Siegecraft Commander is from developer-publisher Blowfish Studios and it is part of the Siegecraft franchise. It is both a single player and a multiplayer real-time strategy game. How well does it fair compared to other games on the Switch?

Players can choose between the Knights of Freemori who are led by Commander Seerson on a never-ending hunt for treasure or the Hurtrad Tribe. Right off the bat, the storylines for each campaign didn’t seem very interesting to me. It was often trying to be guided by humor as to character interactions with each other but it just failed to be entertaining.

Siegecraft Commander attempts to refresh the real-time strategy genre by the “new tower construction feature.” The new style of play attempts to replace things such as economy and materials which previously slowed the pace. The main idea is that the main building called the “Keep” was where all things would be built from–the catch is that it must be connected to a wall. Walls can not cross themselves, any other structure or terrain. So each building that is connected to the wall can easily be destroyed by destroying the building furthest down on the chain or even the keep itself. The only two resources needed to build certain structures are gold and magic, which can be obtained by having a structure built within their bounds.

Although not a terrible idea for a change of pace in the Real-time Strategy concept, Siegecraft Commander fails to perfect its own ideas. The opposing team always seemed to be breaking its own rules such as having structures built on islands or not being connected by walls. If a game wants to rewrite the rule of a genre it should play by its own rules.  Campaign mode also suffered from giving the player a cramped building space. The idea behind it is planning well, however many times fitting the correct structure at the right place became difficult. As mentioned above, some structures can only be built when in possession of magic or gold, the issue here is once again building and room to build the right structure once you have reached the resource. Sometimes resources would be so far away once you obtained them it was nearly impossible to have enough room to build what is needed to protect your building.

Another downfall of the game happened when building barracks and units came out aimlessly walking towards the enemy’s buildings. You couldn’t control which building or unit they would attack.

For a game that wants to speed the pace of RTS games, having troops wander to the closest hostile on their own and airships that cannot change their course once launched seems to counteract the entire idea. Most maps I won after growing impatient and sending airship after airship to attack the Keep to win as ground troops never seemed to go where I wanted or were too slow.   

Siegecraft Commander also offers an online mode and local multiplayer, but I had trouble finding anyone else on at the times I was playing. I can say I honestly didn’t play the versus mode due to the fact that I was not having any fun with the game and didn’t feel the need to subject anyone else to it.

In the end, Siegecraft Commander seems to fall flat in terms of fun and entertainment. There are a lot of challenge associated with the game. It’s not necessarily always a bad thing but in this case, it just did not work. Fans of real-time strategy games or any other game probably should look elsewhere for a fun and rewarding experience.