War For The Overworld is the spiritual successor to Dungeon Keeper; a game where you manage a fantasy dungeon by summoning creatures, directing their work, building rooms and fighting enemies to - usually - destroy the core of their dungeon. I had a bit of fun at the beginning of the game, but that evaporated as I went through the campaign, and I lost interest. I wouldn’t say that WFTO is a bad game, but it’s not exactly what I wanted.
The first levels of the campaign explain the core mechanics of the game; You have workers that you direct to dig tiles, then you build rooms in them for various usages. Specific rooms attract specific kind of monsters; you need beds for all your creatures to sleep; you need a tavern for them to eat and spend their pay, etc. Cultists research new upgrades - I think -and you get many other types of rooms to brew potions, torture prisoners, it’s all in good fun.
What I was unsure about was how structured the campaign was, and how it felt like it was more of a tutorial than an actual story progression. Instead of building on previous level mechanics, the game seems to drop them too quickly for me to have had the time to enjoy them. For instance, you’ll learn early on about digging 3x3 and 3x5 rooms into the rock to make specific rooms, but at around level 3 the maps are immense, you can’t really dig around and your rooms must be randomly thrown together in a small spot you can build on, the focus is much more on fighting than building. I know the game has to show multiple systems progressively, but I wish the ramp was a bit smoother.
It’s a bit like this for everything. I felt like the systems unlocked themselves too quickly and not quickly enough at the same time. You have access to a huge talent tree, but most of it is locked with no explanation on what things are and when you’ll get them. You have spells, artifacts, potions, creatures and defenses, but I’m not even sure what is effective against what. Is there a rock/paper/scissor system to the way creatures fight against each other? When will I have access to the whole skill tree - or is it just presented as such and not really a skill tree? The game left me more questions than answers.
And that’s a bit of a shame, because I went into WFTO ready to enjoy it. I think I would’ve had a better time if the game had more or less the same structure as you went on; Not drastically changing the feel of the game as the levels went by. I still think that if you were a big Dungeon Keeper fan, you’ll probably appreciate this a bit more than I did.
