Penultimate final review updated early April 2020 (I've still got some updating to do as this review is based on the early 'work in progress' version, plus I've repeated myself in several places. I don't know when I'll be posting the final version, but it will be eventually.)

In Brief:

The Last Roman Village is a strategy defense game that gives freedom to develop a whole Roman city from scratch and to wisely choose the way to defend it. The game allows players to experience a variety of options and creativity. Side scrolling defense games are one of my favorite types of games (next to Breakouts, Shmups and top down TD games). You can see a few videos of game play HERE, HERE, HERE
& HERE. You can see my review of this game over on the gamegiveawayofthe day where I've included more videos and lots of in game images HERE[game.giveawayoftheday.com].

The Game:

I love Tower Defence games, but side scrolling TD games on Steam are quite rare compared to top down versions (there are loads of cheaper side-scrolling TD games via the browser sites such as Kongregate and 84 Play and some android versions {which I don't play}, but they tend to be flash games with little content, so it was a pleasant surprise to see this game released on Steam). There's also a demo available via the Steam page HERE.

There are prettier looking games of this type on Steam, but I actually love the cartoon like graphic. It looks simple, but you'll need your wits about you, especially if you aren't that familiar with side scrolling TD games.

The main aim of the game is to defend your Emperor from invaders that attack from both the left and the right. You start the game with a small village, but can expand by building various buildings , all of which give different advantages to the defense of the village. For example building an house will give you an extra villager every third wave or building a village wall will slow down the enemies attack; building a defensive tower next to a will will help to destroy more enemies before the wall is destroyed.

As successive waves of enemies invade, you can spend your earned gold on various buildings that either earn you more gold or more villagers, spear men or archers; all of which are upgradeable and necessary if you are to protect your emperor. Villagers are useful because they repair broken walls after each wave (+1 HP per second), but can also be upgraded to soldiers if you require more soldiers to help in the defence of the village; whereas the spear men, archers and the main character 'General Aurelius' defend the Emperor. There are different categories of buildings; for example, houses, these can be upgraded to level 2. When upgraded homes will create two extra villagers per turn. Building a forum increases your gold income by +4 coins every wave. Other useful buildings include Blacksmith (swords), Mill (food for health), Armoury (Stronger Armour for protection), Roman Barracks (creates level 1 - Spear men, level 2 - Legionnaires and level 3 - Praetorian's), Archery Range (train archers), Ballista Factory (creates powerful Roman ballista), Stone Mine (produces +2 Gold and +1 Spears per wave), Tent (healers levels 1 to 3) and a Woodcutters cottage (produces +2 Gold and +1 Spears per wave). Buildings such as the defensive towers and walls help to keep out or attack the invaders from fixed positions, whereas other buildings such as the Woodcutter and Stone mines earn extra gold and also add extra spears to Aurelius's arsenal. Other buildings, such as the Archery Range and Roman Barracks create more soldiers (archers and spear men respectively) and where you can upgrade them if you have earned enough gold. There are also buildings that help to heal and others that create more powerful weapons (Mill, Healing Tent and Ballista Factory).

There is also an arena which at the start of the game is in the process of being built and doesn't become active until wave 45 when it has been fully built, and at which point it will also be upgradeable. There are three difficulty levels; Easy, Normal and Hard. Apart from the defenders there are three magic attributes that can also be summoned when they are activated i.e. Arrow Rain, Summon Warrior and Wrath of God. However, these and the pet dog can only be summoned via the wheel bonus round, which involves a spinning wheel with 24 slots each slot having different items such as the pet dog and the three magic abilities. As this is a random spin, you may be lucky enough to get all three abilities, or none a tall throughout the duration of the game.

You need gold to upgrade or activate various buildings, for example to gain gold you need to build a woodcutter and stone masons abode, once these are built you also gain a +1 for Aurelius’s spear throwing. Other ways to gain gold are via the Gold Goblin and the Wheel of fortune (an innovation I’ve never seen in a tower defence game before) as well as surviving successive waves of enemy attacks. To throw a spear use the F key (or if using a game controller use RB). If you have enough gold you can upgrade your soldiers using the T or controller Y buttons.

Once you’ve built up your defences by building walls and defensive towers you’ll require villages who can repair damaged walls. To create a villager you need to build houses. Every three waves a new villager will be created. These can also be re-trained as soldiers if required


Conclusion

This conclusion is based on my original game play before the game was actually released while the game was still a work in progress, so additional features may have been added in the interim.

If you enjoy side scrolling TD games, this one is certainly a challenge and a worthwhile purchase. The graphic may look a little dated, but I like the cartoonish look. There's no blood or gore, so this would also be a more appropriate game for younger children in a family, though I reckon it may be a little too challenging without help from an adult.

I've been played this game for several hours so far and have still not managed to get past level 4. It's quite a challenging TD game. My only issue with the game so far is the slow pace. Each wave is preceded with a 60 second grace period, which you can use to decide where you want to spend your money. You can bypass this safe period by clicking on the K button, which summons the next wave, but it can take over a minute before the enemies reach your emperor even when you double click the K button to speed up the next wave

The game definitely takes some thinking 'strategy-wise'; especially at the beginning of the game. It's taken me almost a week, playing at least two or three times a day to get to the fourth wave and realised that upgrading the emperor to the max and building a barracks, then a the Woodcutter and Stone Mine, which give you an extra two spears for Aurelius to throw each wave. Then a Defensive Tower on the left hand side of the emperor. With those buildings and upgrades accomplished you should at least get to level 5. The next upgrade needs to be spent on the defensive tower or the wall next to the defensive tower. After that a house, so that you get a villager to repair the wall.

