OK, I’m genuinely confused here. I bought this game because negative reviews made it look like the game is extremely underrated, but guess what? It isn’t. But I can’t say that the original idea is bad. And that’s why I’m confused. To understand what the [b]Way of Gold and Steel[/b] is, you should be old enough to remember how it was about computer games in the late [b]80s[/b] and early [b]90s[/b]. Those were crazy times, when just a bunch of people was able to make a cool game. Remember [b]King’s Bounty[/b]? The game, that started one of the biggest turn-based franchises ever made, [b]Heroes of Might & Magic[/b]? Remember how many people made it? Two programmers and three people, who worped on graphics. And that was it - the legend was born. Realistic graphics didn’t kill the gaming yet back then and people didn’t need expensive machines to make something that will look cool for everybody. Nowadays, there are cool-looking [b]AAA[/b] projects and those poor-looking indie ones. Back in the days it was possible for indie games to look cool too. Thanks to that there were also some interesting fan-made games back then that looked almost like their commercial counterparts. Like [b]Ukraininan[/b] guy [b]Sergey Prokofiev[/b] made an unofficial sequel to [b]King’s Bounty[/b]. It was left unfinished, but it was pretty cool for one-man project. Why am I telling you all that? Because that’s exactly what the [b]Way of Gold and Steel[/b] is - a one-man project. It’s made by a [b]Russian[/b] guy from [b]Moscow[/b], whose name is also [b]Sergey[/b], [b]Sergey Bobrov[/b]. It may sound very interesting for old school gamers, since one-man projects are often unique, but the problem here is - the game feels like it was made in early [b]90s[/b]. And it isn’t a good thing.
I mean, yes, all of us can enjoy some retro. But the [b]Way of Gold and Steel[/b] is [i]not[/i] a retro. It's [i]dated[/i]. Even though it was made not so long ago, it feels like an old game. Like its maker used to live in a bunker for many years. Retro is a one thing, but [b]Sergey[/b] just ignored everything that can be improved and made his game to feel dated instead of giving players a nice retro feeling. For example, all of us enjoy [b]Dune 2[/b], but nobody will want the genre to willingly jump back to the uncomfortable [b]UI[/b] after [b]Command & Conquer[/b] showed how cool things can be. Same thing here - interface is a pain in the neck with no proper reason. But enough about that, let’s talk about the game itself.
The [b]Way of Gold and Steel[/b] is some sort of mix between strategy and roguelike. Remember the [b]German[/b] clone of the famous [b]Settlers[/b] called [b]Knights & Merchants[/b]? Check it out in [b]Steam[/b] if you don’t. It was an [b]RTS[/b] about the kingdom at war, where you were supposed to build yourself a village to support your army. You were supposed to build mines and vegetable gardens, plant trees and do other stuff to keep things going and produce the goods. Like you were supposed to plant the tree first and let it grow before your woodcutter was able to cut it and deliver it to the other villagers to produce some other stuff from it. Same thing here. You build the huts for various workers and make them producing things to keep your incomes going. Only all that is in roguelike-like mode now. Sounds pretty nice again and it somewhat is, but only before you understand how dull and repetitive the whole thing is. You build the lumberjack’s and forester’s huts to be able to cut and plant trees, you build some mines, you build the shipyard to be able to travel to the next island, you move and repeat the process. The end.
The only goal of the game is to collect two special coins by killing everybody in the world. The whole game is just a single map. Imagine what would happen if [b]Sid Meier[/b] was seriously hit to his head before he started working on his famous [b]Civilization[/b] and that’ll be it. There are no researches, there are no quests, there are no special goals, or something like that. You just build stuff to get more resources and expand. There are enemies though, but even that feels wrong.
First of all, the game is random. [i]Way too random.[/i] You may be invaded by a huge enemy fleet during the first few minutes. [i]or[/i] you may play for hours and see no enemies, while the battles themselves feel absolutely terrible, since enemies have no [b]AI[/b] and just keep running across the map. [b]UI[/b], as I’ve already said, is a royal pain in a neck too. Also, even though you’re playing as a captain of the pirates crew and supposed to give your guys the orders directly (you can’t even do that from far away, or they won’t be able to hear you), you can’t level up. No level ups, no skills, no even proper equipment screen. You can equip weapons and some basic armor, but you just add them to your inventory and select “equip”. There can’t be anything more dull. There are some dungeons, but you’ll die from boredom long before you’ll even get to them and those are nothing in comparison with proper roguelikes.
Finally, the game looks pretty poor. You may think that it’s some sort of cool retro style, judging by screenshots, but no, it’s just a poor graphics (the whole game is only [b]8mb[/b], by the way). Also, no music, no sound (no even [b]PC speaker[/b], lol), no customization at all (which is must for any roguelike), nothing. It’s just that - a single map with some enemies on it and you, who’re supposed to build things and get resources. Just to be able to build even more things. Imagine [b]Civilization[/b] without researches and city management. Imagine [b]Pirates![/b] without being able to interact with the cities and without interesting sea battles. Imagine [b]King’s Bounty[/b] without quests and hidden treasures… That’s exactly what we have here. An extremely uncomfortable routine without anything special in it. The game feels unfinished. Like [b]King’s Bounty 2[/b]. With some more time in development, it’ll have a small chance. As is, it gives me a strange feeling that I traveled back in time and played some poor game from late [b]80s[/b] / early [b]90s[/b].
In other words, if you want some old school, buy yourself some true classics. Like [b]Pirates![/b]. But don’t pay for this, because it’s literally not worth your time. It may be OK for somebody’s school project, but why should we pay for it - that’s the question.
