Maroc - 3RD-STRIKE.COM - A La Une - 11/Apr 03:58

Skull Horde – Review

Only a few weeks ago, we took a closer look at CODEX MORTIS, a Survivors-like title that AI fully made. The Early Access project proved to be fairly entertaining, but it still had many rough edges and clearly needs some more time in the oven. We thought we had seen the last autobattlers with a necromancer in the lead for a while, until Skull Horde’s release crept closer. Skull Horde is another Survivors-like game where you’ll be commanding minions to combat creepy monsters in dark dungeons. We quite enjoyed commanding hordes of undead, even though we would have perhaps liked a few more levels and modes to play through. Story Skull Horde follows an unnamed necromancer who was betrayed by his own body. This alone sounds a bit weird, but the necromancer’s body got rid of the pesky head to live on forever, doing whatever it wants to do. The necromancer’s head was buried to rot for eternity. But with the power of ‘bone’, it amasses its own army to exact its revenge. The game does have a few small story sequences in between levels, but the narrative never gets fleshed out more than a few lines of text here and there. We still liked the original theme, and the overall presentation was spot on. Graphics We absolutely loved Skull Horde’s art direction. All the different minions looked really detailed, and we were impressed by the visual changes when they ranked up. The enemy designs were also very nice, but perhaps a bit limited at times. Nonetheless, a special mention goes out to the boss designs, which were great as well. The different levels were also nicely designed, but there wasn’t always as much variation as we would have liked. Even so, everything looked rather impressive, within the pixelated retro style of the game. The more units and attack effects that triggered, the more entertaining things got as well. Sound The sound design was superbly handled. We really loved the DOOM-esque music, as it truly set the tone, and the voice acting during the cutscenes was also great, further enhancing the atmosphere. While some of the tunes looped a bit too quickly, perhaps, the music never grew stale and was perfectly suited to the onscreen action. The SFX further complement everything, with decent impact sounds and some ghoulish enemy sounds here and there. All in all, the developers nailed the audiovisual presentation. Gameplay Skull Horde is an autobattler where you command your army of undead minions through a variety of levels. With different characters to choose from and many unlockable minions, the game does have some goals to work towards. The offset is fairly simple, as you need to survive different ‘floors’ of the different levels, to eventually fight a boss at the end. Unlike many other titles in the genre, there is no timer, but depending on the difficulty settings, the longer you wait, the harder everything becomes. As your chosen character is actually a necromancer, it makes sense that you summon troops to do most of the fighting for you. At the start of each floor of a level, you get the opportunity to buy additional troops. Of course, you’ll have to make decisions, as you can only have a fixed amount of different unit types, which you can then buy as many as you want of. The latter is, of course, dependent on how many units the RNG offers you of that unit type in the store and how much cash you have. You can banish certain unit types from popping up in the store for a fixed fee, and you can upgrade the rarity of minions that are offered in the store. If you plan right, you can have a very strong party by the time you come face-to-face with the boss of the level you’re playing through. Units also interact differently with your chosen class, as the starting class allows units to merge and upgrade, while another may have you accumulate starting units into a massive horde that fights for you. As you complete levels or meet your untimely demise before doing so, your chosen character will gain experience and level up. You’ll gain a skill point for each level up, allowing you to unlock passive skills that make subsequent runs a tad easier. Each of the different characters has its own skill tree, creating a bit of replay value in the process. We liked the different possible playstyles, and we were happy multiple characters were included, as you’ll be able to play through all the different levels with a single character over the course of a few hours. We hope some additional levels get added in the future, just like Nordic Ashes did with their frequent content updates. Conclusion Skull Horde is a fun autobattler with quite a lot of content to unlock, such as new classes, new units, and new items, to keep things interesting. The overall gameplay loop is very entertaining, and the audiovisual presentation is top-notch too. While the game did not have that much content in terms of levels, the unlockable stuff does make sure there is enough to return to after you’ve beaten the game once or twice. We do hope some additional content is added in the future, but even then, Skull Horde is highly entertaining if you’re a fan of the genre.