Really takes a lot of time to achieve anything. Maybe add some hints from time to time? It just seems to be unmerciful. The walking is really slow and just makes the game boring... I really wanna see this game succeed so please do change some of the stuff.

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The Last Roman Village:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

They are many aspects that contributed to the great Roman Empire falling to its knees, but the true reason was never outlaid. Think about it . . . how did an Empire that survived the best part of 500 years decline so rapidly. It is true that the ongoing fight with the German tribes took its toll on the Roman Empire, but the real reason is that the Romans were attacked by two armies: the Undead and the Orcs. You don’t believe me? Well, how about helping out the last remaining Roman village? Will you be their saviour or are they simply doomed!

The Last Roman Village is a casual/strategy game developed and published by Twin Stone Studio and released on the Steam platform on 26th July 2019.

After a short and colourful introduction, you’ll be given the choice to start a new game on either easy, normal or hard difficulty.
Then you’ll be taking control of General Aurelius (who must be the doppelganger of Ivan Drago, from Rocky IV) and your goal is to repel 100 waves of enemies, save the Emperor, and give the Roman Empire a small hope of resurrection.

You’ll have 80 seconds between each of the waves to erect buildings or train soldiers. But at the start, you’ll have pretty much bugger all, with the exception of 30 coins and a kid with a slingshot stationed in a tree, ready to defend the almighty Roman Emperor, who is happily staying put in front of his house.

There are 12 buildings to erect on each side. What I like in this game is that the waves of enemies can come from both sides of the screen at the same time. Therefore, you have to make sure you build the correct structure, such as defend towers and walls, before recruiting soldiers to give you a chance of survival. It will take you a while to build all the structures as you will only receive a small number of additional coins after repelling each wave. Aurelius will be able to help you fight against the enemy, but he will start with only one spear per round, and three once you’ve built a few important buildings, so he will provide limited help during each of the waves. What you really need is to build an archery and barracks to train archers and soldiers. But you also need people, and therefore you’ll need to build houses. Once you’ve done that, you can recruit either soldiers or archers. If you leave people alone, they will repair defensive walls when each of the waves is over.

You can upgrade your structures, soldiers or archers but it will cost you coins to do so. In every nine levels, you’ll be given a shot at the Wheel of Fortune, where you can win more coins, special skills or nothing at all (that happened to me several times in a row). Then, every 10 waves, you’ll face a boss, which will make things slightly more difficult until you reach level 50, when it will double in difficulty. The special skills are either summoning dead soldiers, wrath, or unleashing a rain of arrows upon your enemies. It will take a minimum of 3 turns to regenerate after using them.

I really like the cartoon graphics and I must say, I am a big fan of Ivan . . . (sorry, Aurelius)! You can play the game with either your keyboard or gamepad, too, which is great. It must be said, however, that it is repetitive.

Positives:
~~~~~~~
+ Nice cartoonish graphics
+ Fun and easy to play
+ Achievements

Negatives:
~~~~~~~~

- No trading cards as yet
- A bit repetitive

The Roman Empire depends on you. Can you save the Last Roman Village from the onslaught of the Orcs and Undead Army?

6/10

Key provided by developer/publisher for review purposes. Any opinions expressed are entirely my own!

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I got the chance to play the demo of this game as an early build thanks to the awesome guys over at the Twin Stone Studio, for letting me play and produce some game play footage it was a pleasure to play in such early game. The music of the game is beautiful and easy on the ears, The format of waves is very fun and will get harder, The artwork is outstanding colourful and amazing very easy on the eyes, This game is very family friendly and has easy to get to grips with controls, The game play is very smooth in all this game to me has got everything I could ask for.

Nice little game similar to Kingdom but not that deep. Good for a few hours, no replay value for me but bought it on sale and didn't regret it.

Runs fine on Linux (Debian)

What a terrible game! I bought it on sale for 1,64 EUR and i wouldn't play it if i would be payed for it. Utter Garbage. Even calling it a terrible mobile game port would be an overstatement. There are not even Soundoptions in the game! Want to adjust general volume? ALT TAB to windows and adjust there please! Wanna tone Music down? Not today son! If anybody reads this, get Kingdom: New Lands instead, it has a similar style and is a proper (good!) game.

I played it during the closed beta. I was so psyched to finally get my hands on The Last Roman Village.

Strategy and defence planning are key to win in the game. Don't worry, you will have enough gold coins later on.

I couldn't leave my computer untill I killed them all. Really enojoyed this one. Keep up the good work.

Love the casual vibe of this game. I'm hooked trying to get further and further.

This game is:

10% luck
20% skill
15% concentrated power of will
50% pleasure
5% pain
and 100% reason to purchase this game

Saw that part 2 is coming, can't wait !

Very good game. Good music, voices and sounds. Interesting strategy game in real tifffme. It worth the money.