MSRP: $4.99
Platforms: Windows, iOS, Android
Release: 5/27/16
The Incredible Baron is a side-scrolling real-time strategy game that seems to take inspiration from everything from old comedic point-n-click adventures, to tower defense games, to Pokemon. It’s up to you to choose the right creatures and abilities to defeat the enemies and progress through 30 story-based and 60 challenge levels.
It’s a slow starter since the game uses the first several levels as part exposition, part-tutorial, which makes it ideal for people who don’t play a lot of real-time strategy or tower defense. Having each creature and ability cost both gold and incur a cooldown makes it play a little bit like Plants vs. Zombies. You’ll have the opportunity to mix up your kit at the start of each level, and the more creatures you defeat, the closer you get to unlocking them for your own army.
The level of strategy increases as you progress through the story, and have more creatures and abilities to choose from. In fact, it might turn out pretty frustrating if you try to complete levels on all three difficulties before playing through the story and building up your stable of battle creatures, but if you go level by level through the story before going back for challenges, the difficulty curve feels just about right. The Incredible Baron might be better suited for mobile devices than the PC; the controls feel like they’d work very well with a touch screen, and there’s nothing here you really need the power of a PC to take advantage of.
366 Days of Gaming 