Anvil Saga Review

Developer: Pirozhok Studio - Publisher: HeroCraft PC

Anvil Saga is a management sim with RPG elements where you take control of a blacksmith shop amidst the Hundred Years' War. 

Each decision you make impacts the story and gameplay.

Anvil Saga allows you to take the role of a blacksmith set in medieval times, a game that forges its paths based on your decisions.

Make the wrong choice and things become so much harder, make the right choice things remain hard.

How will you fare against the ongoing burning passion of the customers who line up to your shop in need of goods and services?

Gameplay

The tutorial is pretty good, and it teaches you the very basics of running a forge, and will even give you an apprentice to help you, the amount of backwards and forwards that you need to do is unbelievable. having 2 apprentices is always going to be better.

Unfortunately, it is slow in the early stages, until you can build up enough reputation to unlock more rooms and customers, then they start flowing in pretty quickly and believe me when I say that it does get hectic and fast.

In Anvil Saga, you are the son of the master blacksmith and you take on his legacy to rebuild his fame, build up your house to home other apprentices, teach them skills from books, unlock your mines and create storage rooms.

Word of warning, they can starve and they can fall asleep, so be sure to keep your food stock high and keep an eye on their energy levels, most times they will wander by themselves when it gets too low, and they can also leave if you don't pay their salaries.

Gaining gold can be challenging as most orders are very low-paying, the choices you make in the game will decide the fate of the kingdom and your customer flow.

I found myself always short of either Iron or Gold until I decided that I needed a 2nd apprentice and things started to become more fluid.

A crazy annoyance with gold is that you will always be purchasing things from books, food, special items for customers, buildings and the most damaging of all Land Tax.

Yes, the game forces you to pay tax no matter who you decide to help in the war, you'd think they would let you off for giving them such an advantage!

Some customers do not like it when you help a faction they hate, and therefore you will lose out on reputation with that faction.

Reputation is very important to maintain, as keeping them positive rewards you with benefits, whilst on the other hand, a low faction reputation will give you negative benefits. Low Witch reputation = Lower income... It sucks, but it is what it is.

Along the way, you will meet countless characters who make special requests, you can choose to help for gold and reputation or ignore if you so choose, but these can also have consequences. Get ready as you see some Easter Eggs like the Witcher or Vampires.

The main person you are likely to meet is the merchant who will help you increase faction happiness or give you a big wad of gold for helping that faction, there is no in-between.

Final Thoughts

I kind of liked the game, though it is challenging with the constant ups and downs that the game brings.

The graphics are not that bad either, even though they are pixelated, but that has a great charm to it. If you like being tested constantly, rest assured this game will bring it to you, regardless if you picked story mode or blacksmith mode.

Rating

I would rate this a solid 5

I did enjoy the game, quite a bit if I'm being honest, I will probably come back to it in a couple of days just to progress further into the story and upgrade my home to the absolute max.

(5 being the absolute best)

Links

Steam

If you'd like to see more information, you can visit the official webpage HERE