Tanks of Freedom is a turn-based action RPG similar to Advance Wars, which is a sub-genre that’s been blowing up lately with Tiny Metal late last year, and Wargroove and Into the Breach coming later this year. Developer P1X hopes Tanks of Freedom joins that list as a hopeful replacement for the beloved series, but it’s just not good enough. I don’t even know where to begin with this.
Where Are My Freedom Tanks?
Most of you probably know what Advance Wars is, and this is pretty much exactly the same. Even if you don’t, I’m sure you’ve heard of Tiny Metal or even those other two. It really is identical to its forbearer. Instead, we’ll start with the worst this game has to offer: the camera. It can’t be controlled manually, at all.
The only way to move the camera is by moving your units across the map, as the camera auto lock-on’s to whichever unit you have selected. The only way to really get any good idea of what’s going on is by sending a hundred units out all across the map and then cycling through them, otherwise you can’t see anything. This is made worse by the fact that the camera is super zoomed in, and I couldn’t find a way to zoom out.
That’s mostly because the options menu only gives you the control scheme for gamepad, with no mention of keyboard and mouse in sight. Oh, you can play with mouse and keyboard, but you’re going to have to figure the controls out for yourself. You’d think the tutorial messages that pop up at the start of every single level, no matter how far you make it into the game, would tell you, but alas, they just regurgitate the same basic info ad nauseam.
To find out more about this extremely frustrating game, check out the video above. Or, why not subscribe to Cliqist’s YouTube channel for more videos just like this one?
