Warrior of Rome
System: Genesis
Release Date: May 1991
Developer: Micronet
Publisher: Micronet
Genre: Strategy
Conquer everyone in your path as the one and only Warrior of Rome! You step into the shoes of Julius Caesar as you awake on the island of Crete. On the horizon? Pirate war ships! Get your men up and ready to fight, because you need to push back the invaders so you can relive history in an attempt to reach Egypt and into the awaiting arms of Cleopatra.
You’re thrust onto a map with staggered columns of squares. There are blue units and red units. The blue units are yours, while the red units are the enemy. You begin with 5 troops to go up against 10 enemies. In order to win the battle, you must sink all the enemy ships. In order to do this, you need to get your units to them. Not all units are created the same. Units 1 through 4 are your powerful fighters. Units 5-7 are weaker fighters, but can hold their own. Units 8-10 are your engineers. They are terrible fighters, but they destroy the ships and set traps quickly.
In the first level, there is a losing condition and it is the loss of all of your temples. You need to keep at least one in tact in order to win. There isn’t much you can really do with your units, other than order them to different squares and set their retreat threshold. As long as you’re winning fights, you can be happy. But occasionally you need to back off and rest. What you’ll notice is that winning battles doesn’t remove enemy units from the map. They continuously reappear and get in your way. I found this to be incredibly annoying.
After about 45 minutes, I finally chipped away at all the ships and beat the first level. I didn’t feel triumphant or anything, but was then thrust into the second level. Now I was in control of 10 ship units. This seemed to be an escort mission where I needed to get a yellow sailed ship to the other side of the map. However, I wasn’t able to control this ship. It moved in an incredibly stupid manner and I got so frustrated and angry at the respawning ships that I called it quits. I don’t think I missed much.
Graphics: 1.0
The map graphics are 8-bit. The battle scenes are poorly animated. The cutscenes are kind of nice.
Sound: 1.0
The music isn’t great and it repeats a lot, which is annoying because the levels are very long.
Gameplay: 1.0
What you can do is extremely shallow. Move units, if you’re lucky… and wait… a lot.
Difficulty: 1.5
Do you have the patience for never ending enemies? If so, you can probably get through.
Fun Factor: 0.5
I started to enjoy myself, but then it was quickly stripped from me when it was impossible to defeat enemy units.
Overall Rating: 1.0
Warrior of Rome earns a D. This is a huge disappointment for real time strategy lovers. Skip this one for your own sake.