You manage unstacked cities on a hexagonal-tiled world map, acquiring resources, advancing through tech trees, moving armies and conquering your way to more territory as you go - all very Civilization (in fact all very Civilization 5, much like 2014's Age of Wonders 3 was too). The premise of Age of Wonders: Planetfall is that it's a mix of two brilliant but also seriously complex genres. In fact it seems confused about what, exactly, it needs to explain at all. There's a lovely retro-strategy vibe to AoW: Planetfall's mini map, bottom right.Ī lot of that feeling is made worse than it really ought to be, too, because Age of Wonders: Planetfall simply does not explain itself well. It's depth that inspires a sense of dread and regret, maybe some resignation, and a sigh: there is an awful lot here, I will spend a very long time working my way through it, and there's a fair chance none of it will be as good as it could have been were it left to stand alone. Keep digging at Age of Wonders: Planetfall and you will find some impressive depth, for sure, from tech trees to unit modifications to character customisation - only it's depth, unfortunately, in the sense that a twelve-page restaurant menu has depth.
It screams "hidden gem", on the face of it: a generous glob of SyFy channel space-cheese, spread over a rich and hearty mix of genres. I promise you I have tried very hard to find something deeper, beneath the surface of Age of Wonders: Planetfall, that shows its true brilliance. Competent strategy pastes flat-footed, surface-level sci-fi over a genre that lives and dies by its nuance.
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