Fort Triumph

Aside from those minor complaints, CookieByte Entertainment has built a rock-solid composite of turn-based strategy and tactics gameplay, and the end result is easily on-par with the XCOM franchise and Obsidian Entertainment's best modern efforts. Its combat is smart and entertaining, its story and humor are exemplary, and most of what little it currently lacks or could improve upon will likely be ironed out post-launch, as the game has been well-supported and player-focused since its early access development period began. Fort Triumph is worthy of any PC player's time, especially lovers (or even haters) of the fantasy RPG genre.

While light on modes and depth, Fort Triumph’s largely enjoyable campaign and satisfying turn-based combat are attractive enough to keep a player’s interest from start to finish. Flinging rocks to smash trolls and setting the ground ablaze to scorch goblins doesn’t get old, and the multiple difficulty settings and permadeath options can challenge even more experienced tactical fans.

Overall, I had a great time playing Fort Triumph and will continue to play more and more in the future. I would highly recommend it to everyone either looking for an entry into the world of turn-based tactics, to even the most battle-worn veterans looking for the new title to sink their claws into.

I would happily recommend the game though, it really is a great mix of XCOM and HOMM and with that touch of humour thrown in it makes for quite the fun play experience. You can either play it as a pick up and go game or thrown in some serious hours just advancing through the game. It’s a decent price point too, not too high for something that has a decent amount of play time available.

Fort Triumph is a solid, colourful entry into an increasingly crowded genre and one that dares to do things a little differently.

The sense of humour and simplicity make it sort of a slog for veterans of the genre. But the flexibility of the terrain system and the breeziness of the writing make me think this would be a great way to introduce someone to this style of game. They can work their way up to those more complicated experiences. For now, they get to live in a world where everything is simple, and magical wind can blow your problems away.

Transposing the tactical turn-based combat and character permadeath of XCOM to the fantasy genre seems like an obvious idea and Fort Triumph does a good job with it, adding some physics-based combat and touches of contemporary humor to the mix. On the other side of the ledger, the humor might not tickle everyone the same way and overall the look of the characters and the story seem content to settle for familiarity instead of reaching a little more for originality. Fort Triumph is in no way a bad game and fans of turn-based RPGs, traditional fantasy RPGs and XCOM will probably enjoy the experience.

The game spent last two years in Early Access and a few months more would not be a steep price to pay for more polish. Still, its AI and physics do successfully infect the players with the ‘one more turn syndrome’. [06/2020, p.60]

There is everything here to make a great game. The only thing it really needed was a few more months testing things out. Notably, the graphics need some upgrading, and combat devolves into repetition very soon. Smoothing some of these problems out would easily push this into a very high recommendation. As it stands now it acts as a novel throwback if nothing else.

Fort Triumph is an unfortunate case when the whole is less than each of its parts.