Pure confidence is placing a ‘1’ on the finish of your recreation title. That claims “we all know we’re making a second recreation, you may’t cease us”. We like the arrogance.
After all, this being an 8floor Video games title, the possibility of a sequel is extremely excessive. Their Gnomes Backyard collection is as much as its eighth iteration, and so they’ve acquired various others which might be effectively past a second recreation. So, possibly it’s not that ballsy.
We’ve been recognized to be essential of 8floor Video games ‘churn them out’ technique. Just about each month, they launch a brand new stripped again city-management sim onto the Xbox. We had been tempted to place ‘new’ in inverted commas, as their video games are very a lot copycats of one another. They only fluctuate in theme, story and the variety of bugs they introduce. So, you may think about the faint emotions of dread when Argonauts Company 1: Golden Fleece arrived.
We needn’t have been nervous. As a result of Argonauts Company 1: Golden Fleece just isn’t solely a step ahead from something the writer has put out previously twelve months, it’s their greatest recreation full cease. Why this hasn’t been the template all alongside, we don’t know, however we are able to say one factor for sure: if you happen to’ve ever been inquisitive about all these Gnomes-Backyard-and-friends titles, that is the one you need to begin with. After all, the opposite video games might be a disappointment as compared, however at the least you’ll have an honest first style.
The opening moments provide a number of clues that 8floor Video games have gotten it proper with this one. Whereas Jason and his Argonauts themselves are somewhat uncanny and creepy, their recreation world is vibrant and straightforward to learn. We’ve been dragging ourselves by way of the relentlessly brown Royal Roads, and Argonauts Company 1: Golden Fleece is blinding technicolour as compared. Sources, buildings and characters are all straightforward to learn, reasonably than camouflaged with the background. Once more, bonus.
Then there’s the story, which bucks the writer’s development by being readable and transient. Gone are the acres of illegible, poorly translated textual content; in comes some throwaway guff in regards to the Golden Fleece being stolen and Jason and the Argonauts appearing as a sort of Personal Investigation Company to get them again. Certain, it does the same old and hops from one potential suspect to a different, reasonably than growing something you’ll name ‘plot’, however it’s brief sufficient to complete in a number of seconds, and you will get proper into the administration meat.
Whisper it, however the gameplay in Argonauts Company 1: Golden Fleece is definitely pleasurable to the purpose of being, welp, addictive. The earlier video games within the many different collection have all the time been a butt of our jokes, primarily as a result of they’re so willfully boring and easy compared to video games like Age of Empires or Cities: Skylines. However in Argonauts Company 1: Golden Fleece, we lastly observe what 8floor Video games have been attempting to realize.
Gone are the interminable waits for assets. You’re not saving up for minutes in an effort to bypass a puddle within the highway. Argonauts Company 1: Golden Fleece is impeccably balanced so that you’re all the time using the curve: there isn’t any downtime in any respect, and so long as you might be on high of your upgrades and cursor administration, you’ll be amassing assets, eradicating blockages, constructing mills and finishing targets. It’s a merry chain of actions.
It’s a small change however large for Argonauts Company 1: Golden Fleece. So many small, incremental shifts make this sense attainable. There’s much less emphasis on upgrading buildings, as that all the time caught you right into a loop of managing the identical small house of the sport board. Blockages solely take a number of assets to clear, whereas buildings pump out assets at an honest price. And there’s treasured few distractions that stretch out the sport time. There are not any orcs stealing your stuff, or trolls which might be wanted to hurry up manufacturing. Every thing flows.
It signifies that you churn by way of ranges in Argonauts Company 1: Golden Fleece at about twice the pace of the opposite 8floor Video games, and boy does it really feel good. To make sure you don’t whip by way of the sport like a stiff breeze, the variety of ranges has been upped. There are 65 right here, when 50 is about par for the collection (albeit with a lot of these chucking in some secret ranges).
However the large bravos go to the cave ranges and an entire absence of bugs. Let’s cowl the bugs first, as we’re simply thrilled to be speaking in regards to the polish for as soon as. Argonauts Company 1: Golden Fleece is easy as a child’s backside. There are not any UI points, no save recreation issues, no uncompletable ranges. The achievements even unlock correctly. Higher nonetheless, there’s a surfeit of unlocks and problem choices, permitting you to handle your expertise. Argonauts Company 1: Golden Fleece screams care and a focus.
We’ve all the time been eager to slap the ‘copycat’ label on these video games. However there’s one addition to Argonauts Company 1: Golden Fleece that – hopefully – alerts a rising style for innovation. There’s a sequence of ranges that happen at nighttime. You possibly can solely see to this point, with lit beacons forcing you to work inside confined routes. However by way of gathering assets you may gentle additional beacons in a selected path and unlock what’s there.
It provides one thing that these video games have by no means had: shock and delight. One beacon would possibly unlock a collection of blocked paths, and also you realise you’ve wasted the assets to light up them. However one other beacon would possibly uncover a motherlode of stuff. Out of the blue you’re going all Grocery store Sweep and shoving all of the assets in your procuring trolley. We wished there have been extra of those ranges – it’s only one of some areas – however whereas they had been round, Argonauts Company 1: Golden Fleece jumped up a tier.
For all our enthusiasm, we needs to be clear that Argonauts Company 1: Golden Fleece isn’t some sort of revelation: it’s not all of the sudden turning this collection of video games right into a colossus of the Xbox Retailer. It’s nonetheless low on technique, low on depth and achingly unmodern with its gradual cursor. There’s each likelihood that Paradox gamers, or anybody with some metropolis administration sim expertise, will flip their nostril up.
However we’ve pumped an unearthly variety of hours into these 8floor Video games titles, and we’re simply completely happy to lastly say ‘this one is price enjoying’. We would have gotten carried away: if you happen to’ve by no means performed one among these titles earlier than, you may most likely shave a half mark off the rating. However if you happen to have performed them earlier than, and also you’ve grown pissed off that 8floor Video games by no means appear to launch a coherent, bug-free and impressive title, then cease the Argo for a second. Argonauts Company 1: Golden Fleece is the one.
