Toy Tactics – Historical Real-Time Strategy in a Fantasy Land!

“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.” – Sun Tzu, The Art of War

Writing & Worldbuilding

The mythical land of Erebus summons heroes from all places and historical eras to fight each other in glorious battle. Even with this premise, all the available factions will be from ancient times, without modern weaponry; only cold iron, shields, arrows and a good dose of magic to spice things up. Guided by a much less serious version of Sun Tzu, the legendary strategist who wrote “The Art of War” (a great book by the way, give it a read if you haven’t), you’ll hear the tales and take control of five different factions in linear campaigns, each about a dozen levels.

The writing is comedic, lighthearted and simple: even if the factions involved, such as renamed counterparts of ancient Romans, Vikings and even pirates are some pretty serious stuff, Toy Tactics puts everything in a relaxed perspective, far from the brutal realities of such historical times. Aside from a dedicated introductory cutscene for each faction, and a few lines before each mission, there isn’t much substance to the story or lore of Toy Tactics, which is completely fine for an RTS.

The minimalistic, low-poly visuals suit the game well, although they’re not exactly the latest in graphics eye-candy. The art style does look good, and the physics effects contribute to giving some more momentum to an otherwise static environment, especially during battles.

Exploration & Secrets

Each level takes place in a relatively small map, all of which is explored and revealed from the beginning. Strategic assets such as towers, walls or collectibles like treasure chests are immediately visible, without the fog of war that is usually present in most other RTS titles. You won’t have to worry about combing each corner with your units. As you explore, enemy spawns or other specific events may trigger, such as cutscenes, sometimes infuriatingly so, since time still passes while a cutscene plays out, having you temporarily lose control of your units — even in battle. Environmental effects are present and may play a major role in fights depending on the setting: for instance, frozen winds can slow and push your units to their doom in a pitfall, water heavily slows anyone crossing it, and fog conceals any unit that hides in the bank. Admittedly, these environmental aspects of each map are meaningful but under-utilized in the majority of levels, usually shown in a major way the first time they appear, only to be forgotten by the designers in subsequent iterations. There are no side areas or secrets to reveal anywhere; exploration is only meaningful to reach objectives or treasure, but there’s no other reason to roam each corner of the levels.

Combat System & Bosses

Fights play out in real-time, with the option of pausing time to issue orders without the carnage still going on — a clever design choice that removes the frantic micromanagement rush not everyone might enjoy. The biggest feature of Toy Tactics is the Brush, a tool allowing you to design custom unit formations with the shape you see fit, and then direct them on the field. It’s an intuitive and novel system I haven’t seen before in any RTS, which allows a great deal of flexibility. Not only that, but you’ll also be able to merge multiple formations into one, and redraw them at will should they not suit your purpose any longer. Aside from that, battles play out like in most RTS titles: each faction has access to four different units and two heroes, each having unique abilities, strengths and weaknesses that need to be offset by your ability to use them correctly.

For instance, cavalry units are great at dealing damage, but only if they gain enough momentum before the strike. Heavy units excel at drawing attention and tanking hits but are susceptible to magic and ranged attacks. Other than positioning your units well, you’ll also have to use the environment and strategic assets, like towers or fortifications, to further boost each unit’s strengths.

Magic exists in this world, and is a powerful asset. Each faction has a roster of spells, progressively unlocked as you complete levels and optional challenges, which can change the course of battle. From a rain of magic arrows to snowballs, explosive volleys or summoning powerful, temporary units to your command, the variety of spells brings in another layer of depth: equipping the right one for the task at hand is very important, and in some missions even vital, for success. Spells damage and affect your own units as well, so they can’t just be tossed recklessly, as the amount of units you get in a level is finite, and they have to last for the whole ordeal. Plus, spells need enemy souls, gained from kills, to be activated, and the more powerful the spell, the more souls are required.

There isn’t a macro-management element in Toy Tactics: no bases, no garrisons, and no control points except those specifically related to the mission itself: in almost all levels you’ll have to clear the map from enemies or conquer a specific location, without the need to build any base or any resource pipeline, as you could see in other RTS. As far as depth goes, this game isn’t something a hardened Starcraft player would enjoy, most likely, and it’s instead aimed at a more casual audience which wants a more relaxed, but by no means easy, RTS experience. This lack of depth extends also to the controls: the biggest flaw in the battle system is that you can’t order a formation to attack a specific enemy, in fact, all units automatically aggro and attack a random enemy in their range, which really sucks if you want to focus a particularly strong foe to get it out of the way. In addition to that, the physics-based combat can create some frustrating shenanigans such as units being flung away by the sheer jank of the physics engine going haywire, or not pathfinding correctly due to being pushed around by their comrades, usually to their deaths.

Then, there are boss fights, which means proper bosses, not the commanders seen at the usual levels. These fights are usually at the end of a faction campaign, and they are probably the least fun Toy Tactics has to offer. Bosses are, essentially, gigantic, unique enemies with powerful AoE abilities, obscene HP pools and the power to spawn infinite enemies around them, while your units are always finite in number. I found boss fights to be frustrating because they’re less about strategy and more about kiting stuff around while chipping away at the boss’ enormous health pool, with all spells also seemingly doing reduced damage to such foes. The fact bosses can spawn infinite enemies is a cheap design choice to create artificial difficulty, instead of thinking of more unique ways to make such fights distinct from the rest.

Progression & Challenges

In each level, you’ll be awarded a progression point for completing it, and two more for clearing the optional challenges, different in each. They can range from keeping all your units of a specific type alive to defending an NPC, conquering a secondary location, or more nuanced objectives. These points are important, as they allow you to unlock more powerful spells in a skill tree different for each faction; they will make your life much easier later on, so clearing all of these challenges is recommended. Other than that, each level holds a treasure chest, usually in a secluded location you’ll have to reach with either any unit or a commander, depending on the type of chest. Sometimes, mini-puzzles or alternative solutions need to be cleared to accommodate the chest in your plans. The reward from each chest is a permanent unique item for one of your unit types, which grants a passive bonus; some of them are extremely powerful, others much less so, but you’ll not know what you’re getting until you open the chest. In some cases, campaign levels of one faction may be locked until you have progressed enough in the campaign of another, a dubious design decision that doesn’t add anything to the gameplay, save for forcing you to stop one thing halfway to start another, instead of going in order.

Optional Game Modes

Other than the faction-specific campaigns, a whole other array of game modes is available. First of all, there’s multiplayer, to compete against your friends or randoms. Other than that, if you don’t like people as much, the Puzzle, Skirmish and Mercenaries modes will give you plenty to do if the campaigns weren’t enough. Puzzle mode focuses on the strategy aspect and clever usage of each unit type from several factions, in order to clear maps that are, as the name suggests, more logical puzzles than strategic battles. Skirmish mode has a few large-scale battles with different factions, and Mercenaries has you choose your own unit roster, within a given budget, to try and clear different maps with objectives, the point of it being clearing one with the minimum amount of budget possible.

Conclusion

Toy Tactics proves to be a solid RTS oriented for a more casual audience. That doesn’t mean it’s easy, it just doesn’t have, by design, the level of micro and macro management other RTS have. That doesn’t mean it’s a bad game, quite the contrary, in fact. It succeeds in delivering a variety of content, good value for money and plenty of content to go through, even if the five campaigns alone would already be enough at this price point.

If you enjoyed this article you might also like some of Tamaster’s other game reviews:
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