Stormgate Reviews – IGN

There was a moment before the 1V1 RTS race started, just like I didn't feel anything else in the game, Stormgate provided it. I saw the countdown timer start ticking and I felt my heart beat, and I took a deep breath. Then I was looking at a colorful command center and a bunch of workers, it was just me fighting for glory or destruction with some random strangers. Twist and turn have taken a twist during early visits to get to where they are now not all heading in the right direction, but it is moving forward in some subtle and less subtle way at the design level of the basic formula.

Stormgate has come a long way in the year since early access was launched, and although it has released its early access tags, it is not called version 1.0. There are still major faction rework and graphics overhauls, as well as a variety of major modes (whatever even means) that are now marked as “development”. I'm not very excited about all the changes I've made in the 1V1 competition mode, and I can still enjoy a lot. I'm going to focus mainly on what's different here, rather than explaining everything again, so Check out my early visit reviews last year If you want to learn more about how it used to work.

Not surprisingly, since it's made by a bunch of former Blizzard RTS developers, Stormgate has the feel of a classic Blizzard RT and the overall rhythm. Best of all, it's like family cooking, for those who grew up on the war of breeding and warcraft 3. I pulled back to my base at the best moment, and when my base clicked to upgrade, I ordered around recruits from the messy Human Pioneer, and I imagined myself like a food critic at ratatouille, who was shipped to his childhood. In this genre, even after these years, there is something about the role of spiritual coordination and almost musical hot strokes, and developer Frost Giant gets that.

It also clearly considers things that can improve this experience. Here, I feel like my conversation with people familiarly calling it “Starcraft 1.5” doesn't see the big picture. From the underlying design level, even StarCraft 2's flash and polish, this is a thoughtful advancement. Quality of life features, such as automated control groups and quick commands, are used to access production queues and upgrade menus without having to find the right build without finding the right experience for the moment, but now I want some habits in every RT, but I want them.

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As the mainstream of humans and humans in StarCraft and Warcraft, the faction that talks to me the most on Stormgate is the avant-garde of humans. I know, I was really fun at the party. Their performance is very similar to the standard RTS faction, making it a great entry point. But, like Stormgate almost everything, there is almost nothing here and there to improve the skill ceiling.

For example, the Vanguard unit gained veterans for combat, which greatly increased its statistics. This means that to play at a high level, you want to minimize casualties in each engagement. And you especially don't want to lose a comprehensive unit. Surprisingly, if you want to really grasp their strengths, this may make them one of the most tiny factions. It provides an opportunity for opponents and also a chance to focus the veterans’ forces. This “easy to learn, difficult to master” philosophy is like this throughout Stormgate, and I love seeing it.

I'm very happy with the changes in the celestial bodies so far, even if they are the only people who can't perform visual overhaul, making them look the shortest and most boring. Their initial match was very confusing, which was a big difference from what I expected from the RTS faction, and in a non-intuitive way I couldn't really solve them. Now it's easier for them to pick up and play games without sacrificing too many reasons that make them unique. The variant core has a more obvious and wise role, and I know when a new handrail should be put down, while the chaos of power generation is less confusing.

However, I can't say the same for every faction. Hell recently had a major rework that can remove the Animus bar, which will fill and allow you to cast spells when your or your opponent's unit dies. Actually, all the top bar command abilities have been removed or moved to the building, which is like step by step for me. Especially in the case of hell, you take a mechanic who is thematically wonderful faction core and rips it off. The Frost giant told me they hope to bring it back in the future in the form of improvement, but now we must not. Of all the changes I made between my first play Stormgate and where I am now, this is the change I am most disappointed with, even if it is temporary.

Even though the community is apart from them, I actually love the crawling camps to give you more to fight and keep a position that doesn’t expand the base. The alternatives, i.e. nominal Stormgates, don't feature hostile NPCs, nor do they bring any benefits to hanging on them, so they're more like summoning two players' corners to compete for some neat, random rewards. That might be exciting, but I can't say I love them in their current iteration. They can also counterintuitively encourage “melee with razor blades on long sticks” that I don’t like, rather than having large, fun outdoor fighting.

Take it from the top

The biggest glow that Stormgate sees is its 12 MISSION movements, which are the earliest pillars to enter. In fact, there is virtually no event, all pioneer characters and units get more rooted and realistic models, all models are completely redone except for the basis of the story. In most cases, this is a huge improvement. But this is also evident in some respects, that is, it was driven into production.

To give you an idea of what I'm talking about the buy-in of the full Stormgate experience, you can snap up all four episodes for $25, while 1V1 and Experimental Mode are still available for free. The whole process took about 10 hours to complete as experienced RTS players can achieve all bonus goals and chat my crew chatted with juicy legends between everyone.

The newly introduced deck of Raptor 1 makes the entire experience very cohesive, especially with the addition of unlockable unit upgrades and an item locker that allows you to customize heroes and army in multiple missions. The campaign mission itself is smart and challenging. The redesigned story abandons some of the tired blizzards that I was excited about in the early draft visits.

The main factor in dragging it down is that it obviously still lacks at least one polishing layer. This is most obvious, with some hastily or unfinished cutscenes, especially in the conclusion of some tasks, a throwaway line will mention important things that are obviously happening off-screen rather than showing us. The bad guy escaped Megaffen! Daniet, you just miss him!
Also, some new voice lines for certain characters, including the protagonist Amara, are honestly the actors are reading them for the first time, only being one person, or not telling them how their character feels in the scene. The rhythm is totally strange.

The Holy Counselor

I've been learning about each faction from most previous RTSEs from their campaign missions, but there's still not much background for the celestial bodies, which makes it hard for me to be excited about them. What are they even doing here? What are their ideals? What is their society? I know there are Hell and Celestial Campaign chapters. But compared to Starcraft 1 we spent multiple hours in each faction, I think that really hurts onboarding.

Different tasks can highlight different units or faction mechanisms and let you think about how to use them. Simply jumping into a 1V1 and sinking or swimming can be very daunting. Regarding how to think about the neat things that the Hell Shroud or the celestial block can do, Stormgate has not provided any hands-on help for new players at this time. There is a “Learn to Play” link on the main menu, but it just sends you to a webpage with some short YouTube videos, some of which are outdated at this point. I don't know…is this even important?

Newbie players can enable a feature called Buddybot in non-ranked games that can help you with some busy basic management, but honestly, it's the worst help. It doesn't actually teach you how to play. It just does things for you. I prefer a “partner” that will notice when I messed up, such as storing too many resources and popping up some tips about what I can improve on. Stormclippy, if you like.

Although it's still in the experimental stage, I'm glad that Stormgate finally has an edit and custom game. There are still some key features such as triggers missing, but that doesn't stop dedicated community members from creating some truly wild and impressive map and game modes that I've never thought of at the current tool. For their current state, I find them very easy to use and a person who cuts my teeth, which is to make custom scenes 3 for Brood War and Warcraft 3.

The 3VAI collaboration mode has actually withdrawn the “Sigma Labs” section from the center stage along with the map editor, but it's still a fun place to go when they try to dial in. I love RTSES with hero units and fun abilities, and it's all here. Plus, since the early access was released, the progress of the account and some unlockable cosmetics have been added, which is more motivated to keep it than the pure bragging rights.