Post Human W.A.R Review
What happens when humanity is gone? When all people of all races have died, and now the world is full of empty cities? What shall remain? Well, in Post Human W.A.R, a lot remains, and it’s the building blocks of a fascinating strategy game that’s now available on Steam. As you try and make your way through the battles of this game, you’ll realize that just because humans aren’t around doesn’t mean things aren’t intense or challenging.
The crux of the game is that humanity has died. But, before it did, two species were created. The first were robots, who served humans faithfully, and then after their death, decided to maintain the human cities to honor their former masters. The other was a species of parasites created by the toxic waste that filled human landfills. Outcast by humans as “freaks”, they waited until humanity died to rise. But when they did, two groups formed with very different ideas. The Wraaks inhabited more violent and primal creatures, and sought to wipe out all traces of humanity. In contrast, the Anthropists took the bodies of primates, and sought to live in the cities of humanity and embrace what was left behind. When the robots found out what both sides wanted, they “adjusted” their programming to become more battle-ready, becoming R-Patch, and the war began.
In Post Human W.A.R, you’ll get to choose a side, and then fight the other two as you try to get the world you desire to come forth. It’s very elaborate, but it really makes the game shine. It’s easy to do simple factions that are loyal to certain countries, but here, it’s something entirely different, and that’s something to be appreciated.
Battles happen in turn-based style on a hexagonal map. Each faction has its own special style, as well as units that have short-range attacks, long-range attacks, healing abilities, and more. There’s a LOT of detail put into these units. The looks, the attacks, and the victory animations are all carefully crated to make each character unique. For example, the R-Patch are units based on home appliances. So there’s a flying fridge, a vacuum cleaner that’s a sniper, an oven that attacks with knives, and more. For the Anthropists, they have a paragliding monkey, orangutans who are archers, stealthy badgers who can only be injured by melee attacks, and on and on. Oh, and the Wraaks? Yeah, there’s a polar bear that attacks with penguins, very dangerous flying squirrels, and weasel that is WAY too big.
As you can see, there’s a lot here, but that’s part of the fun. The variety of these factions make it so you can choose the playstyle that suits you. My personal favorite strategy is using the R-Patch units who have long range. I can pick opponents off, and force them to come to me. On the other hand, when I’m the Wraaks, I like using a special cannon they have to deal damage, then go to town with special melee units. It all depends on whom I’m using at the time.
Speaking of which, the game gives each faction a campaign to do. Each from their own point of view, and each with their own unique intro. The story is actually very deep as each side fights for their own utopia. The main characters talk in unique voices, and it’s fun to see where it all goes. My jaw dropped when a “main” character in the R-Patch story, that’s good stuff.
Make no mistake though, this game is tough. Like seriously tough. Once you get settled into the game, the difficulty gets ratcheted up in major ways. Every battle is a war, and every match can take an hour, if not longer, just depends on your strategy. If you don’t feel you’re strategically minded? You might want to practice that in the various modes in Post Human W.A.R, because if you’re not ready to think outside the box, you’ll be trouble. Not that you won’t be in trouble even if you are stragtegic, but it’ll be much harder without it.
I will say that at times, the difficulty is a bit too much, there were matches were I was very outclassed and had to do a serious reworking of my strategy to succeed. What’s more, at times it felt like the enemies had much better units than I, but it might have been my imagination. As for units, while I love the diversity and such, some of the units weren’t explained in good detail. I didn’t know how to use a healing unit’s ability, and by the time I figured it out they weren’t of much use.
For the record, the game actually does a really good job both explaining the world and explaining the gameplay. The tutorial is very well done, and really gives you the basics that you need in order to keep going. There’s even advanced tutorials that you can choose to use in order to get even more strategies going in your head. Or, as mentioned before, there’s the “Practice Mode”, where you can test out units and such to see what they can all do.
Speaking of which, one of the best twists in the game is the use of a “champion”. In battle, you’ll select a certian unit to be your champion. Likewise (outside of campaign where different objectives are put to you), your opponents will have a champion. If their champion falls, you win outright. But, the reverse is also true. If yours falls, you lose. It’s a simple twist, but it has massive strategic weight. For you can expose your champion to your opponent, and when you do, it’ll get some boosts. But now, all their strategies will go towards taking it out.
One of the most fun features of Post Human W.A.R. though is going online to battle other players. I got to do this quite a bit and it was fun. For now, I wasn’t facing an AI, I was facing someone who was just like me, and it was thrilling. The more you win, the more you can go up in rank and get some pretty cool titles. A feature I really liked though was that while you search for an opponent, you can go and do other things in the game. Then, when an opponent arrives, you can pause what you’re doing to do the online match.
Aside from the sometimes extreme difficulty, the only other real complaint I have is the voice acting. Every unit has a unique voice just for them. And while that’s cool…it’s also annoying when I hear the same lines over and over again.
Post Human W.A.R is a very fun, very strategic, and very diverse game. There are classic strategy features in here, but there are also a few twists on them that’ll give you new ways to play. The game is available now on Steam.