Toy Soldiers HD review

An HD remaster of a game that was already in high definition

In 2010, Signal Studios released Toy Soldiers onto the Xbox Live Arcade service. Critical and commercial responses were positive, with both groups appreciating the title’s advancement of traditional tower defense mechanics. After laying down your battlements, Toy Soldiers allowed you to hop into any allied turret on the diorama-style map, providing a hands-on way to repel waves of attackers. Unsurprisingly, Signal Studio’s debut went on to become one of the top-selling titles on Microsoft’s digital marketplace.

But a breakout success can easily succumb to stagnation. Save for Ascend: Hand of Kul, a free-to-play title that was delisted in less than a year, Signal would spend the next decade creating downloadable content and different standalone deviations. Toy Soldiers: Cold War updated the instruments of war, replacing the World War I-era model biplanes and armored cars with tanks, submarines, and gunships. Four years on, the deluxe edition of Toy Soldiers: War Chest added licensed armies from properties like G.I. Joe and Masters of the Universe. But beyond new armies, basic improvements to enemy AI, and the inclusion of healing units, Toy Soldiers essentially remained the same experience.

Originally released last October on Xbox and PlayStation consoles as well as PC, the Switch iteration of Toy Soldiers HD faced a string of delays. Publisher Accelerate Games placed the blame on a multiplayer bug that only appeared on consumer hardware and didn’t emerge on their dev kit. But much like the game’s wind-up infantrymen, Toy Soldiers continues to lumber on. Twelve years after the original release, Toy Soldiers HD bundles the Kaiser’s Battle and Invasion DLC. But effectively, it’s a no-frill port. The original game output to 720p and Toy Soldiers HD doesn’t noticeably improve the game’s visual fidelity in both handheld and docked modes. Yes, they’ve tweaked some of the stages, but others appear conspicuously untouched, making for an uneven update. Disappointingly, this is the only iteration that didn’t receive a framerate boost.

Delve in and you’ll find a war nearly as drawn out as the early 20^th-century source material. There are four campaigns in the base game, as well as two, three-stage operations in the DLC. Additionally, there is also a quartet of survival modes, as well as online and split-screen multiplayer. But despite the sheer amount of substance, Toy Soldiers HD can seem like drudgery as you fight a succession of incredibly spongy bosses. On the upside, the stages across each campaign are chronologically organized much like the actual war, with chapters adding new hardware like tanks and aircraft in an attempt to keep things fresh.

Each level begins by providing cash that you can spend to place battlements like machine guns, mortars, chemical weapons, anti-air guns, and hulking Howitzers. Unlike most tower defense games Toy Soldiers only lets you plop down a constrained number of turrets in specific positions, so you’ll have to be prudent with your selection and placements. Defying tradition, the game doesn’t provide any kind of visual indication of the path foes will take. Experience is the best offense here, and gradually learn the paths opponents will take across subsequent replays.

As the procession of opponents begins marching across the battlefield, you have two duties. Turret management entails placing, replacing, repairing, and augmenting your offensive devices. Here, you have an adjustable birds-eye perspective of the battlefield, where you can see tiny toy armies trudge toward your base. Should you permit enough foes to reach your headquarters, the game instantly ends. For better or worse, the game’s AI can operate your turrets and seems to focus on the nearest enemy.

The other option is getting into the trenches yourself. Seizing control of a turret is accomplished with a press of a button, instantly putting you into control of the offensive device. While mowing down a dozen of infantry, horsemen, or vehicles is fun at first, hindrances soon soil the enjoyment. When playing in handheld mode, you’re aiming at tiny mechanical opponents on the horizon. Even when zooming in, they can be difficult to see, so you’re often shooting in the general direction of distant foes. That’s probably realistic, but not a whole lot of fun. Additionally, the small size and drab grey coloring of your crosshair make it easy to lose track of.

Most levels conclude with an attack by heavily armored vehicles. Typically, the final wave of tower defense games tests your decision-making, ensuring that you positioned and upgraded a collection of hardware capable of taking down the toughest of enemies. While Toy Soldiers climaxes are undeniably intense, they’re not as rewarding as most efforts in the genre. Instead of anxiously watching your towers applying any last-second upgrades, you’re usually aiming at slow-moving, infuriatingly resilient enemies. Sure, they’re both tests of math, measuring outbound damage against armor resistance, but Toy Soldiers makes you crunch all the numbers by hand. Letting the AI take complete control of your hardware almost always leads to failure.

Unsurprisingly, these kinds of showdowns are better suited for two-player competitive matches. With a human opponent, Toy Soldiers HD shines. After being restrained to defensive duty in the single-player game having access to offensive options is invigorating. While split-screen limits your view of the battlefield, it was the only way I could find a challenger since the online matchmaking couldn’t find a fellow Toy Soldiers owner.  Sadly, the cooperative modes of more recent series entries didn’t get added in.

So, while the visuals aren’t remarkably improved and there’s no collaborative play, what did get upgraded? There are a few adjustments to battle that provide a few gratifying options. Like Cold War, you’re periodically provided the ability to drop a barrage on encroaching attackers. In execution, it’s not a surefire method to stop an assault since the bombing is spread across a wide area. But it can be a useful tool against large groups of foes. Similarly, you can now place four small turrets on the larger weapon pads, providing a new strategic wrinkle.

Largely, Toy Soldiers HD improvements are negligible enough to go unnoticed by those who played the original game over a decade ago. That might be fine for a modestly-priced release, but at thirty dollars, this port feels exorbitant. You might be better off waiting for the next mainline entry that will inevitably come.

Toy Soldiers HD was played on Switch with review code provided by the publisher.