Developed by CookieByte Entertainment and published by All in! Games, Fort Triumph is a brand new turn-based combat game which also features open-world exploration along with a narrative story. Fort Triumph started its journey as an Early Access title back in 2018 and since then, the developer has worked exceptionally well on the game making it what it is today. This is our review of Fort Triumph in which we kick some rocks and kill some enemies in some of the best ways possible.
Fort Triumph is set in a fantasy setting that looks amazing and reminds me highly of the early Warcraft titles. Each setting is pretty to look at and the character design of the game is brilliant as well. You have humans, undead skeletons, monsters, goblins, priests, giant spiders, trolls, you name it and it will pop up in Fort Triumph. Apart from the brilliant setting and classic visuals, the game also comes with a solid soundtrack that has been developed by none other than Marco Valerio Antonini who is an award-winning composer. Apart from the music, the generic sound design of the game also feels on point as every thud or clutter is there when you expect them.
I will start this review with the best and my favorite aspect of Fort Triumph which is its combat and gameplay. I’ve seen a lot of people complain about how boring the turn-based combat is for them and even I was not very comfortable with this specific genre at first. However, Fort Triumph combines the XCOM style turn-based combat with humor and so much freedom that I can easily say that it is one of the best turn-based combat titles I have ever played. The movement of characters, their abilities, the complexity of thinking about the next move, it is all here but what Fort Triumph further adds to this is humor-based special attacks and moves which are simply amazing and really cool to execute.
Apart from your heroes’ abilities, you can fully use the environment to your advantage as well. You can kick rocks and stumps into enemies to damage them and even kill them. You can also use abilities to push tall stone towers or trees onto enemies that will damage them greatly if not kill them. You can even use grappling abilities to pull enemies into each other or other items to damage them. With all this freedom to kick and blow things, you can kill all enemies in a level without actually directly attacking them. You can even create chains by pushing an enemy into a rock and then that rock will hit another enemy behind it creating some really funny moves and giving you a massive tactical advantage in battles.
Out of all these attacks, my favorite one is when you put a ranged hero in Overwatch and then use another hero to launch an enemy into the air and hero in the Overwatch stance kills them. This is simply brilliant and the third person view for ranged attacks makes these some of the most epic moments in gaming. As cool as these animations are to look at, they are also funny and most of the time you will be laughing silly as you push rocks into enemies or push trees on top of them to splatter them. This is one of the best turn-based combat games I have really enjoyed in a long time.
The game also comes with narrative-driven campaigns for all four factions. You start on specific maps on which you are free to explore and complete the story missions at your own will. On these maps, apart from your own settlement, you will find tons of enemies to kill, secrets to explore and small outposts to take over. Your settlement consists of your own castle and its surrounding buildings which include different buildings such as stables, observatory and more. Building these structures will give your heroes stat boosts such as increasing their movement speed, attack speed or other passive bonuses. You can also upgrade your current buildings to make these boosts even more effective for your heroes.
Apart from buildings, you can also visit the Guild at your settlement and purchase different upgrades for your heroes. These include better weapons for increased damage, better armor for increased protection or increasing your party size to allow more members in your party. The default is four but you can increase it further to add more heroes to your party and increase your chances of survival in battles. Sometimes you will find heroes in the game world who will join your world but you can always purchase heroes at your settlements. You will need to manage three main resources in the game which are Beetcoins, Magic, and Renown. Renown is only earned via battles and you need Renown to purchase Hero Upgrades in the Guild.
The remaining two resources are found in random encounters on the map, chests or you can have a steady supply by find and taking over Beetcoin Farms or Magic Farms on the map. Different factions will fight for these farms as they provide a regular supply of resources after every turn. They are always guarded by a team of the faction that controls them so you must be ready for a fight before you take over them. Once taken over, you will get the resource after every map turn is over. You move around the world using a map where your parties are marked with a flag along with different icons for enemy encounters, buildings and much more.
You only get a specific number of movement points before you must end your turn. You can move around freely during the freeroam and complete as much side activities as possible before you move to the main quests. The main quests of the game are tied to a map and once you are done with a region, you will move to the next region as the story progresses. This is permanent and you cannot return back to the previous map. One frustrating thing I found in the game was that when you move to a new map in the singleplayer campaign, all the items that you collected on the previous map are lost and the castle upgrades buildings are gone as well. This makes sense but this very mechanic becomes tedious as you continue to play the game for longer durations of time.
Apart from the singleplayer campaign, you can also jump right in the action on a randomly generated map in the Skirmish mode. All maps and factions are available right from the start of the game and you can quickly choose your own settings and start a Skirmish game where you must eliminate your enemies and become the strongest faction on the map. This is a great addition to the game because after you are done with the singleplayer campaign, this will provide you a great way to play the game again without any main quests coming in your way and you can take your time to expand your settlements, level up your heroes and build your structures in the game.
The game also features perma-death which means that if your hero dies, they die for good. This adds a brand new challenge in the game and also makes you play more carefully. As you play more with the heroes in your party, your heroes level up and you get to upgrade them. These upgrades range from making the currently unlocked skills more powerful then to adding new skills for the heroes. Since there are multiple classes of heroes, you have unique skills for every class of hero that you have in your party. You can also have more than 1 party active on a single map. Each party can only contain a limited number of heroes so to make yourself safe, you can have multiple parties so that if some of your heroes die, you can add more from your secondary party.
Final Verdict:
For me, Fort Triumph literally came out of nowhere for me. Despite being in Early Access since 2018, I only got to know about the game around 1 week ago and I am glad that I did. It is one of the best turn-based games that I have played. The developers say that this game is a combination of XCOM and Heroes of Might and Magic and they are absolutely correct. The theme fits so well with the visuals and the gameplay and it delivers an extremely solid package. If you are new to the turn-based genre or have never played a game in this genre, I will highly recommend that you give Fort Triumph a shot. The game will not only satisfy your need for killing some fantasy monsters but also offers a pretty fun narrative and funny combat situations where you will find yourself laughing endlessly as you kick enemies into massive rocks which then fall down on other enemies killing them. It is a great title and you should definitely not miss it.
Final Score: 9.0/10
