Swords & Soldiers II Shawarmageddon | Nintendo Switch | Review

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Following its launch on PC and PS4 late last year, Ronimo Games (Awesomenauts Assemble!) have brought their side-scrolling strategy title to Nintendo Switch.

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by Liam
​Andrews

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@liam_andrews5

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Developer: Ronimo Games
Publisher:  Ronimo Games
Platforms: Switch, PlayStation 4, PC
Players: 1-2

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If the name sounds terribly familiar, that’s probably because it first launched exclusively on the much-maligned Wii U back in 2015. Along with the new Shawarmageddon subtitle, Swords & Soldiers II arrives on Ninty’s hybrid console with a number of “tweaks and improvements” to gameplay and added online multiplayer.

​Campaign mode follows Redbeard the Viking and his army on a series of comical adventures to hunt down missing sheep, accidentally uncovering a sinister plot involving everyone’s favourite meat-based snack in the process. At around 10 hours in length, there’s a sizeable chunk of strategy-based humour on offer here, but, as particular fans of ridiculous character names and terrible puns, we could happily have spent another dozen or so hours with Redbeard and co.

All the action takes place from a 2D perspective, with players battling left-to-right along lanes towards an enemy base or current objective. Resources, either mined or picked up from the battlefield, are used to research and purchase a variety of ground units and abilities in order to accomplish this.

New enemy factions gradually enter the fray as your crusade unfolds, each featuring a range of unique units and powers to help set them apart. You have powers of your own, of course, which cost mana to utilise and are incredibly useful tools for turning battles in your favour. They’re also unconventional, our personal favourites being to bribe powerful enemy units into switching sides, or, when we couldn’t spare the cash, temporarily transforming them into harmless sheep.

Apart from units actively mining resources, which remain at your base unless commanded to collect pick-ups, all units begin marching towards enemy positions immediately once purchased. They give no thought to their own safety or the size of the challenge facing them, therefore, players must manage resources carefully to ensure troops are sent forth in groups, rather than individually. This leads to some interesting strategization, as you’ll want to find potent combinations that best complement each other.

Missions generally feature at least one main objective along with one or two bonus objectives, which encourage you to experiment with tactics or challenge yourself by deliberately making things harder, adding variety to the straightforward level layouts. Main objectives range from simply destroying enemy bases to more memorable tasks like navigating a limited number of troops through environmental obstacles. Occasionally, you’ll also come across Bonus Battles; these one-off skirmishes give you the freedom to build your own army from all of the units you’ve unlocked thus far.

​Both visually and technically, Shawarmageddon fares well on Switch. Frame rates occasionally drop during the largest of battles, but (naturally) Nintendo’s hybrid console offers the most ways to play - docked, handheld and touch - to easily counterbalance that. There’s seamless switching between the latter two, which makes targeting individual units a doddle, though, as we’ve found before, the balance, weight and shape of the Switch just doesn’t lend itself well to this one-handed style of play for long periods of time.

The versatility of the Joy-Cons also facilitates spontaneous bouts of local multiplayer, both docked and on-the-go, with portable play intelligently taking the unconventional approach of splitting matches vertically for optimum use of the Switch’s limited screen space.

​Online multiplayer doesn’t hold up quite so well, unfortunately, as you’ll likely struggle to find another player even during peak hours. After just a handful of successful matches (many of which were against the same opponent), we found ourselves ranked 23rd on the global leaderboards, which suggests this mode has a very limited following.

Despite the dearth of online competition, Ronimo have catered their charismatically simple and engaging take on the strategy genre to all play styles on Switch, making it an attractive purchase.

Pros

• Simple, engaging gameplay
• Lighthearted story featuring brilliantly bad puns
• Decent variety of units and special abilities to choose from
• Switch version offers a variety of ways to play

Cons
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• Lack of competition all but renders online play obsolete
• Could’ve used a lengthier campaign

8/10