This review is an AI translation of the original Korean post. Proper nouns, and some game titles and expressions, may differ.
1. ‘Settlement Survival’ Overview
I was on a business trip and meant to write reviews of games I had already played, then play something, but the internet was so poor that even uploading images to the site was difficult. Frustrated by that, the game I ended up playing this time was ‘Settlement Survival’.
As for ‘Settlement Survival’, the genre, to put it plainly, is construction and management. Although survival has been included lately, I keep playing only construction and management games. [PC Game Review] Age of Empires IV : Anniversary Edition After that review, I seem short on strategy-game play. Puzzle games too, of course.
Anyway, I think this ‘Settlement Survival’ may well be a game with a great many points in common with games I have reviewed before. The gameplay is building a medieval village… Yes. The one I reviewed before, [PC Game Review] Banished, similar(?). No, let’s call it a carbon copy. It feels like the framework was carried over as is.
Even more than ‘Endzone – A World Apart’, which I recently called a game similar to ‘Banished’, ‘Settlement Survival’ and ‘Banished’ are truly alike. I cannot help thinking it was made by reworking ‘Banished’ and adding content.
If I list the similar-feeling manor-building games I played earlier, they are as follows. [PC Game Review] Foundation, [PC Game Review] Kingdoms and Castles. Those are the ones. Also, among games with similar gameplay, the setting is a ruined future, but [PC Game Review] Endzone – A World Apart, which would be a game of a similar genre.
I bought ‘Settlement Survival’ on the Steam store, and the Korean localization is smoothly done. While playing, I did not notice anything particularly off. You should be able to play without problems.
Anyway, let’s move on to the Review.
2. ‘Settlement Survival’ Review
2.1. Features
‘Settlement Survival’ is a game about building a medieval-style village and managing and running(?) it. When I played ‘Banished’, the first similar game I tried, I labeled it a survival game, but now that I have been through several games, I may simply have gotten skilled enough that the name survival no longer fits.
Even so, what I consider most important while playing is food and water, essential for survival. I had already learned that by going through several similar games, so in my case I played while securing water and food to what I would call an excessive degree.
Earlier, I mentioned ‘Banished’ a lot, and once you actually play you cannot help mentioning it. The elements you would call core, such as the interface, the look of the early start, and how things progress, are all put in similarly. While playing A World Apart before, I thought that if the setting were medieval it would feel like a more refined Banished, and ‘Settlement Survival’ is exactly that game.
It fully provided the sense of achievement and growth that I had felt was lacking while playing ‘Banished’. Even so, if I weigh content and complexity, I personally think ‘Endzone – A World Apart’ has more variety on the content side.
Even so, if I list the content added, unlike ‘Banished’, as it comes to mind, there is research, additional trade, immigrants, and variety in buildings. Those would be the ones. It is a truly good point that research lets you live a better life, or use new products and processed goods, and thereby gives a sense of achievement and accomplishment.
Also, trade is no longer simple barter; you can deal through money, and also the caravan content, by which you form a party, carry the goods yourself, and earn money or trade, was a really decent feature, I think.
I could feel a similarity to the content in ‘Endzone – A World Apart’, where you explore places through expeditions and bring goods back. There are things you can buy only through trade, so you cannot pass trade by, and various plant seeds and livestock can be obtained relatively easily only through trade, so trade is truly essential.
As for the immigrant element, in ‘Banished’ you have to grow the population gradually across generations from the starting people, so increasing the population took a considerable amount of time, but in the case of ‘Settlement Survival’, you can accept immigrants, so even if a problem occurs and the entire population dies, the possibility of continuing the game stays open.
The system in which immigrants visit periodically and can join the village brings to mind the one I reviewed before, [PC Game Review] Foundation. That is the part that comes to mind. Meanwhile, because births are limited by the population at a system level, the scale will not be able to grow any further.
No matter how hard you try, I do not know whether the population cap can be broken. Even so, I think that if you play on the largest map, you will be able to build every building that can be built.
Setting the talk of population aside, as for the variety of buildings, well, the point is literally that they are varied. But as I mentioned earlier, I think that unless you play on the largest map, space will be limited and it will be hard to put buildings up if you want to build every one and check them.
2.2. Tutorial
Anyway, unlike ‘Banished’, which had many disappointing points in how the game proceeded, the tutorial is really well put together too, and I think that if you play the tutorial you will be able to play naturally. Also, it is not a tutorial that drags on, so checking it and then playing should not be boring.
From simple controls on, most of it is explanation about the UI, so it does not lay the gameplay wide open, and personally it was a tutorial of an appropriate length. You could say it kept to a certain line.
Of course, while playing there will be confusing parts in the trade section, but I think that much is fine. Like the one I reviewed before, [PC Game Review] Port Royale4‘s tutorial, some parts I did not understand did come up while playing, but a tutorial of a reasonable length reduced the negative side.
In any case, it was good that things still progressed even if I played roughly. If you get stuck and cannot go on, you can end up in the painful situation of searching the internet, but there was no case of getting stuck in terms of play.
2.3. Graphics and Sound
On the title screen I still thought it had been made cleanly and well, but while actually playing the tutorial, if you zoom in on each element, the graphics are not very satisfying. The graphics of the people and the buildings can be called crude. If you are not careful, they feel like games that have only just passed 15 years and become classics, and I almost was truly disappointed.
