Toy Soldiers HD is a remaster of Toy Soldiers, a tower defense game, which released in 2010 as an XBLA. Now, to be completely honest, I never played the original so I have no idea on what’s new, improved or fixed. I just know that this HD remaster still looks like a 2010 indie game, visually speaking.
It looks old, very old indeed with a bleak color palette mostly consisting in browns and greens... it’s a 2010 game alright. Maybe that was done deliberately as these colors are consistent with the overall bleak and dark atmosphere of WW1. Still, on the other hand, all of the units, soldiers, tanks, machine gun encampments etc. are toys so a bit a color might have helped spruce things up, but I digress. If you are playing on one of the new plastic boxes on a OLED TV like I did, you will not like how dated this remaster looks, so keep that in mind.
As I said at the beginning, it’s a tower defense game and I must say that it’s a good tower defense game. Each level has specific positions where you can set up machine guns encampments, mortars, larger cannons, deadly gas unit etc. Enemies from infantry to tanks come in waves, but you can modify your units whenever you want. Killed enemies drop cash which in turn can be used to buy new units or upgrade current ones. You can even sell any active units and get some cash back. Later you can deploy tanks which roam around the battlefield killing anything in sight and planes which do the same, but from above.
While you view the battlefield from an eagle eye or top down perspective, you can also take control of any of the units, static or moving. It’s a fun feature and, you know, blasting infantry with an 80mm cannon which is meant for tanks never got old. I love how they just fly up in the air. Ah death, you never fail to amuse me.
There are also boss fights where you must protect your toy box against some massive war machines and thing can get quite challenging. If you don’t upgrade or move around your units so you are always doing the maximum damage, you will fail and have to restart the whole thing from the beginning.
Again it’s a good tower defense game, there are quite a few missions to complete plus additional ones that were part of DLCs for the original game. Additionally, there’s a local and online multiplayer mode, but I wasn’t able to access the later for some reason, always said something like “You are not online” when I clearly was.
I’m split when it comes to recommending or not this game. I personally do not like how old and out of place it looks and sounds in 2021, but on the other hand the game itself is good enough. If you have fond memories playing the original one, sure go ahead and pick this one up. But for everybody else, there are better games out right now to spend your money on. Thanks for reading.
Toy Soldiers HD was reviewed on a PS5 (via BC) using a PS4 review code provided by the publisher. Toy Soldiers HD is now available for PS4, PC, Switch and Xbox One.
