Cataclismo Review: A Towering Triumph of Strategy and Survival

The night is dark, and the horrors - endless. Cataclismo has you reinforce a town and safeguard it from an ever-increasing tide of monsters. An idea we’ve seen before, but the execution differs. See, everything you place - is done so brick by brick. 

They are Billions meets a massive box of Lego. 

You’ll need to get a basic economy going to fuel your extravagant defences. The stakes are high, but you’ve plenty of tools at your disposal. Every day you grow, build, reinforce and train units. And when the night comes, you command your troops and pray you see morning. 

From archers to ballistae to cannoneers - you’ve got an array of soldiers at your disposal, and you’ll have to position them so that they’re safe, and effective. When the horde comes, you either see your hard work pay off, or watch it all come toppling down. 

A Campaign of Strategy and Sacrifice

The main course here is the campaign. You’re looking at around 15-20 hours - though that’ll change depending on how thorough you are. City building & defence are the main mission types - but there’s a few others to mix things up - which play around with the standard ruleset. For instance, there’s a tower defence mission type that’s entirely optional, but a load of fun.

The expeditions without any building are shorter, and there to progress the story or connect together two larger set pieces. There’s only a few of these, and they were welcomed in between some particularly dense missions. 

The campaign follows Iris - and her quest to stop the horrors reducing her home to rubble. She also has the ability to manipulate time. That’s quite important. 

While there aren’t many characters, Iris herself is an interesting one, and without spoiling too much - she is forced to make some pretty tough decisions in the pursuit of her goal. By the end of the story I was pretty immersed in her character and the world, and all in all thoroughly enjoyed the campaign. I thought the length was spot on - long enough to feel invested, but not so long that I was running through filler missions to pad it out.

There were some really fun levels, and some very difficult ones - and it all built to a very satisfying climax. The final level, which I’m only going to show you very ambiguously, was an excellent note to end on - one that had me flying by the seat of my pants. 

The campaign as a whole ticked a lot of boxes. There is a lot of emphasis placed on its story and cast, and while I did feel like there was room for more characters to get behind and get to know - Iris was a strong enough lead to carry it - and the narrator spun the story in an enjoyable way. However I was convinced said narrator was actually a bird, which turned out to definitely not be the case. Don’t ask me why I thought the bird somehow learned to talk. It made sense at the time.

More Ways to Play, More Ways to Survive

A game like this, its sticking power comes in alternate ways to play - and Cataclismo has two options here. Skirmish presents a series of maps with a simple objective. Survive. It follows the same rules as the campaign missions so this simply adds more - and this is where you’ll likely go if you find yourself wanting an extra dose after the story. 

Worth noting that there will constantly be an influx of new maps to play from community creations. This is a great move and I love the workshop integration with this game, but I’m going to go off on that tangent in a minute. Before that - I want to talk about its other game mode. Endless.

I had reservations about Endless mode from Early Access as I felt it lacked purpose. For the full release, they’ve gone back to the drawing board and brought back something that has the same essence, but is wholly more interesting. 

The premise remains - survive as long as you can with a swarm that ramps up night after night. However, it twists from the base formula. You’ve got side objectives which award points to unlock building parts. The usual progression doesn’t exist here, you’ll have to think a bit more reactively.

There’s an emphasis on exploration as you head out to clear monster nests and secure resources, and every night you survive - you get to pick a bonus. A sidestep from the rules which turns the game into a roguelite city defence RTS. That’s a pretty unique spin on its own, and this unassuming gamemode could well be the selling point.

When I played this mode in Early Access - I could see the potential, but it felt clumsy - and not very fun. This is the concept revitalised, and what I originally hoped it would be. I will definitely be sinking a lot of time into this game mode.

A Stronghold of Strengths

The big ticket item is the building and defence - and it’s impressive. A bit finicky initially, but after some hotkey adjustments and learning a few tricks, it becomes a lot easier. I was able to build something that I thought was cool, which is welcomed given my complete lack of creativity with these sorts of things usually. It was intuitive - and any time there was an issue - the problem could be traced easily as building stability is intuitive and obvious. 

