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Fortress
by Julius Bautista
Wednesday, October 17 2001
Majesco's puzzler goes under the microscope evoking mixed results.
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Title:
Fortress
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Platform:
Game Boy Color
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Publisher:
Majesco |
Developer:
Pipedream Interactive |
#
of Players: 1 - 4 |
Genre:
Puzzle
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Origin:
U.K
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Expected
Release:
October 2001 |
Grapevine:
Unless you're a real sucker for any action-strategy-puzzler, Fortress does not seem to measure up to the towers it creates. |
Coming from developer Pipedream Interactive as one of Majesco's early & original GBA titles, Fortress is a fast-paced strategy puzzler that presents a "familiar" play style with less-than-desirable results. What might have been a clear GBA hit seems to lack the excitement and longivity you'd expect in a handheld strategy game.
Most first-timers to the game will immediately notice the same thing: Fortress looks like Tetris. But instead of raining down varieties of simple multi-pieced tiles to eliminate rows of blocks, the goal of Fortress is to build-Build-BUILD -- and of course, destroy the enemy. Basically, you lay and arrange your randomly generated tiles from the ground up to build your fortress, with completed 2x3 sets of blocks transforming into actual pieces of wall. Forming these wall sections earns you points. The more wall you produce, the more points you earn. In addition to the tiles, "cannons" and "Twerp barracks" may fall. Cannons are your primary means of attacking your opponent, launching projectiles that destroy pieces of the opposite fortress. Twerp barracks unleash little beings called Twerps that either help repair your structure or attack your opponent. Finally, Wizard Towers are 8x3 sets of pure wall that summon monsters who deal extra pain to the enemy. Why destroy pieces of the enemy fortress? 'Cuz it prevents successful construction: tiles are neutralized when they land on shattered surfaces. With these tools at your disposal, you'd think the action could get pretty exciting. Not quite.
At the start of the battle phase, a goal score is listed in the center of the screen. As the game is played, the first player to reach that score by building his/her fortress is declared the winner, and the loser's fortress goes "kablooey" and becomes a pile of rubble. It's a straightforward premise, but certain flaws in the execution and the overall nature of the gameplay hinder it's fun factor. First off, movement is slow. The tiles travel too slowly and the screen scrolls too slowly to get a good picture of the ground level from focusing on the top of your gigantic fortress. It adds difficulty to dropping a tile into "the right spot". Secondly, the random item generation usually never feels "fair". Often you'll wonder why you never have more than two cannons or where the heck are those Twerp barracks (hey, the fort needs a-fixin'!). Thirdly, although the game revolves around building, building is the only thing you do. Forming walls to earn points is undestandable, but the player never really attacks the enemy directly, while the idea of destroying the enemy is ever-present (not to mention implied in the manual). Unfortunately, it's not possible to completely annihalate the enemy during gameplay, and thus win, so you're forced to keep building until you can build no more. It's a simple lack of interaction, and thus a lack of action. With a war-like setting, you'd prefer the game to be a little more dynamic. The low occurrence of cannons and Wizard Towers (which are hard to construct) doesn't help either. Eventually, the excitement can melt into simple frustration leading to a quick loss in play interest.
The three play modes are: Battle, Blitz, and Tournament. No siginficant changes; only the pace and difficulty vary with each mode. Either way you still build for points. Fortress has four stages: Prehistoric, Medieval, Pirate, and Space, each presenting a unique visual style for the Twerps, your walls, the background, and the monsters. Apparently, the style differences don't affect the gameplay one bit. "Same book, different cover." Sadly, seeing so few levels and options makes you ask, "Where's the rest of game?" The lack of fun and lack of length don't add up quite well.
Fortress' length unfortunately affects its presentation. The opening "cartoon" consisted of colorful humorous sprite-based animations, which was nice to watch the first few times. The menus and options are shown via animated sprites and bitmaps, while the loading/victory/defeat screens are full-screen still art. Additionally, menus and options are bare of any useful descriptions whatsoever. To figure out exactly what the game modes offer, you'd have to refer to the manual. And there really isn't anything more to mention beyond those, again, due to the game's length.
On the visual side of things, Fortress is a fairly good looking game. Gameplay graphics come out brightly and colorfully, and the sprites of the various objects and characters are animated decently conforming to the game's quirky style. The same can be said of the backgrounds, which are noticeable well-drawn and layered. The illustrated interface screens are cleanly drawn and colorful as well. Good artwork.
The game's audio, much like the graphics, are quirky and fit the general cartoony style. The music, whose instrumentation is rather decent, remains very repetitive and is hardly noticable during the frantic battle sequences. It doesn't really add to or subtract from the game experience; it's simply there. The quality of the sound effects are average at best, mainly what you'd expect from the likes of falling blocks and tiny cannons. They're justifiably repetitive for the type of play involved, making for some noisy battles.
It's hard to decide if head-to-head multiplayer with a second player/GBA/cartridge (only 2 players max.) is a selling point or not, considering the shortcomings in the gameplay. A four-player setup requiring only one cartridge would be much more desirable, since it provides a more social and competitive atmosphere with less strain on the wallets. Playing against a second player, who must also own a personal copy, could possibly be a means of sharing each other's gripes. Replay value is on the low side here.
Unless you're a real sucker for any action-strategy-puzzler, Fortress does not seem to measure up to the towers it creates. It's foundations look strong but the engineering is unfortunately weak. With unpolished gameplay and a severely limited choice in level variety, it'll be hard for gamers to pay the full-retail price for a title that's rather "incomplete". And if it was bought, who knows how long they'll keep it. I'd love to see this type of gameplay with great execution, but Fortress is in need of "rebuilding".
--- Julius Bautista
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