Even so, there was something that checked the disappointment, and I would say the in-game character illustrations and the UI made up for what the graphics lacked. The character illustrations that appear on the loading screen, and in the status window that opens when you click a character, become a device that lets you imagine the very simplified people on the game screen as something else. Of course, if you dislike this kind of looking the other way, it could be a problem, but in my case I was able to ease the disappointment of the graphics at least a little.
Using somewhat high-quality illustrations to soothe what is lacking in the 3D graphics is something often seen in Japanese games, and this game seems to have been made with that strategy.
As for the sound, rather than a pastoral mood, it has background music that feels a little lonely. I do not really remember whether there was also background music with a somewhat lively mood. In Banished’s case, I remember the background music was a little lonely and a rather calm piece, so I got drowsy. ‘Settlement Survival’ has a similar feeling, but I never played ‘Settlement Survival’ while tired, so fortunately I did not fall asleep.
‘Banished’ means ‘the banished’, so I can see a need to keep the mood heavy, but ‘Settlement Survival’ means the survival of settlers, a meaning somewhat softened(?) compared with ‘Banished’ (though I wonder if the survival is just for show), and for a game with that meaning I think a background track that was a little lighter, cheerful, and full of energy would have been fine too.
As for the sound effects, nothing was irritating or got in the way of progress. I think the sound effects suited to each building element are all put in decently.
2.4 Difficulty
The overall difficulty can be called ordinary. I do not think it is too difficult. Even so, there is an element that causes bother and irritation while you play, and that is the difficulty of securing enough workers. I think that if the immigrants had not visited on schedule, the play would have been truly grueling.
Also, to earn money you have to use the trade system called the caravan, but the problem is that village people must be assigned to that system too. Therefore, while you play, you are always truly short of people to do the work. In addition, a birth limit continues, and it takes a considerable time for a child to become an adult, so filling production buildings with workers is very hard.
Aside from that point alone, there was no great difficulty. If you were to play on a small map, though, I think it would be hard to experience every construction element, and I suspect there would be the difficulty of having to obtain the relevant resources through trade, but I doubt whether the needed resources could be supplied properly through trade.
2.5. Play Time
The total play time of ‘Settlement Survival’ is about 26 hours. I did not play for all that long, but I completed every related piece of research and built most of the buildings that can be built, so I was able to run production.
As for wonder buildings, once favor(?) with each faction builds up through caravan trade, you can build a special building at the final stage, and I finished ‘Settlement Survival’ by building that final building.
To be honest, compared with ‘Banished’ there is a lot of content, and the interesting elements and user-friendly parts are considerable, but it is a little simple, and because it does not have several scenarios the way ‘Endzone – A World Apart’ does, the play time does not seem to have been that long.
Play was a little dull, yet there was a certain fun in experiencing new buildings and products, so I carried it through to the late game without getting badly bored. At the finishing stage, though, it was a shame that the resident limit made freer population management difficult, and that putting up the final wonder buildings grew a bit tedious because they consume so many resources.
It was content that stretched the play time a little, but the forms of the buildings did not quite suit a medieval-style village, so I could not shake the sense that they did not belong. I think the shortage of workers all through play is an element that lowers overall satisfaction.
In conclusion, as for play time, ‘Settlement Survival’ can be called a game you can immerse yourself in well enough while playing. I remember concentrating quite a bit, wanting to meet the residents’ demands or try making new products.
As for the game’s addictiveness, you could say there is some while content remains, but after you have built every construction element and produced the products, the addictiveness drops sharply. What I mean by addictiveness is whether there is a pull to play again, and I think that point was lacking.
3. ‘Settlement Survival’ Closing
I played ‘Settlement Survival’ at a very brisk pace as well. It is a game that feels truly the same as ‘Banished’. Even so, if you play it you will feel that many parts have been added compared with ‘Banished’, such as research, trade, and the resources you need. Honestly, it reaches the point of making me wonder whether it is all right to make something this similar.
Even so, I get the feeling that ‘Settlement Survival’ is at least somewhat of a game, because in the case of ‘Banished’ there was truly little content. I think that with ‘Banished’ the main purpose was taking in the sight of many people dying and the village falling to ruin when you ran the village poorly.
In the case of ‘Settlement Survival’, I do not know whether it was because I ran things well, but there was no death rally among the villagers from a shortage of supplies, and no irreversible problem occurred. I came to think that the survival title rang a little hollow.
In conclusion, compared with ‘Banished’, I think it was kind to someone just starting out, and the content was about right, so it was comfortable and friendly to play. There is a feeling of being stuck inside a set frame of play, though, and personally I was disappointed that there is little freedom in the population count, so the content becomes limited even on a wide map.
I think there was fun in the various events, and in trying out many products and elements. I also think it was fine that technology research indirectly shows you several directions for how the game proceeds.
I think it was fine as a game to enjoy lightly. It is not a genre that offers a lesson or moves you, so, well, it is a game that leaves a little regret after a playthrough that itself felt a bit lacking.
That is all. I hope good fortune lies on the road ahead of you.