Earth vs Mars

Nice one, reminds me of a good old Battle Isle. Missing unit experiance though.

THIS IS A MIXED REVIEW: Earth vs Mars is a charming and surprisingly stylish take on the turn-based strategy genre, blending classic tactical gameplay with a playful, almost cartoon-like presentation that immediately sets it apart. From the moment you jump in, the game’s visuals are a standout feature. The colorful, vibrant art direction gives everything a lighthearted tone, from the expressive unit designs to the flashy combat effects. There’s a real sense of personality here—especially in the bizarre but creative hybrid units you create using the game’s core mechanic, which fuses humans and animals into unique battlefield fighters. It’s weird in the best way, and it works. That same charm carries over into the overall design and map variety. The environments are bright, readable, and thoughtfully constructed, making each mission feel distinct. Whether you're navigating forests, urban battlefields, or alien-infested zones, the maps offer enough visual flair and tactical consideration to keep things engaging. The handcrafted mission structure helps reinforce that sense of care, giving the game a polished, curated feel rather than something procedurally thrown together. However, while the presentation is strong, cracks start to show once you dig into the gameplay systems. The biggest issue lies in unit balancing, which feels inconsistent across nearly all difficulty levels. Some units clearly outperform others, leading to repetitive strategies where experimentation is punished rather than rewarded. Instead of encouraging tactical creativity, the game often funnels you into relying on a handful of overpowered combinations, which undercuts the otherwise fun unit variety. The difficulty scaling doesn’t help much either. Rather than introducing smarter AI or deeper strategic challenges, higher difficulties can feel artificially inflated, exposing the imbalance even more. This can make certain missions frustrating for the wrong reasons, while others feel too easy once you find a dominant strategy. Then there’s the story, which, while serviceable, never really reaches the same level as the game’s visuals or concept. The premise—Earth fighting off a bizarre Martian invasion with hybrid super-soldiers—is undeniably fun, but the campaign itself unfolds at a slow pace and lacks real excitement. Despite being fully voiced and structured across numerous missions, the narrative struggles to stay engaging and can feel a bit dull over time. In the end, Earth vs Mars is a game of contrasts. It’s visually delightful, creatively designed, and full of personality, with cool maps and a unique concept that feels fresh in the strategy space. But underneath that charm lies a layer of mechanical issues—particularly with balance and pacing—that hold it back from true greatness. If you’re a fan of turn-based tactics and can overlook some rough edges, there’s still a lot to enjoy here. Just don’t expect a perfectly refined strategy experience—the style may carry it far, but it doesn’t quite cover all its flaws..

great game but keeps crashed as I near the end of each level. I have played the current level 7 times and every time I get close to the end the game crashes and I have to start over. If they can fix this soon I will reverse my reccomendation but right now I cannot endorse it :-(

Finally fixed the fog of war memory leak, but then there was an error where healed units weren't healed correctly, causing their reported health to be incorrect so you go into fights with damage you can't see. Game breaking for this genre. They fixed that the day after I reported (dev responded), but the very next map had another issue: I couldn't see how much damage my attacks would do or how much I would take. Again, key stuff. It worked on the next map after I closed out the game, but game is obviously not getting much QA love.

Love turn-based strategies with squad-level or higher units, ie, WWII Order of Battle or Battlesector, which are surprisingly very sparse. This game scratched that itch, although more like advanced wars, but sneaks in some more than superficial strategy layers. Enough variety of units to use different approaches, and the spliced heroes give a fun burst of OP units that makes the game fun.

This game is not inventing much. It feels more of a mod for all the great games that came before it more than anything. While I do love this style of 1v1, the maps and story are a little bit predictably rigged. The AI is incredibly stupid, its very easy to make them fall for every trap. They have various scenarios in an effort to make the game interesting but I found them more frustrating than anything. So, its a very slight recomend from me.

Solid Advance Wars clone.

Great easy going old school turn based strategy. Maybe oversimplified but this is not an issue. Waiting in the late game how will evolve!

Very fun mini-tactics game - the splicing is only to create 1-3 "hero" units you will use during missions which is fun, but you are backed by otherwise a normal army. Heaps of content for the price tag, missions are very well designed and most take only 7-9 turns on average and are challenging and move at a good pace.