Earth vs Mars Review Summary

A fun, addictive Advance Wars-style tactics game with clever DNA splicing and deep unit variety, though repetitive battles and poor unit and difficulty balance can make it boring.

Fun splicing mechanic: The DNA splicing feature is widely praised as a fun and original mechanic that adds unit variety and strategic depth. Players enjoy creating hybrid units and using their unique abilities.

Addictive and fun gameplay: Many players find the game very fun, addictive, and constantly pleasant to play. It is described as campy sci-fi chess and a great time on Steam Deck.

Spiritual Advance Wars successor: Many players describe the game as a fun and entertaining spiritual successor to Advance Wars with its own tactical twists. It scratches the Advance Wars itch and sometimes makes better tactical sense.

Tactical depth and unit variety: The game offers deep tactical gameplay with unit abilities that give units more identity, and every unit has a role. The customization and progression systems add strategic layers.

Charming art and style: The game features a colorful, vibrant art direction with expressive unit designs and flashy combat effects. The campy retro sci-fi aesthetic and B-movie vibes are widely appreciated.

Pacing and mission design issues: Early missions are slow, later missions become ridiculous, and difficulty spikes are frustrating. The game feels drawn out with many unnecessary missions.

Repetitive and boring gameplay: Gameplay becomes repetitive, with defensive strategies and overpowered combinations dominating. Experimentation is punished, and the game funnels players into a few viable tactics.

Poor unit and difficulty balance: Unit balancing is inconsistent across difficulties, with some units and commanders vastly outperforming others, leading to repetitive strategies and artificially inflated difficulty rather than smarter AI.

Unengaging story and writing: The plot is weak, poorly written, and slow-paced, with basic humor and character development. Some players also perceive an anti-male bias in the narrative.

Frequent crashes block progression: Players report crashes that restart missions, freeze at turn end, and soft-lock the game, causing repeated mission replays and lost progress. These technical issues severely disrupt the experience.

DNA splicing creates custom hero units: The core original mechanic is splicing human and animal DNA to create up to three customizable hero units with unique abilities. These spliced units are deployed during missions and can be upgraded.

Advance Wars-style turn-based strategy: Many reviewers identify the game as a turn-based strategy title heavily inspired by or copying the Advance Wars formula. It is noted as a simpler version or one that adds new mechanics on top of that base.

Campaign with varied missions and story: The game features a narrative-driven campaign with handcrafted missions that vary in objectives, including skirmishes, defense, and civilian rescue. The campaign includes dialogue sequences and spans roughly 20 hours.

Casual tactical experience: The game is described as a casual turn-based strategy rather than a deep tactical game like XCOM. It offers small-scale tactical combat with familiar tactics.

Resource management and upgrades: Players earn resources like Marsonium through missions and can spend them to upgrade units, reduce build costs, and unlock new technologies. A progression system exists with unit upgrades and discounts.

Crashes and freezes during gameplay: Multiple reports describe crashes near the end of levels, freezing mid-mission, hangs at the end-of-turn prompt, and soft locks during attack animations. These issues disrupt core gameplay loops.

Steam Deck compatibility issues: Players report the game either does not run or fails to work correctly on Steam Deck. One user notes that a recent patch fixed sudden performance problems after a specific mission, but overall compatibility remains problematic.

Excessive hardware load and overheating: Even with low-quality graphics, the game causes extreme hardware load, with fans ramping to maximum during a turn-based cartoon-style game at 1080p on high-end PCs. This suggests poor optimization.

Anti-aliasing options ineffective: MSAA does not appear to work, and anti-aliasing settings have no visible effect on fight scenes. This undermines visual quality options.

Memory leak in fog of war: A specific memory leak is reported related to the fog of war feature, which can lead to performance degradation over time.

Appeals to Advance Wars fans: Multiple reviewers explicitly recommend the game to fans of Advance Wars, citing mechanical similarities and comparable enjoyment. This is the most frequently cited audience recommendation across clusters.

