Shieldwall
Last updated: 2025-08-16
- Highly enjoyable and fun gameplay
- Engaging strategic commander-focused gameplay
- Unbalanced and frustrating difficulty
- Unfair and exploitable AI
- Limited content and depth
- Overpowered catapults and sieges
Emotions
Players feel satisfied due to the game's overall quality, strategic depth, and engaging tactical gameplay, especially when playing with friends. The game's value for money, historical theme, and smooth performance also contribute to a positive experience, leading to enjoyment and a sense of accomplishment upon completion.
Frustration stems primarily from unfair AI behavior, including cheating with resources and infinite spawns, and overly difficult or unbalanced levels. Players also experience frustration due to game-breaking bugs, janky controls, repetitive 'cat and mouse' gameplay, and overpowered catapult mechanics that make progression difficult.
Disappointment arises from the perceived abandonment of the game by developers, leading to a lack of updates, content, and a dead multiplayer. Players also express disappointment with shallow gameplay, limited unit variety, and the game not living up to their expectations for scale, strategic depth, or overall quality.
Joy is experienced through fun, fast-paced, and strategic gameplay, particularly when playing with friends. The game's addictive nature, engaging combat, and overall entertainment value contribute to a positive and enjoyable experience.
Hope is driven by the game's potential for future improvements, new content, and continued development, especially given its early access status. Players express a desire for more units, modes, and fixes, anticipating a richer and more complete game experience.
Verdict
Mixed
Summary
Positive 63% · Negative 37%. Score: 37 / 100
Positives:
- Players overwhelmingly find the game highly enjoyable, fun, and engaging, both in single-player and multiplayer modes. Its casual nature, strategic depth, and charming style contribute to a positive overall experience.
- The game is praised for its strategic depth, requiring players to think and adapt. It offers a good balance of challenge and accessibility, making it appealing to strategy game enthusiasts.
- Fans of historical settings, particularly Roman history and figures like Julius Caesar, appreciate the game's theme and its humorous yet engaging depiction of ancient warfare. The historical accuracy and Roman aesthetic are well-received.
- The game is noted for its intuitive controls and easy accessibility, allowing players to quickly pick up and enjoy the gameplay without a steep learning curve. It's suitable for short, satisfying play sessions.
- Many players see significant potential for the game's future, believing it can become even better with further development and updates. They appreciate its current state but anticipate more content and refinements.
Negatives:
- Many players find the game's difficulty to be uneven and frustrating, especially in later levels and acts. This leads to a tedious and repetitive gameplay loop, often requiring excessive grinding or exploiting AI.
- The AI is frequently described as 'cheating' due to infinite resources, instant respawns, and disproportionate gold income. This creates an unfair advantage, forcing players into repetitive 'cat and mouse' chases or relying on AI exploits rather than genuine strategy.
- The game is criticized for its lack of content, including limited game modes, short campaigns, and insufficient unit variety. This results in low replayability and a shallow strategic experience, making the game feel incomplete.
- Catapults are a major source of frustration, being overpowered, highly accurate, and capable of instantly killing units or the player. Sieging castles is also difficult due to these mechanics and constant enemy reinforcements.
- There is a strong perception among players that the game has been abandoned by the developers, with a history of infrequent updates and similar past projects left unfinished. This raises concerns about future improvements and support.
Gameplay:
- Players desire a robust multiplayer experience, including co-op and competitive modes, to enhance social interaction and replayability. The current state of multiplayer is unclear or perceived as lacking.
- The game is primarily a first-person strategy game where players command an army as a single commander. It emphasizes tactical decision-making and leading squads in dynamic battles, rather than complex RTS micromanagement.
- The core gameplay loop revolves around capturing and defending flags and strategic points on the map. Missions include variations like Conquest, King of the Hill, and Capture the Flag.
- The game features RPG elements such as a leveling system, skill trees, and upgrade paths for units and player stats. Players can improve gold generation, attack, defense, and health regeneration.
- Players can utilize javelins as a ranged weapon, which can be switched from the default sword. This provides a tactical option for engaging enemies before close-quarters combat.
Performance:
- Player feedback on performance is mixed, with some users reporting smooth gameplay even on older hardware, while others experience significant lag and optimization issues, especially on lower settings. There's a general sentiment that the game might be more demanding than expected for some setups, and lacks granular optimization options.
- One user reported attempting common troubleshooting steps like driver updates and running as administrator to resolve crashes, indicating potential stability issues for some players.
- A single review mentioned that the game's installation size is manageable, which is a minor positive point for storage-conscious players.
Recommendations:
- A recurring theme is the recommendation to purchase the game only when it is on sale or at a significant discount, often specifying a price point (e.g., under 20 units of currency). This suggests that while the game has merit, its current full price is considered too high by many.
- Many players do not recommend the game, citing various reasons such as high price, lack of strategic depth, frustrating difficulty, or specific impossible levels. Some express regret over their purchase and suggest waiting for fixes or significant discounts.
- Some players suggest alternative games like Total War, modded Warband/Bannerlord, or Warlord Britannia, implying that these titles offer a superior or more complete experience in similar genres.
Miscellaneous:
- Players consistently express a strong desire for more content, particularly multiplayer modes (PvP and co-op), additional maps, and general game expansions. There's a clear sentiment that the game has significant potential but needs further development and updates to reach it, with some noting its age.
- There's a strong call for increased unit variety, including new types like archers and cavalry, and more factions. Players also want deeper upgrade systems for units and commanders, and an increased maximum unit cap to allow for larger armies and more strategic depth.
- Several specific gameplay mechanics are requested for improvement or addition. These include better troop movement and deployment, general leveling and respawn options, manual control and health adjustments for city gates, permanent upgrades, and more strategic base/city defense options.
- The game is noted for being a relaxing experience that can be completed quickly, yet also surprisingly engaging, leading to extended play sessions. It is also considered suitable for a wide range of ages.
- There is a clear and specific request for the addition of Chinese language support, highlighting its importance for immersion and accessibility for native speakers.
