825th played so far
Genre: Strategy
Platform: Nintendo DS
Year of Release: 2008
Developer: Griptonite Games
Publisher: THQ
The obvious route when adapting a real time strategy game like the Age of Empires series to consoles and handhelds is to make it turn based. You often need precision mouse movement and a lot of different clicksย to pull of the functionality and while Starcraft seems to have a straight up Nintendo 64 adaption (although I’ve never played it), Halo Wars shows that to pull off a real time format, you want to simplify gameplay. Even then it can be hard to keep up with the genre.
So for Age of Empires: Mythologies – mostly an adaptation of Age of Mythology for the DS rather than an adaptation of the main history series – we play a turnbased strategy game.
Our Thoughts
Age of Empires: Mythologies does draw a lot from turn based, grid based like Final Fantasy Tactics. You get a set number of units, mostly using a type triangle, with some hero units that are quite a bit stronger with some nice abilities. So far it’s never gotten big enough that I lost track of what’s going on, but there are enough chances.
What it obviously brings in are the building elements. We saw some of that on Advance Wars, but here it’s far more expanded and complicated, like the main series. You can create units and support buildings, as well as research, just not in this real time setup. It also supports moving through the ages, which is as important to get the upper hand. All of it creates quite a different set up to expand the game.
The single player missions feel a bit low in number – they can take longer to play than in other games, but it feels like a low number per side compared to other games. There are a bunch more scenarios and such to challenge you, but it may feel a bit slim.
Final Thoughts
I get the feeling that the thought here was about how to get Age of Empires on the handheld first, then they thought about how to do it second. It worked out well, with a compromise between the series and what the console demands. It worked out well, but I felt I needed more patience to get through this than when I am able to rush through at speed.