Rough edges and lack of polish: Some feedback notes the game is not a perfectly refined strategy experience and has rough edges. These reviewers still lean positive but caution that polish is lacking.

Wait for fixes or discounts: Some feedback advises waiting a year before buying or not purchasing at full price. Full SteamDeck support is also cited as a condition before it becomes a must-buy.

Solid tactical strategy experience: Reviewers describe the game as a solid strategy title that scratches the tactics itch and should appeal to strategy fans. It is characterized as a worthwhile adventure for those seeking turn-based tactics.

Balanced difficulty recommended: Reviewers suggest keeping difficulty on easy or medium until players unlock upgrades or find preferred spliced soldiers. Adjustable difficulty is also cited as a positive feature for turn-based strategy fans.

Community fair range: $10.00 - $20.00.

Game completion: 50.0h.

Story completion: 20.0h.

Players find the campaign concept and combat approachable and enjoyable, but the opening stretch is slow because upgrades, resources, and new unit combinations arrive late. Once progression unlocks new units and technologies the tactical layer opens up, though balance, difficulty, and mid-game bugs still drag on some players.

Reported time to anchor: 3h.

Friction: First few missions are slow because upgrades and resources are not yet available; Cannot build fully spliced units early, limiting tactical options; Progression pace feels too slow to try more unit combinations sooner; Unit imbalance rewards repetitive strategies and punishes experimentation; Mid-game menu overlap bug can block ending a turn and lose progress; Mission difficulty is high enough that some players cannot clear a mission even on easy.

Unlock drivers: Unlocking new units and technologies through progression strengthens the tactical layer over successive games; Earning upgrades and resources enables fully spliced units.

Advance Wars Campaign Veteran: Plays through the campaign map by map, composing armies and using genetically engineered hero units to cover weaknesses or extend advantages. Motivation: To play a new singleplayer campaign in the small-scale tactical style of Advance Wars, with hero units and inter-mission progression. Stance: buy.

Casual Chill Strategist: Plays on easy or medium settings, enjoys quick casual matches, and values a low-pressure old-school strategy experience. Motivation: Relaxed, accessible turn-based fun in short, light sessions. Stance: buy.

Mechanics-Critical Strategy Veteran: Scrutinizes UI, controls, roster depth, and map design; expects genre-savvy polish and is quick to reject clunky execution. Motivation: Finding a mechanically competent, polished tactics game with meaningful map design, roster variety, and responsive controls. Stance: no buy.

Steam Deck: The feedback shows improving Steam Deck readiness: a verified patch and added controller support are praised. However, some users still describe the Deck experience as not fully supported or not running as well as desired, and there is demand for display and performance tuning. No clear evidence of external launchers, anti-cheat failures, or battery drain appears in the provided reviews.

Linux and Proton: The available evidence is limited but points toward positive Steam Deck/Linux compatibility signals. One reviewer is encouraged by a Steam Deck verified patch, and no review explicitly reports Proton or native Linux launch failures, instability, anti-cheat issues, or required compatibility tweaks. Generic upscaling and resolution-scaling requests are not Linux-specific compatibility complaints.

Strong Advance Wars Comparison: The game is overwhelmingly compared to Advance Wars as a spiritual successor, with many noting it scratches a similar itch. Some find it a simpler version with nice twists, while others prefer Advance Wars or this game's tactical sense.

Comparisons to Other Strategy Games: Reviewers compare the game to various tactics and strategy titles including XCOM, Wargroove, Into The Breach, and others, noting similarities and differences.

Low Price Strong Value: The game is sold at a fraction of the price of similar games and offers good value for little money. Reviewers call it a steal with heaps of content for the price tag.

Relic Labs Side Project: Developer Relic Labs is making smaller scope games to experiment, and this game is described as a side project or first effort from Relic Labs.

Ongoing Developer Support: The developer provides ongoing support, including responding to reported bugs and adding features like controller support and a Steam Deck patch.