Dwerve: A relaxing Tower Defense about finding your mother. What is it with heroes & always los..
Platforms: PC, Switch, Mobile.
Price: $20 USD (PC/Switch) - Mobile TBA.
«Note this a review for the mobile version which is only a prologue»
Dwerve is advertised on the original kickstarter as a Zelda like Tower defense Dungeon Crawler hybrid, on its Kickstarter back in 2021 the game made over 500% of its target goal.
Source: Dwerve Kickstarter.
Dwerve sits at mostly positive reviews 7/10 on Steam, and it is now slated to release on mobile.
Currently it's free demo Dwerve Prologue.
The question today is, how good is it?
Let us begin the review.
Before we begin I have been sitting on the games menu while typing this intro segment and though the music is an obvious loop, it is good… Anyways, off topic, to the review.
Wait wait hold up, when you start the prologue you are immediately greeted by the most off putting dialogue sound effect I have ever heard in a game that wasn’t based on.. Okay let us move on, check this video if you are curious, I would also like to tell you that this game is rated E10+:
Who thought this was a good idea?
Gameplay:
Firstly, the game's controls are good enough for the type of game Dwerve is, it is mostly fluid without many issues, I seldom had trouble with them.
I did not make it past the first level because I accidentally restarted the tutorial by taking the wrong path back to the village, so yeah do not take the stairs.. So going forward this review is going off information gained from 90% completion of the first level after you wake up. The gameplay loop is simple but quite fun, you are basically a defenceless, you have a weapon but it barely does anything, so you build turrets to defend yourself. I can easily see this loop getting boring however, as the game is mostly placing turrets and playing catch me if you can with enemies. The game has a really laid back approach to it despite having real time combat, you just build the machines and let them do the heavy lifting. Turrets can be recalled and replaced at any time which is overly good, but that is just from a first mission stance, so don’t take that as good advice for the main game.
The story seems alright, but a bit clichéd, normal missing parent story. That is about all I could gain from the first level.
Honestly I would give the game a 6/10 in presumption of gameplay in further levels, as I can see the combat system becoming dull by midgame; However, if I don’t try being a psychic I would give it an 8/10. As I have said in past reviews, I do not review the lore for any game as I am far under qualified, so let us move on.
Atmosphere & Art Desigin.
Welcome to another rare segment, the atmosphere segment, today the atmosphere segment is replacing the graphics segment. The game's atmosphere is marvellous, the sound track is calm and relaxing, the world feels vibrant and alive despite not being that saturated. It is just a nice and enticing environment, reminiscent of rpg games yore. The game runs smoothly, all the animations on objects such as water and trees just make the world nice on the eyes.Personally I can rant on why the atmosphere is good, but I personally feel explaining it wont be as good as showing it:
Headphones on
Now for Dwerve’s artistic style, it looks good, it helps drive the atmosphere of a modernised retro Zelda esque game very well. I have very little complaints for how the game looks, the bee sprites looked good, the character spri… Oh right, the character sprites.
The character sprites themselves look good.. But the dialogue sprites… are hit or miss, outside of that I really like the style the game has going for it, it is a cute modernised retro style and I am all for it.
Anyways, overall I would give Dwerve’s atmosphere a solid 10/10 and you know that this will be the driving factor in the reviews final score.
Optimization
There is not much to be said here, during my time playing, my phone did not heat up, it ran at a smooth framerate, and as stated in the atmosphere segment, it was a pleasant experience.
Recap
The game is good… Or at least it seems good from the first level. The atmosphere is impressive, the art is good, and the gameplay seems passable. I can see myself trying the full release when it comes out and giving a proper review then as well, so I would honestly rate Dwerve 5/5, but due to my skepticisms of how the gameplay may get dull by mid game (and seeing reviews steam that say it does) I will put Dwerves at 4 stars for now. I would recommend trying it out, it was pretty fun.
Thanks for reading,
Delta out.
(side note, sorry for the lower quality reviews recently, I've been doing most of them in a rush. Will try to slow it down and make more reviews like this one, I will also try to raise these competition reviews up to my normal standard as well, starting with this one.)
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