Posted on: December 26, 2020
nitrogenfingers
Verified ownerGames: 330 Reviews: 48
A build-it-yourself RTS
Those who vaguely remember this one from childhood would be forgiven in forgetting it was developed by Relic, but it's Dawn of War, Company of Heroes heritage quickly makes itself apparent. Impossible Creatures feels simpler, shallower and sillier than it's stablemates but it's core idea of user-designed armies is both innovative and distinctive enough to garner a recommendation. There are over 50 animals in Impossible Creatures, with their own stats, attacks and abilities that can be spliced together, producing a considerable amount of variety in a given player's 9-creature roster. A clever analyzer tool reports how well balanced a custom-made team is, but the real delight in the game comes from testing your new creations with other players to find strengths and weaknesses in a given game. It lends itself well to experimentation and comparisons, as the relatively simple mechanics make it very clear where your team excels, and where it doesn't, and this performance benchmarking afforded much of the fun in the experience for me. This matches well with the simple, lighthearted theme that is consistently charming, and the spectacle of flying scorpions devastating an army of killer whale-gorillas shows how tightly coupled the core gameplay concept is to every part of its presentation. The single-player campaign plays especially well to this, with an additional mechanic of gathering genetic samples to slowly grow your creature library, and a colourful array of heroes and villains. Unfortunately, in some ways it shows it's age; it lacks some quality of life features around unit selection and match setup, and it's relatively small army variety can feel like you're simply throwing units at your enemy after awhile (to some extent, matches are decided before they are played); this all keeps Impossible Creatures from greatness. But it's built on a solid foundation by a company that knows the RTS genre well, and is different enough to stand out from its heritage.
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