It sports some really great quality of life, much of which I didn’t discover until sinking a dozen hours or so in. But the ability to quickly rebuild the breach in a wall, or the option to make a building transparent and cycle through vertical levels took out a lot of early growing pains.

I want to really highlight the Steam Workshop integration here, because it is really excellent. In a match, you can quickly check out the workshop to get a prefab of something, subscribe, and you are able to use it directly. Likewise if you build something you really like you can save it as a blueprint and bring it into your next match. Or, upload it to the Steam Workshop for others to enjoy. The community creations spill over to maps and scenarios, and I love the emphasis they’re putting on players sharing their work. I found myself using other people's designs whenever I felt a bit lazy, though it then spurred me on to mix up my own defences after I’ve seen a cool thing someone else has built. This whole aspect of the game - fantastic.

As a full package, it’s very strong, and a lot of that comes down to how it prioritises. It’s base building, economy, units - none of them are particularly complex. They’re boiled down and made simple. Easy to understand, difficult to master - that sort of thing.

As an RTS, it's comfortable to play. I didn’t feel like the game was demanding I micro, and that’s in part down to simpler units, but also because you can pause. You have all the time in the world, and that does take out one of the defining aspects of an RTS - though it's welcomed here. 

And it goes without saying, the art-style, the visuals, the whole feel of the game - really exceptional. It is so distinct & striking - and the developers really have gone the distance in that regard. Audiowise, all units have voice lines, the world feels and sounds threatening, and the music really heightens everything. It wasn’t the sort of music I was expecting going into a horde defence, but I really enjoyed it. Reminds me a bit of Darren Korb’s sound, which is always a win in my books.

Cracks in the Fortress 

I did have some annoyances with the game. An ongoing one was unit pathing, and units not attacking on order, seemingly getting confused by the enemy units path. I also would’ve liked more variety in enemies. There’s a few that tower over slightly - and one that is really imposing - it felt like there was something missing between those two. When it came to a horde attacking, there wasn’t really any enemy unit which gave me an ‘oh shit here we go’ moment when I saw it. And with that, some unique enemy behaviours would’ve really mixed things up. Maybe some that burrow, some that can climb, anything that does something different to the standard ‘find the weak spot and smash it with my face’ would’ve made the defence portion feel more reactive. 

Some of the units at your disposal blend together in terms of purpose, and the jump up to unit tiers is steep in terms of resources and requirements. A big part of the loop revolves around hoping your line of defences stays upright, but I found myself wishing for some sort of backup options to lean into different playstyles. Melee units, or interesting traps to play around.

And then there are some other issues - which if I’m being frank - could well be positives from a different perspective. The game plays a lot slower than a standard RTS, and drops that second-to-second tension as you can pause at any time. Units are simple, and I didn’t feel like I had a huge amount of control over them. You mostly park them where you need ‘em, and leave them be. I’d like to have more detailed stats about economy, population, and I did start to get fatigued going into new matches, running through the motions and building up defences over and over. 

What is a problem to some, may be a selling point to others. I don’t think this is something that’ll be a straight sell to a diehard RTS crowd, nor those that love freeform creative building. But in that Venn diagram, where those two crowds intersect - this is going to be an easy game to get into, and an easy one to love.

Final Thoughts: A Fortress Worth Building

Caticlismo sets out with a simple marrying of ideas. A sweaty, tactical RTS-horde defence meets the creativity and satisfaction of playing with Lego. Combining those ideas means they’ve made a game that will not tick all boxes for all people. But just in regards to what they’ve set out to do, and how they’ve pulled it off - they have nailed it. 

And that’s a really important factor. They’ve presented an idea that is impressive on paper, and they’ve made it work. They've pulled it all together and created something unconventional, but thoroughly satisfying. 

Yes, it's stripped back in some regards and a lot of the RTS elements are fairly simple. But it fits the game. It feels complete and its systems are complementary of each other. This won’t be able to keep with the raw RTS mechanics of other games, but it pulls away from the pack with its unique approaches and defining features.

Cataclismo is a great idea, executed with attention and care. It sells you on its premise, and delivers what it promises - and that’s the most important thing a game can do.