[Test] "Crush Your Enemies": back to the roots of RTS with barbaric sauce!

Tired of playing with stereotypical heroes? Then Crush Your Enemies is for you. On the occasion of its release on Nintendo Switch, this independent game from the Polish studio Vile Monarch offers a return to the basics of RTS pure and hard! Those nostalgic for Total Annihilation may find their adolescent soul with a point of barbarism!

Crush Your Enemies is a game where barbarians fight in the purest of RTS traditions. The developers wanted to pay tribute to the origins of this tactical genre, by creating a real-time system that is simple to understand and devilishly enjoyable to play. Complicated detail point here, the game consists of taking down the opposing camp without shame or half measures, with your blades, arrows and shields, that's all.

Synopsis:

The story of Crush Your Enemies is elementary, you are a band of barbarians as muscular as hairy and your only reason for living is to make war and drink beer! Your battle cry is: "Gut them all!». A whole program to shed blood with a very vulgar humor but so virile that it is able to make Conan shudder!

Gameplay:

The game relies on actions that at first seem extremely simple, such as advancing your troops on small screen-sized maps and telling them to tap on everything in their way, no more, no less. But in reality, behind this façade of newbie hides an extraordinary wealth of gameplay. So much so that one wonders why bother with many complications in the new generation RTS.

During a battle, the map is divided into several areas in the form of squares. To advance on the map, each side must convert and occupy the areas in order to transform them into an allied zone. The more characters, the faster the conversion will be.

Each camp starts with a number of units that must be quickly expanded to have a numerical superiority. To do this, rank-and-file barbarians can invade huts to become dungeons in order to recruit new dungeons. The more dungeons there are in the hut, the faster recruitment will be done, up to 50 units. It is up to the players to free the hut so that other barbarians can make their appearances. Here, the variant of the number of units is very important for numerical superiority during battles. What's more, the speed at which your troops grow is even more important.

In addition to this, barbarians can have several classes: basic barbarians (called dungeons), specialized barbarians with equipment (called warriors), and barbarians arched on their turrets. On the other hand, this small world does not mix and beware of players who wish to place the dungeons on an area occupied by barbarian warriors. A subtlety of gameplay that constantly forces you to watch over the exact position of your troops.

Once your barbarians are freshly ready for battle, you have to move them around the map. To do this, you must tell them on the map the path to follow and define the number of units to send. For the rest, battles are done automatically and numerical superiority usually prevails. On the other hand, you obviously have to pay attention to the class difference that can be eliminatory if you send basic barbarians against knights…

The strength of this game system lies in a solid structure where everything is done to constantly keep you busy throughout the battle. Lasting from 3 to 15 minutes, they are particularly well designed to suit a casual game between two train stations or at home while waiting for the start of the match! We are far from the hours of endless battles of other RTS. A very good point!

The different missions bring a lot of renewal to the battles, as the objectives will not always be the same. It is obviously necessary to gut the opposing camp, finish the game with a certain number of units, survive for a certain time or finish in a given time…! This last condition gives the most trouble, it is on this point that the game becomes a real challenge.

All these conditions allow you to get up to three severed heads at each level. Your reputation as a bloodthirsty barbarian depends on these severed heads, because some fortresses will not even want to fight against you if they consider that you are not real monsters. This requires replaying the levels to get all the rewards. A whole program…

Despite this idyllic picture, a problem arises on Nintendo Switch. Even if the game is rather well thought out in portable mode so that we can play it with our finger, the game is impractical with the controller on the big screen! The fault of a stupid oversight, the impossibility of directing the cursor with the directional cross. Indeed, only the analog stick works, while the movement in the cards corresponds to squares. In addition, it is often necessary to draw straight lines to indicate the way to the troops. Things get complicated when you have to play fast against the clock, so it is not uncommon to have to start several times your line of direction and lose a lot of time … A height when the directional cross would have been more judicious to fulfill this role … Let's hope an update fixes this oversight…

Graphics:

From a graphics point of view, Crush Your Enemies makes very low-end pixel art. But this is enough to offer maps where legibility is assured. It would have benefited from being a little finer but what do you want, the barbarian is not in lace but likes to show himself in drawing … In this, the illustrations that accompany the semblance of history of the single-player campaign are rather successful. There is a good dose of humor, very fat, which sticks well to the protagonists. Beware, however, of sensitive souls for whom this kind of speech does not pass.

Lifespan:

In the game, there is plenty to do with the first 72 levels and the completely crazy side levels. In addition, a versus mode is present for epic battles for two. As well as an online mode with leaderboard! Allow about 20 to 30 hours to finish the solo game with all the heads…

Sound environment:

The music is of a very inspired taste thanks to the compositions of Marcin Przybylowicz. We find the typical touch of this author known for his participation in The Witcher 2 and 3. The rest is of a good level, even if we would have preferred real voices rather than a blah blah blah or a blobloblo as lyrics in the narrative phases.

Crush Your Enemies is a small game that thinks big. He manages to stand up as a worthy representative of his category, thanks to a simple, accessible and effective game system over time. Even if it does not revolutionize the genre, this return to the roots of the RTS of Vile Monarch is realized in the most beautiful way. The universe won't appeal to everyone, but for those who adhere to it, the content is solid. Released in 2016 on IOS at 3.99, displayed on Steam at 9.99, this Switch version released on August 2 at 7.99 is a good way to access this little bomb too little unknown of real-time strategy.

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