|| REVIEW || Praetorians HD Remaster (PC)
Developed By : Torus Games / Pyro Studios Published By : Kalypso Media
Category : RTS, Strategy, Remaster
Release Date : January 24, 2020
If you have been around the blog or the channel as of late, moreso the channel, you've probably heard me talk about my newfound love for strategy games. Well, to be more specific the RTS variety of strategy games. Back when I was younger I had tried a handful of different strategy games that pit you in control of multiple troops instead of just a handful of individual characters, and they were never really my jam. But now, with my taste in gaming much more evolved, I've been interested in re-checking out the things I might have missed.
One such game is the Ancient Rome-set Praetorians. You'll play as the largely-unseen Julius Caesar in the quest and tale that follows him through some of his greatest battles. Spanning over locations such as Egypt, Gaul, and Britain, you'll be placed in charge of a large number of troops in order to meet your goals and recreate the goals that were once met by Caesar and his fellow generals.
The game features a campaign that is spread out over almost two dozen missions. To start, all you'll have available are four tutorial missions and the first "you're free to go" mission of the campaign. Through the tutorials you'll learn just about every mechanic and important bit of information you'll need throughout the majority of the game. Here, the game will teach you the different types of troops you'll be in control of, as well as the things they can and can't do.
As you'd probably expect, all of your units share the ability to attack on the battlefield. Some, like your archers, serve you better attacking from a distance, while others, like your horseback cavalries, are better suited for charging right in to vanquish your foes. However, it's their differences outside of battle that can help prove their worth to you. When it comes to taking over villages or building bridges to cross rivers, you'll need to rely on Auxiliary Infantry to carry these tasks for you, while the Cleric is one of the only units that can heal your forces.
Completing the campaign missions is reliant on you meeting different objectives which will vary with each mission. Sometimes you'll need to reach a certain area, say crossing a river. Other times you'll need to capture villages, but usually you'll find yourself tasked with keeping one or two specific people alive. If these people die it will result in an instant failure of your mission, so keep them protected at all costs.
You begin each mission with a number of troops. Typically they are bunched together in a shared starting area, but some levels will make you travel to meet up with additional troops. Furthermore, if there's a village to capture, once you do so you can generate more troops here too. Each type of troop requires a certain number of villagers and a time to train said troop, so keep both in mind if you find yourself getting pressed back from the enemy.
It's been a long time since I tried a strategy game that put you in control of many different units like in Praetorians. The last time I did, I wasn't such a fan. I've said this numerous times in reviews and especially so on stream, but I am more a fan of just getting to barrel into story instead of needing to worry about leveling or resource management. And although you typically can't do the whole barrel-in approach with strategy games, Praetorians eliminates a lot of the usual suspects that you'd expect.
The only "resource" you need to concern yourself with is the amount of citizens in a village after you've captured one. That's it, no worrying about how much cloth you have for uniforms, or metal for armor. If you have the people you have the troops. For me personally, as much as I used to dislike games like this I absolutely loved learning and executing everything about Praetorians.
Speaking specifically to the remaster, I can't say how this version stands up to the original as I never experienced the old one. I can say that this one operates flawlessly, and the only things I felt were "missing" were features from more recent strategy games such as being able to rotate the camera and avoiding blind spots on the map. But again that's just due to where the genre has gone, and is nothing to be held against this title specifically. So if you're a strategy fan, and even a history fan, don't hesitate to get Praetorians HD Remaster and control your troops to victory.
Game Rating : 8 / 10
Also available on Playstation 4 and Xbox One
A code for this game was graciously provided
to the site for purpose of review
