Becastled Review

Blending two genres of videogames doesn’t always equate to a smash hit, but can occasionally give gamers something unique. In Becastled, by developer Mana Potion Studios, players are tasked with building their own castle during the day and defending it against hordes of enemies at night. Sounds simple, but is it fun? Let’s take a look at this charming city builder meets tower defence title!

Becastled has been in Early Access on Steam since 2021, and now not only is it being released into 1.0, but it is also the game's debut on consoles. With this being the PlayStation 5 version, the first thought that crossed my mind was how well the keyboard and mouse controls would transfer over to the DualSense. But before we look into how it plays, let me explain the basic premise.

A “cozy-meets-challenging strategy game” is how Becastled describes itself, meaning gameplay is split into two distinct sections: first, let’s look at the base-building elements. You start by placing your castle and other buildings, such as sawmills and military training camps. From here, workers will go about their assigned duties, which in turn increases your resources and income. Keeping an eye on their moods is also crucial, as the population won’t grow if you’ve one too many unhappy campers!

Once night falls, enemies will attempt to destroy your structures and you’ll need to send your warriors to protect them. Only one or two foes will attack for the first few days, although you’ll eventually have small armies knocking at your door. Things can get tough, though, and Becastled isn’t always the best when it comes to commanding your troops. For one, selecting troops to attack someone or defend an area doesn’t give you any indication that they’ve received the order. You know how most RTS games have the cursor change to a sword or shield for attacking or defending, respectively? Yeah, there’s none of that here, and it can be difficult to ascertain who is doing what. Pathfinding is rather poor, which also doesn’t help matters, with troops often deciding to take the scenic route when going on the offensive, or just getting stuck behind a tree or building. Frustrating!

But, how does it play? Well, using a controller isn't too bad! Navigating radial menus is intuitive, and I had no issues there, but using the menus for specific buildings or units could get a little fiddly. When selecting something or someone, a sub-menu will appear in the lower right corner of the screen, which you’ll need to use the D-pad to move around the options. It works, but does feel slightly unresponsive.

As a whole, Becastled is relatively simple to understand. Things start off fairly basic: gather resources to expand your territory, erect new buildings, and train new fighters to stave off the nightly threats. You’ll eventually move on to upgrading buildings, adding defensive walls around your perimeter, and recruiting more warriors to your cause. It’s easy enough to get to grips with and not as in-depth as a lot of other titles in the genre, but it works well and kept me entertained for a while.

It’s a good job that the game is simple enough, as there are no tutorials or pop-ups to help players get to grips with it! Whilst there are a plethora of options to customise each game, from difficulty settings to how many resources are available from the outset, I feel that a game like this always needs at least a short tutorial on how to play.

In terms of aesthetics, Becastled is a low-poly title that has a cartoonish charm to its characters and environments. I wasn’t a fan of how the characters' faces were just a glowing yellow texture, and I had to double-check online to make sure this wasn’t a weird graphical error!

The audio, again, has a charm to it. The mediaeval tunes to the grunts of the workers, it’s the sort of thing you’d expect for these sorts of games. There’s a distinct lack of audio cues to inform the player of things like units being ready for deployment or upgrades completing, meaning you’ll have to constantly check that things are complete.

Overall, Becastled is easy enough to pick up, but can get challenging pretty quickly! There isn’t a whole lot of content here; no campaign, challenge modes, or anything of that nature. What it does offer, however, is a decent, if occasionally frustrating, experience that will keep genre fans entertained for a few hours.