visually different, the variation is more than welcome. Particularly worth highlighting are the short cutscenes which play during monster appearances and special abilities, as these provide a lot of character to the kaiju.
Sound
Similarly to its aesthetic, the game’s sound design goes for a retro vibe which meshes well with the visuals. However, where the graphics presented a certain amount of variety, the soundtrack and SFX do not. Both the songs and sound effects employed by the game repeat throughout all levels to the point of excess.
Gameplay
As previously mentioned, Kaiju Wars is a turn based strategy game. In it, players control the military attempting to protect the cities against the kaiju to the best of their ability. The way this works is that players will have to utilize the units at their disposal to slow down the monster advance while chipping away at their health. Should the health of a monster deplete, it will temporarily retreat, on top of speeding up the research required to finish a level.
This research is slowly built up each turn during the economy phase, in which players accrue money and research based on the buildings they own. Upon filling the research bar, breakthroughs are achieved, with each level having an amount of these required to win. Defeating a monster in the maps where doing so is possible also guarantees a full breakthrough. This is also often required to achieve the optional objectives.
Besides the aforementioned economy phase, turns also feature the kaiju and military phases. During the kaiju phases, the monsters will move throughout the map, targeting the structures closest to them. The main gimmick during this phase is that the monsters will move following randomized paths, which players will have to plan for by looking at the percentage on each tile. The displayed percentage on a tile will estimate the chance of a kaiju going to that tile next. Additionally, during kaiju phases, “Dark Project” cards will be played, providing boosts to the monsters alongside whichever abilities they might already posses.
On the other hand, the military phase is where players will be able to deploy and move their troops, as well as utilize Projects of their own. The troops players will be able to deploy depend on the structure they’re generated at, with airfields providing planes and military bases ground units. Although these structures are not limited in how many units they may produce per turn, creating more than one is usually impossible. This is due to new units being unable to move in the same turn, although it can be circumvented with certain Projects. Alongside the units produced in the standard buildings, some Projects will provide unique ones with special effects, which will take a few turns to be created at a lab building.
The game’s main gimmick comes in how troops are handled. Instead of making the military out to be a formidable force capable of defeating kaiju, it is quite the opposite. All of the units created by the player will be destroyed in a single hit from the monsters, with a few exceptions, making the game an affair of guerrilla warfare. Players will have to carefully move their units around the monsters while keeping their possible pathing in mind, often having to sacrifice troops to deal more damage or to reduce the monster’s movement. This latter effect doesn’t even apply to most troops, with only some such as tanks having the ability to do so. Additionally, some special “Ace” units as well as the unique ones obtained from Projects can be upgraded with the medals obtained from the objectives in each level, granting them better stats.
By building new structures when possible, and carefully planting their troops, players will have to redirect the creatures as much as possible. However, even when managing to do so perfectly, it is still possible for the kaiju to find their way to Dr. Wagner’s lab should a security breach occur. These breaches appear due to Dark Project effects, and they will make the monsters beeline towards the doctor. Luckily, players will be able to evacuate her, in exchange for being unable to produce during economy phases until she reaches a new lab.
Besides campaign missions, players will also be able to make their own maps and play workshop content thanks to the tools provided. In the map editor, all of the game’s tiles, monsters, Projects, etc, will be available for players to create anything they desire. This, alongside a local co-op mode, further increase the game’s content, ultimately providing a substantial experience.
The only issue worth noting in Kaiju Wars would be the length of the levels, some of which take rather long to finish. Besides simply being large, these levels are further slowed down by the constant animations for each phase, special attacks, kaiju movement, and more. Although the game provides accessibility options to disable and speed these up, even with everything possible disabled and set to max speed, this still adds a while to each turn.
Conclusion
Kaiju Wars is a rather entertaining turn based strategy game that will delight fans of the kaiju genre. On top of this, the game’s mechanics are rather simple, providing a good entryway for newcomers. Offering around 12 hours of campaign mode, the game is easy to recommend at its €16,79/$19.99/£15.49 sale point. The only thing that dragged the experience down was the overall slow speed of the game. With a few more options to speed things up, we would gladly give this one a higher grade.
Personal Opinion
“Being a fan of Into The Breach, I very much enjoyed Kaiju Wars. Its ideas are rather unique and well executed, although maybe shallow at times. My main gripe with the game was how long each level took to beat. It wasn’t a matter of difficulty or having to restart a lot, but rather just animation times piling on as the turns kept dragging along. If these animations add around 15 seconds to each 10-second turn, the total time wasted becomes rather large. Luckily, other than this, the game is rather enjoyable, although maybe some more variation for optional objectives would be welcome.”
Kaiju Wars - Review,
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