Epic War: Epic Waste Of Time -- In A Good Way!

Since the 1970s, when I was born, goofing off has evolved into an art form. Newgrounds.com, one of my favorite game sites, has a defense category, a "you-versus-the-world" setup, either with overhead maps or side siege views. Overhead maps seem to be the preferred mode, but when a good side-view defense game shows up, I take notice.

Epic War is one such game. What looks completely worn out and incapable of originality progresses into a deep, involving game.

When you start out, you get a very stripped-down castle, and... hobbits? As time passes, you spend your growing mana pool to recruit more hobbits and... well, more hobbits. And you have a single bow that fires a single arrow. Oooo.

Yet, even in this beginning stage, you still have a bit of fun. Since your ground units are so basic, you have to scroll back and forth across the playing field to calculate trajectories to wound little goblins coming at you from the opposing castle. Both your castle and the enemy castle have a hit point total that can be reduced by ground troops, so you will eventually be waging a seesaw battle on the ground.

The graphics themselves make the experience fun as well. Different monsters, as they shamble toward your castle, do simple combat animations as they mash away at your defense (and eventual offense). When you strike creatures with your arrow, there is a small spray of blood. Defeated monsters fall and explode, fade, and slump in tiny but effective animations. Another good aspect of the game is the sizing of units. When something big comes charging down the ranks, towering over the other units, you know you need to get cranking on your own army and fast.

The key to the game, like Armor Games' Gemcraft, is to earn experience points. With these points you can build your mana pool to fund more and more expensive troops, which in a real-time battle take longer to bring onto the screen. And during each battle, you build your mana reserves to such a depth and rate of regeneration that you can send over tougher, harder-hitting troops (like elves, dwarves, wizards, and even angels) and more cheap units like hobbits. And you also upgrade your puny arrow: basic arrow upgrades, exploding fire arrows, freezing ice arrows, and lightning arrows come into the game later. Traps, turrets and barriers add more rich strategy and customization elements. Last of all, your non-combat support options (increased experience per kill, increased mana per kill, increased mana grow rate) all help speed up your offensive game.

In all Epic War is a very enjoyable, just-below-frantic game that has you scrambling to demolish the enemy castle. As an experienced slacker, I try to break defense games early on by buying increased experience per kill upgrades, and suffering a bit with puny troops for a round or two until the increased experience lets me buy the whole candy store. Epic War seems just slightly soft on this aspect, letting me buy several experience upgrades before focusing on my units, but I like the flexibility it allows in that respect. Most games force your hand with insanely expensive experience-up upgrades, taking away the free will and flexbility of customization.

Not only does it have a solid game system, but it has fun, enjoyable graphics and animation, and there's a lot going on across two, possibly more horizontal screens. Epic War gets an A for originality!

Epic War can be found at http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/456102.