Game: The Unexpected Quest
Genre: Adventure, Other, Puzzle, Strategy
System: Nintendo Switch (also on Steam)
Developers | Publishers: Rionix | OverGamez
Age Rating: EU 12+ | US E10+
Price: EU €14,99 | US $15.99 | UK £13.49
Release Date: January 23rd, 2021
Review code used, with many thanks to OverGamez
When I saw the trailer for The Unexpected Quest I knew I wanted to review it as I’m a fan of strategy games. The Unexpected Quest is categorised as an adventure, puzzle, strategy, though it plays more like a simplified management, strategy than an adventure game. Let’s find out more!
Shipwrecked ashore
At the beginning of the game, a crew of Dwarves has been stranded upon a beach after a rough seas and a shipwreck. This acts as your introduction to the world and controls. You’ve to walk around the beach, lighting fires and locating your lost crew. Once you accomplish this task, you move on to the next level, and things continue.
The crew makes their way to a village, only to discover a zombie outbreak present. The ultimate goal in the game is to find a way to alert people to the zombie outbreak and make sure no one else gets hurt. You will see different environments on your travels, from the beach, forest, and a volcanic area to name a few.
Perform tasks to Progress
At its core, The Unexpected Quest is a time management sim. You need to juggle resource production, as well as click on resources to get your townsfolk to perform tasks to progress through each level. There are certainly puzzle elements to the game, as there are steps to progress to achieve each goal in a level. There’s always at least one main objective, and later levels will also provide you with side quests that you can complete as well. Some of the quests are needed to progress the main task, while others are just there if you would like extra resources. Quests such as helping to heal a sick dragon, or heal some Partisan’s to earn some gold.
Click to Pick Up
You don’t need to select individual workers to tell them to do something. Instead, you simply click on what needs to be picked up or built and they’ll do it. You can queue up actions for each of these units which helps, as a worker can only carry one bag of gold or one unit of food at a time. Building structures works the same way, you click on the space and pick the building you want to build. You have to make sure to not queue actions up to around an enemy as your worker will run away screaming.
You’ll be building bridges over turbulent rivers, constructing and repairing buildings. Mills will provide food, sawmills will provide building materials, forges will improve equipment and any surplus resources you have you sell at the market. Barracks, Wizard Towers and Forges each need to be built per level to overcome all the challenges. To hire more workers you’ll have to build houses to accommodate them which require strategy and planning.
Automatic combat comes into play too, as you’ll encounter enemies on each level. You’ll have three units to deal with each type of enemy a swordsman, archers and a mage. To get your unit to attack an enemy you click on them and then your swordsman will charge forward to do battle. This is not a combat game. If you’re looking for hack-and-slash, I think you’d best try elsewhere as all you do is order a soldier to attack.
Three Combat Units
All enemy types have a level and if your unit is of a lower level they’ll easily die, unless you use potions and shields on them. To even the score, you’ll need to find items that boost each unit type as well as spend gold to increase their respective unit type’s level through the forge.
This is a time management strategy game, with resource collecting an essential feature. Yes, you fight monsters, but it’s not complicated and it isn’t meant to be. It’s your strategic abilities that come into play here above all, examining each level for priorities is important, and so is deciding how to use your resources. No matter how many resources you gather they don’t carry over to the next level, you start each level afresh which gets a little repetitive.
Eight Chapters to play
There are eight Chapters in all and around five hours of playtime. The only thing that could possibly make the experience longer is collecting the stars that are needed on each level for an achievement. To do this you must not loose any units, find all the treasures and do all the side quests. After that the adventure is over, not a lot of replay value to be found in the game.
While the game is enjoyable to play, after a while it starts to feel repetitive, as you’re doing the same thing over again in each level. The game feels streamlined and intuitive while you’re playing, I enjoyed the game more when I was playing it for shorter sessions.
Visuals and Controls
Graphically it looks fine on the Switch, with bright vibrant colours throughout each level. The characters are quite endearing in their 2D polygon models during cutscenes though they aren’t the best I have seen close up.
The music is quite enjoyable, there is one track in particular that I think is very reminiscent of the theme from Pirates of the Caribbean. There is variety in the designs of the different environments you visit such as snow, forest and swamplands.
As I’ve mentioned above the controls feel intuitive and are pretty simple to use. The Unexpected Quest runs well without any glitches or the likes that can interrupt your gameplay.
Conclusion
I do like The Unexpected Quest, it is a fun game in short bursts. It isn’t a deep strategy games like some other games in the genre. However, if your looking a mild strategy game that isn’t too brain taxing then The Unexpected Quest would be worth looking into.
Final Verdict: I Like It A Lot
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