Tempest Citadel – Review
Follow Genre: Sci-Fi strategic team management and base building
Developer: Aartform Games
Publisher: Aartform Games
Platform: PC
Tested on: PC

Tempest Citadel – Review

Site Score
7.5
Good: Intruiging storyline
Bad: RNG is an important factor
User Score
9.0
(2 votes)
Click to vote
VN:F [1.9.22_1171]
Rating: 9.0/10 (2 votes cast)

Tempest Citadel is the latest title from Aartform Games, a developer that is mostly known for their graphics tools, so we were eager to try out this Sci-Fi  strategic team management and base building game. Does it live up to the high standard of XCOM-esque titles or is it more of an okay title worth a couple hours of your time? That is a very difficult question to truly answer as you will see in this review.

Story

Terran Federation of Nations, the 10th of December 2017: a meteorite made impact unto Terra and on it highly advanced technology has been discovered. It appears to be an alien vessel capable of traversing the stars, yet it is in poor condition. Mankind can finally cast their eyes to the stars and beyond – who knows what awaits us out there or who sent the vessel in the first place…

Terran Federation of Nations, the 3th of May 2036: On board of the alien vessel a Catalyst was found, a device capable of initiating an interstellar jump after which it is consumed. Mankind decides to create their own vessel, place 107 crewmembers with different expertise and the Catalyst on board of it and send it off to Solum, a mysterious place mentioned in a map found on board of the alien vessel. The goal of Cedar IMV-2037, your vessel?  To establish a Terran colony on Solum, discover the secrets of this planet and find a way home to allow future settlers to join you.

Solum, the 16th of December 2037: IMV-2037 has arrived at its destination and you, the captain, are confronted with unexpected surprises and decisions. Will you find out the secrets of Indra, the actual name of your destination? Will you find another Catalyst? Or will you perish before you are able to contact Terra? Only you know what the future will bring…

You are gradually introduced to new elements in the story and the game itself, so you are always discovering new things that will keep you on your toes. As you progress deeper into the story, you will find yourself engrossed in the storyline.

Graphics

Tempest Citadel has the typical Sci-Fi  XCOM-esque look about it: dark, dreary and dangerous. The User Interface is kept basic yet organised which allows the player to see at a glance if his research has ended or his new equipment has been created. The actual battlefields are very limited in space and variation, you either fight air battles around your base or land battles on one of the few maps. The quality of the characters is quite low, and their movements are not fluid. The battles will never convince you of their urgency as firefights  come across as bland and boring.

Sound

The soundtrack is very in-your-face, the deep bass and electronic music while exploring your base gets you in the mood to deploy your squad and conquer a factory or military base. The battle theme either has this dirty electronic guitar which never gets dull or this bombastic Command and Conquer-esque vibe about it and this coupled with the electronic vibe has made killing enemies never more enjoyable. The actual firefights  are underwhelming as the weapons, as realistic as they sound,  they just don’t sound right – a laser sounds like a laser but it just doesn’t sound dangerous enough for example.

Gameplay

Tempest Citadel is a Sci-Fi  strategic team management and base building game that gives the player the freedom which research you want to focus on in the limited time you have available. Limited time as you only have a set amount of years before your crew will become disillusioned with their future and decide to unleash some nastiness unto you, their captain. To research new things such as weapons or equipment, you will have to spend some time in the Research panel to figure out what exactly you want/should be focussed on. After this, materials such as Scrap and Synthetics will be needed to get that fancy new Flight Suit or Minigun so put together a squad, send them out to one of the many raidable places and hope they survive.

Hoping that they survive being the keyword here: the battles are uncontrollable, which is a surprise if you are used to turn-based games such as XCOM. You just press “Engage!” and hope their gear is adequate to defeat whatever they are up against. Replaying the same battle multiple times can lead to very different outcomes which makes it somewhat frustrating to prepare for a specific battle, as the gods of RNG can decide to spurn your advances at any moment which can lead to your well-equipped, highly skilled squad getting wiped out.

The Citadel, your base of operations, can be upgraded in terms of research capabilities, available creatable equipment and defences. Unfortunately, this feels very basic: gather enough x resources to create y module, rinse and repeat. After a while this will start to feel more like a chore and comes down to getting lucky, as some building materials are rare so after every battle you’ll be praying you finally get that missing amount of Robotics to create that elusive module that allows you to research higher tier equipment.

The storyline is interesting and well layered yet linear. If you replay the game, you will always have the same encounters, the same bases you can conquer and the same choices to make. You are always fighting against a timer, the set amount of years to reach your goal, which, coupled with the rarity of certain building material s, can become frustrating as you see that blue line creeping on the white line.

Conclusion

Tempest Citadel is refreshing yet repetitive at the same time. It’s a nice addition to the XCOM-esque genre yet it neglects to take some of the more crucial successful elements on board which turns it into a linear but interesting game. It is worth getting picked up and played through a couple of times if you are a fan of the Sci-Fi  genre and don’t want to spend too much money on a title.

 

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Rating: 9.0/10 (2 votes cast)
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Tempest Citadel - Review, 9.0 out of 10 based on 2 ratings

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