When you hear Real-Time Strategy, what comes to mind? The building of your army, the movement or what about the strategy that you need to think about before attacking? All of this would be very true but does Developers Vertigo Games and Wolfdog Interactive show how well the turn-based strategy works well with the ability to research and upgrade your army and bring that to addictive Virtual Reality gameplay? Let’s find out with Skyworld for the PlayStation VR.
Skyworld is, of course, a real-time strategy game, but what I really like about how Skyworld is different is that you don’t automatically just jump into battle. You need to be able to gather resources in order to research new types of units for your army from swordsmen to archers to battling rams to even dragons. Yes, dragons that breathe fire and will destroy your hard-working archers who probably just graduated archery class and has made you proud that you would be glad for them to serve this land and that’s all fine and dandy until the enemy throws a fire breathing dragon in the mix and you start thinking, really? But that is the fun of Skyworld. That is what it’s bringing to the table and I personally love it.
Before you begin, make sure both Move controllers are fully charged. Now that you have your hands of sorts, you can start by giving your general the stamp of approval. Your General is what you will use to move across the table that holds the world that you will be playing on. What I really appreciate is the ability to raise and lower the table as well as move it away and closer to you if needed. But in order to have the resources to battle, you will need to build things like sawmills, Iron Mines, Stone Quarries, and even Magic Towers.
Before going any further, I am going to say this now. Start with the Campaign as in the beginning it will serve as your tutorial. Not only will you have to have been able to gather resources such as gold, food, wood, stone, and so on, you have to have enough workers in order to gather so said resources. But what I was not paying attention to, was when I was told my workers are depleting. This is when you have to think about another strategy in your strategy. When you start the campaign, if you press the left Move button on the Move controller, you are able to place different panels for you to view and interact with such as your Control, Building, Resources, and Cards panels which can be placed anywhere around you or if you decide not to have all or any, you can close them out.
In order to have the workers, they will want to really work for you. So that means adjusting taxes and resources. So on your Control panel is where you can end your turn and move to different locations that consist of The Overworld where everything really happens, to the Throne Room where you adjust the taxes and resources, the Laboratory where you can research new units for your army, and the Blacksmith where you can upgrade the cards that you will use in battle. But in order to upgrade or research, you have to have enough resources and again, in order to have the resources, you have to have the workers that need to be happy enough to work for you or you will have no one to work the buildings to gather the resources which include your castle, watchtowers, and magic towers. So you can see, Skyworld really is about giving and taking. Take away and the workers will not give and give too much and may find that you have not earned enough gold from your kingdom in order to make things better from the upgrades and research.
But as much fun as making researching, upgrading, and making your land happy, it’s not until you move your General next to an enemy General moves next to your General to be able to battle. Then you can see if all your hard work pays off. Based on the cards that are in your lineup, they will have certain numbers at the bottom that you have to make sure you have enough mana in order to use that card. If you don’t have enough mana, it will replenish, but you just have to use your strategy skills in order to place what unit from your army on the map and where. Each side has lines that your units must be placed behind and as an added benefit, there are access points represented by circles on the battlefield, that you will want to try and have your units reach in order to control to receive some aerial support from above that will help fire at the enemy towers and castle.
But, if the enemy overtakes your unit and hits that access point, then they will then gain their own aerial support while yours goes away and have the enemy fire at your towers and castle. And once your castle is destroyed, it’s game over. Well, not completely game over. If you lose the round, then you have to make sure you have enough resources in order to bring back your general and if you decided you were going to be this ruthless king and collect all the taxes and not help support your land, then good luck reviving your General and thus having to keep ending your turn until the evil Generals come to try and take over your region and try ending your reign as king.
Once you played some of the campaigns, you have quite a few other options that will meet your needs. You have Skirmish where you go against the AI on a 1 on AI battle. You have Multiplayer, where you can go against another online player. Challenges will give you daily challenges to try and beat, and even leaderboards to see who rules their kingdoms the best. One thing I wanted to try and was looking forward to was multiplayer. Every time I attempted, I just could not find an online match to compete against. Maybe it was the time of day or night I tried, but I am not giving up, because Skyworld is a lot of fun and really becomes more addictive every time I play it.
Let’s talk about the graphics. Vertigo Games and Wolfdog Interactive did a great job the detail that really shines through in Virtual Reality. From each of the units having their own distinct weapons that they fire, such as being able to see the Archers fire their arrows to even when you upgrade them and they have fire arrows to be able to make out the individual firing between enemy units are in very good detail. Plus, being able to send a fireball to an enemy unit and see them catch on fire is a very nice touch.
Sound compliments the graphics. Each unit from what they use to the fantasy music that is being played is all well rounded. Hearing the simple narration regardless of failure or success adds to the renaissance tone and feel that Skyworld brings and welcomes you in.
Skyworld does have a lot to offer in what it delivers. Could there be a more detailed tutorial? Sure. But part of the fun is trying to figure things out. I would love to see even more units, buildings, and worlds down the line along with more and players joining the battle. I can even envision leagues and championships for Skyworld in the future. Skyworld brings to the table what it set out to do and become the standard for Real-Time Strategy and card battling games for Virtual Reality.
Skyworld is out now on PlayStation VR and is also available on the Oculus Store, Steam, Viveport, and the Microsoft Store. A review code was provided.
To learn more about the game, please visit the site, like them on Facebook. To learn more about Vertigo Games, please visit their site and make sure you like them on Facebook, follow them on Twitter and subscribe to their YouTube channel. To learn more about Innerspace VR, please visit their site, like them on Facebook, and follow them on Twitter. To learn more about Wolfdog Interactive, please visit their site, like them on Facebook, follow them on Twitter, follow them on Instagram, and subscribe to their YouTube channel.
In case you missed the trailer, please enjoy. Until next time, I am going to practice some more and climb those leaderboards.
Mr. PSVR, April 6, 2019, theplaystationbrahs.com