Highlands - Review @ Hooked Gamers

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Hooked Gamers has the first review for Highlands this week.

It's not a perfect game, of course. As of now, there are a few technical issues that could stand to be addressed. The method of moving your troops around the screen - separating your groups by trying to highlight the specific members you want to move with the mouse and dragging them about - is clunky and a little awkward, and it stands out strangely in a game that has clearly taken such pains to be polished and ready for release. Enemy regen is fast, and it can feel a little capricious when your focus is already split between multiple objectives. Character recruitment feels surprisingly impersonal compared to the rest of the game, and the fact that your new recruits are 100% expendable is an uncomfortable source of cognitive dissonance in a game that is so strongly marked by characters trying to work their way through a tragic invasion. Some of the more unusual mechanics could stand to be explained a little more clearly.

But it's a lot of fun, too. It has vision and scope, originality and wit, and it's fun. Hitting the rare trifecta of beautiful, challenging and innovative, it's easy enough to slip into the "just one more turn" refrain when you're inches away from reclaiming a map. For a game from such a small team, this was clearly lovingly crafted, doted upon, and released to us as a surprising little mashup of genres and influences that, overall, works really well. If you've ever wanted to send a wide-eyed Disney princess and her siblings into battle against the forces of darkness, miles above the original home of man, you really should give it a spin. I feel like you're unlikely to quench that specific desire anywhere else.​