Pure confidence is placing a ‘1’ on the finish of your recreation title. That claims “we all know we’re making a second recreation, you possibly can’t cease us”. We like the boldness.
After all, this being an 8floor Video games title, the possibility of a sequel is extremely excessive. Their Gnomes Backyard collection is as much as its eighth iteration, and so they’ve received plenty of others which are properly past a second recreation. So, possibly it’s not that ballsy.
We’ve been recognized to be vital of 8floor Video games ‘churn them out’ technique. Nearly each month, they launch a brand new stripped again city-management sim onto the Xbox. We had been tempted to place ‘new’ in inverted commas, as their video games are very a lot copycats of one another. They simply fluctuate in theme, story and the variety of bugs they introduce. So, you possibly can think about the faint emotions of dread when Argonauts Company 1: Golden Fleece arrived.
We needn’t have been nervous. As a result of Argonauts Company 1: Golden Fleece shouldn’t be solely a step ahead from something the writer has put out up to now twelve months, it’s their finest recreation full cease. Why this hasn’t been the template all alongside, we don’t know, however we will say one factor for sure: when you’ve ever been interested in all these Gnomes-Backyard-and-friends titles, that is the one you must begin with. After all, the opposite video games might be a disappointment as compared, however at the least you’ll have an honest first style.
The opening moments supply a couple of clues that 8floor Video games have gotten it proper with this one. Whereas Jason and his Argonauts themselves are just a little uncanny and creepy, their recreation world is vibrant and straightforward to learn. We’ve been dragging ourselves by the relentlessly brown Royal Roads, and Argonauts Company 1: Golden Fleece is blinding technicolour as compared. Sources, buildings and characters are all simple to learn, fairly than camouflaged with the background. Once more, bonus.
Then there’s the story, which bucks the writer’s pattern by being readable and transient. Gone are the acres of illegible, poorly translated textual content; in comes some throwaway guff in regards to the Golden Fleece being stolen and Jason and the Argonauts performing as a type of Non-public Investigation Company to get them again. Positive, it does the standard and hops from one potential suspect to a different, fairly than growing something you’d name ‘plot’, nevertheless it’s brief sufficient to complete in a couple of seconds, and you will get proper into the administration meat.
Whisper it, however the gameplay in Argonauts Company 1: Golden Fleece is definitely fulfilling to the purpose of being, welp, addictive. The earlier video games within the many different collection have at all times been a butt of our jokes, primarily as a result of they’re so willfully boring and easy compared to video games like Age of Empires or Cities: Skylines. However in Argonauts Company 1: Golden Fleece, we lastly observe what 8floor Video games have been attempting to attain.
Gone are the interminable waits for assets. You’re not saving up for minutes so as to bypass a puddle within the street. Argonauts Company 1: Golden Fleece is impeccably balanced so that you’re at all times using the curve: there isn’t a downtime in any respect, and so long as you’re on high of your upgrades and cursor administration, you’ll be gathering assets, eradicating blockages, constructing mills and finishing aims. It’s a merry chain of actions.
It’s a small change however huge for Argonauts Company 1: Golden Fleece. So many small, incremental shifts make this sense doable. There’s much less emphasis on upgrading buildings, as that at all times caught you right into a loop of managing the identical small area of the sport board. Blockages solely take a couple of assets to clear, whereas buildings pump out assets at an honest charge. And there’s valuable few distractions that stretch out the sport time. There are not any orcs stealing your stuff, or trolls which are wanted to hurry up manufacturing. Every part flows.
It implies that you churn by ranges in Argonauts Company 1: Golden Fleece at about twice the pace of the opposite 8floor Video games, and boy does it really feel good. To make sure you don’t whip by the sport like a stiff breeze, the variety of ranges has been upped. There are 65 right here, when 50 is about par for the collection (albeit with lots of these chucking in some secret ranges).
However the large bravos go to the cave ranges and a whole absence of bugs. Let’s cowl the bugs first, as we’re simply thrilled to be speaking in regards to the polish for as soon as. Argonauts Company 1: Golden Fleece is clean as a child’s backside. There are not any UI points, no save recreation issues, no uncompletable ranges. The achievements even unlock correctly. Higher nonetheless, there’s a surfeit of unlocks and problem choices, permitting you to handle your expertise. Argonauts Company 1: Golden Fleece screams care and a focus.
We’ve at all times been eager to slap the ‘copycat’ label on these video games. However there’s one addition to Argonauts Company 1: Golden Fleece that – hopefully – indicators a rising style for innovation. There’s a sequence of ranges that happen at midnight. You’ll be able to solely see thus far, with lit beacons forcing you to work inside confined routes. However by gathering assets you possibly can mild additional beacons in a selected path and unlock what’s there.
It provides one thing that these video games have by no means had: shock and delight. One beacon would possibly unlock a collection of blocked paths, and also you realise you’ve wasted the assets to light up them. However one other beacon would possibly uncover a motherlode of stuff. All of a sudden you’re going all Grocery store Sweep and shoving all of the assets in your procuring trolley. We wished there have been extra of those ranges – it’s only one of some areas – however whereas they had been round, Argonauts Company 1: Golden Fleece jumped up a tier.
For all our enthusiasm, we needs to be clear that Argonauts Company 1: Golden Fleece isn’t some type of revelation: it’s not all of a sudden turning this collection of video games right into a colossus of the Xbox Retailer. It’s nonetheless low on technique, low on depth and achingly unmodern with its sluggish cursor. There’s each likelihood that Paradox gamers, or anybody with some metropolis administration sim expertise, will flip their nostril up.
However we’ve pumped an unearthly variety of hours into these 8floor Video games titles, and we’re simply comfortable to lastly say ‘this one is price taking part in’. We would have gotten carried away: when you’ve by no means performed one in every of these titles earlier than, you possibly can in all probability shave a half mark off the rating. However in case you have performed them earlier than, and also you’ve grown pissed off that 8floor Video games by no means appear to launch a coherent, bug-free and bold title, then cease the Argo for a second. Argonauts Company 1: Golden Fleece is the one.
