[Clearing th Backlog] Aztez

Clearing The Backlog

I have more games than I can finish. So I'm playing a game every once in a while to see if I like it enough to finish it. This along with my #FirstImpression posts will help me clear my backlog faster!

Aztez

Aztez is one of the games I got for free from Epic Store. It's a side-scrolling brawler + turn-based strategy mix of a video game.

I tired Aztez few months ago, but only played the tutorial at that time, now I played a campaign and formed my impression on the game before I got beaten up to plup by some enemy.

The first thing that caught my interest in Aztez is the game's visual style. Aztez has unique and pretty art. Since Aztez was made by a Team Colorblind it's mostly black and white, only features minimal use of other colors, mainly red for blood.

(Notice the contrast between the colors above)

Aztez is hard to put in one genre. The fights are played in a fighting/beat 'em up style. The campaign itself has territory management elements and rougelike-like randomness.

The campaign part of the gameplay is turn-based. In your turn you can use items with various effects (increase a city population, starts a plunder event somewhere on the map.) Some of the items use resources which acquired at the end of each turn depending on the number of cities under your rule.

The main event of each turn is the fights. Each turn the enemies appear on the map and you can deploy your fighters, (called Aztez,) to battle them. Winning conditions and penalty for losing appear on the pre-battle menu. Losing some battles will result in your Aztez death and if all of them died it's "Game Over."

The fighting system is quite deep and the equipment system allows for more variety during the fights. There's a tutorial mode to learn about the cool moves can do and how to use them. I found useful and entertaining. Though I didn't need to use what I learned in the campaign. I did just fine by mashing buttons. (Maybe that's the reason for my untimely loss.)

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Backlog Status

Uninstalling

I enjoyed the few hours I spent on Aztez. but it seems to require a lot of time investment. I need to free some space on my PC and I have too many games other in my backlog so I'll pass on completing Aztez.

This game truely feels like a unique and fun mashup of genres though, and I'm glad I got to try it. There are a lot of gems that I don't hear about!

What do you think?

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All images are screenshots of the game taken by me.