BURGGEIST

I spent a bit of time trying to figure out how exactly to write about this game. It's a weird one. And despite enjoying it alot, I'm not sure I'd call it particularly great. In an alternate universe, this is definitely a ps2 game I pulled out of the bargain bin at gamestop.

Burggeist at its core is an RTS/TD game that is very simple but satisfying enough. What elevates the game for me is how odd and... disjointed? fragmented? it feels when it comes to its setting, characters, and dialogue. As Ignace, you've spent years trying to cure your wife, Lucile, of an inexplicable case of petrification. After making no progress in all that time, your adopted daughter, Étoile, who has been communicating with a being that writes in her notebook, receives a message from said being on how to free Lucile; "Build a tower that reaches the heavens." Ignace sets off to a desolate land ravaged by war in order to accomplish this. The catch here is that once the tower has begun being built, hordes of creatures known as Abhorers will begin to flock to it in an attempt to destroy it. With your abilities and the walking fortress Burggeist at your command, your goal is to drive these hordes back. And while the goal is to build the tower up to a certain height, you will be building multiple towers across the land. They serve as fast travel points and as a means to shake up the terrain upon which you will defend the tower. You only need to get one of these towers to its required height and some are placed in positions much easier to defend as well as much harder.

Movement and combat take a bit of time to get used to. Physics are at play here and you'll really have to take a bit of time to play with your movement and abilities as you unlock them. Height and elevation are key when dealing damage as the game will constantly remind you. You want high vantage points for both yourself and the Burggeist in order to maximize your damage output, of which will require you to really get movement down as you're constantly repositioning. Aside from your own abilities of which you will eventually have a large variety of, you will command the Burggeist to various locations and point to where you want it to fire upon. The Burggeist holds a large platform which has weaponry stationed upon it. As a side note, the Burggeist is actually controlled by Étoile, who remains at home with Lucile, through her severed left arm which is now attached to Ignace who was missing his left arm in the first place.

Defending each tower is broken up into height thresholds at which point you'll have to option to cease construction to continue later. During this time, certain people can visit each tower and they are a very odd cast of characters, each with a problem or request that you can choose to help them with. A man in armor that he can't seem to take off. A self proclaimed witch using two brooms to fly (one on each foot) seeking revenge on witch hunters. A sentient Abhorer looking for her brother and missing half of her head. These are the kinds of characters that will visit your towers and where you'll get most of your information on this odd world. (Apart from your journal which comes with lore and gets added to as you progress)

When you're not defending a tower, you can roam the world. Here it became obvious that this game takes inspiration from Shadow of the Colossus. The land is vast but devoid of people and civilization, only littered by broken landmarks that are remnants of the war that once took place there. There is no combat during these quiet segments of exploration, occasionally interrupted by a pleasant melody from the game's very sparse soundtrack. I've come to realize I really like wandering around in games, even if there is nothing to "Do" or accomplish and is a large part of why I enjoy open world games. Across the vast land, you can destroy certain statues that will reward you with currency to upgrade the Burggeist, or the occasional accessory you can equip. As you unlock more abilities, your movement options will gradually increase and you'll be able to reach previously inaccessible places with a bit of clever thinking. You could honestly spend a good chunk of time just wandering around before even touching the defense portion of the game and I quite enjoy that.

Surprisingly, or maybe not, the game is very short. I finished it in a single sitting at about 6 hours or so. While normally this would be a plus for me as I prefer shorter games, in this case I wish the game were a bit longer. Or.. much longer really. The game's strengths lie in it's world and dialogue, and to an extent the amount of freedom you have with your movement. At a certain point, defending towers gets pretty intense and you'll constantly be flying around and using everything at your disposal. Enemy variety gradually gets twisted and you'll eventually be defending against what I can only describe as biblically accurate angels. But right when you feel like the defense portions are really opening up and the world is being expanded upon, it ends. The quests given to you by characters range from comedic to rather heavy, but are all resolved fairly quickly, often upon their second visit to your tower. Solving their requests requires either getting a specific tower to a certain height, or going to a point on the map. The characters are weird and odd enough to the point where you can't help but want to see more of them, to know more about them. Each individual quest could have been better tied to the multiple height thresholds of the specific tower they show up at or broken up into more steps, given you more reason to continue building that specific tower and playing more with your abilities since the game gets significantly harder the taller a tower gets. My biggest grievance is the lack of communication between Ignace and Étoile. It's made clear that they have the means to communicate with each other over the long distance between them and even talk a bit when you first begin exploring. It's very odd to me how they didn't keep this up throughout the rest of the game, as having Étoile comment on the land, the events, and the characters being met would have added much more to the entire experience and certainly added a much greater emotional pay off at the end of the game.

I quickly want to mention that the spoken language of the characters by default seems to be made up? In the settings it has two voice languages; Cargrish and Japanese. I couldn't find anything on Cargrish so I'm led to believe it's completely made up which is honestly cool. That said, the subtitles can sometimes be a little confusing, either due to translation or grammar. While not often, I sometimes got a little confused at some conversations though at the same time I can't help but feel it's probably meant to be like that? I'd probably know if I set it to Japanese but, oh well.

What the game does, it does very well. I just really wish it did more of that or expanded upon it. Maybe it doesn't need to be longer, but adding more to its short game time feels like something that would have been very possible. Would I recommend the game? I don't know. I'm not really sure who this game is for other than people like me who just enjoy these kinds of weird games that feel more like an experiment than anything else. It's not long nor expensive to begin with, so if this seems even remotely interesting to you, then sure, I'd give it a try.