Reviewed on the Xbox One
What happens to your toys when you’re not around? They fight each other, of course.
Toy Soldiers: War Chest is the latest installment of the Toy Soldiers franchise, and the best one so far in my opinion.
In Toy Soldiers: War Chest you take control of an army and defend your base from other armies that are trying to take over. Pretty simple, right?
Wrong.
This game can be easy or very hard depending on how you place your defenses. The base game contains the Kaiser Wilhelm army based on first world war Germany, Dark Lord from Dungeons & Dragons, Starbright and her rainbow colored army and a non-descript sci-fi army of Phantom.
There are four more armies that can either be purchased separately or as part of a package with the base game. These armies include He-Man, G.I. Joe, Cobra and Ezio from Assassin’s Creed. From what I’ve seen of prices here in Canada there’s no difference in what you’ll pay for content whether or not you purchase the full package or get the DLC separately.
Overall, the experience you get when playing Toy Soldiers: War Chest is pretty decent. For those that want to relive their childhood the choice of toys from their youth is available (for me I choose to play as He-Man, lol). But beyond they first enthrallment of the game it becomes pretty blaze as just another tower defense type game. Yes, I know I said it was the best in the series so far but hear me out.
Placing the defenses out stretches from fairly easy to increasingly difficult as you progress through the game. After some levels have been completed you’ll need to build and re-build your towers as they get destroyed. Not only do you need to worry about the oncoming armies but you also will find yourself battling enemy encampments so you can free up the space they’re taking for your own towers. This will put quite a drain on your resources making it more difficult to complete the level.
The controls are fairly simple and easy to learn as you continue through the game. Pretty much standard for the tower defense genre. A tutorial is provided to teach you how to build, repair, replace and take over turrets and characters. The only bit of difficulty I had was with flying characters. It seems that if you don’t play enough flying games you will crash and burn quite a bit.
The graphics here are pretty good though with a few exceptions. The game did seem to slow down and stutter in a few spots. I’m not entirely sure if this was due to insufficient memory or if it is just an issue inherent in the game itself. But at least it was the whole game that slowed down and not just you so everything is still able to keep up.
Beyond that, exploding enemy characters was quite enjoyable. Especially the ponies that made rainbow explosions when they were defeated. Was it wrong to find that a little… satisfying?
Cut scenes for each character introduction was well done as well. A brief still of the character and description of who they were helped move the storyline along.
The sound in the game is very good though. Explosions and gunfire come through quite well. If you listen closely while playing you can even hear the shouts of the enemies as they run towards you. The music that is available plays during cut scenes or when you have completed all the waves is non-descript and you do not miss it when it’s gone.
Overall, as I said it was the best of the Toy Soldiers series. However, on the whole it could use a little work to beef up the game to make you want to continue playing it. I would rate Toy Soldiers: War Chest 7/10.
Worth getting but don’t expect too much.
Toy Soldiers: War Chest is available now on the Xbox One, Playstation 4 and PC.
onyx62is 