Fire must be fought with fire and in the same way crime is often the worst enemy of crime. This is the context in which Antihero is born. The strategic of Tim Conkling it will not give us control of immaculate heroes, but as the title suggests we will impersonate those who take sides on the "wrong side" of society, far from the law and greedy for power ... power that we will have to wrest from those who have chosen our same "style of life". Let's get to the point, in Antihero our aim will be obtain hegemony of the underworld town with all the means in our possession. The city itself and the characters are characterized with a Victorian style that never goes out of fashion (yes Bloodborne, I'm talking to you) but depicted with a cartoonish and caricatured appeal that winks at other indie productions like Don't Starve. There is no real reason to insist on the narrative side of the game, the latter is deliberately only sketchy and functional only for the introduction into the game context.
So we come to the spearhead of Antihero, which as for any strategy can only be the gameplay. A game in Antihero consists of a challenge to conquer the map against other gangs of criminals. The game offers 7 types of units (Master Thief, Urchin, Thug, Gang, Saboteur, Truant Officer and Assassin) that each have a well-defined role and obviously pros and cons. None of these units is indissolubly better than the others and their use must be well considered, also in relation to their cost of engagement.
This brings us to a second aspect of the game: no crime empire runs on with good intentions. So our gang will have too need for resources to engage, bribe and otherwise increase our influence.
The acquisition of resources takes place through the possession of buildings of strategic importance (Bank, Church, Villa, Orphanage, Pub and Auctions) which in addition to providing the raw resource, will influence the gang with bonuses. In fact, the key to victory in Antihero is precisely being able to maintain control of strategic buildings by undermining that of rivals. The game offers various options to try to crush your enemies and these will be evaluated from time to time based on the factors of the moment. Unfortunately, there is also a negative note here, given the importance of the buildings and the random generation of the same, it is possible that one of the sides gains an exaggerated advantage from the beginning given by a decidedly biased RNG to the generation of the map.
Returning to the material executors of our misdeeds, the units of Antihero do not exploit the system "unit X can move Y squares per turn" and instead each unit can reach any portion of the map in a single turn, as long as the latter is not covered by fog. The Master Thief has the ability to clear the fog, making that area reachable by the rest of the units. It should be noted that the movements of the enemy Master Thief are always visible on the map and therefore each team always knows whether or not a certain area has been cleared of fog for the enemy team. Keeping an eye on the moves of the enemy Master Thief is a top priority when in the middle of a match.
What at first glance looks like a limiting system, is actually extremely solid once you have the time to try it in practice and the single player campaign offers us just that dozen customized games to get this familiarity before throwing heavily. in multiplayer, which is the heart of Antihero. The games with other players are proposed in various ways, to meet all needs: it ranges from traditional multiplayer, to local (where the two players simply swap mouse and keyboard from turn to turn) and one more mode in deferred. Leaving aside the Gameplay, the visual rendering of Antihero is excellent: the chosen style lends itself well to the game mode, and the interfaces proposed on the screen make it easy to monitor the progress of the game. The soundtrack is always up to par, and given the non-centrality of the plot it is probably the anchor that better than others strengthens the contact with the Victorian setting chosen for the title.
