After cult FPS, like Gears of War, Unreal, or the unknown (but so exceptional) Bulletstorm, Epic Games returns with a construction / Tower defense game with omnipresent humor, but much more complex and deep than its cartoon graphics. might suggest.
The principle of the game at first glance is ultimately quite simple: I build defenses around my objective, then I defend it against waves of zombies. Tower defense in short. But it does not stop there. Resource harvesting, talent trees, crafting, this is just a glimpse of everything that makes up Fortnite. And in addition, all this playable up to four!
Preparation
To be completely frank, you can quickly get lost with anything you can find on the menu. The best advice I can give is to get carried away with the tutorial, which will guide you step by step, taking you on quests and explaining all the tricks to you.
To give you a bit of background, one day a big storm arose, spawning hordes of zombies, the Hulks. Fleeing this threat, we find ourselves in a sort of bunker, managed by robots and which will give us the command to defend ourselves against these Carcasses, or even perhaps eradicate the storm.
The first step will be to build (then defend) a shield that miraculously can prevent the Hulks from passing through. Over time, this shield can be improved, developing its power and unlocking new areas, and therefore new missions.
The game is quite interventionist in its progression, it is necessary to perform the missions in order to be able to advance (and unlock new features). But nevertheless, we can replay previous missions to recover very useful objects.
Each menu item is quite substantial, for the moment I will just present them to you quickly, so as not to confuse you too much, but we will come back to them in more precise guides:
- Loyalty card
- Hero
- Squad
- Arsenal
- Talents
- Booty
- Shop
- quests
This is the place where you can view current missions and those you can launch. The difficulty is represented by a color code, green for easy, orange for more difficult.
Note that four zones are available, each available according to the base power (the player's level), which can go up to 100.
Also note that it is quite possible to redo missions already played to gain XP and items.
Four classes can be chosen (they are unlocked as you progress):
- Soldier
- MANUFACTURER
- Ninja
- Adventurer
Each have their strengths, rather obvious. The Soldier will be more comfortable with weapons, the Builder with ... construction, well done! The Ninja is more of the nimble melee fighter type while the Adventurer is a master in the art of gathering resources.
Be careful, though. Unlocking a class does not mean that it will be playable right away. You must first obtain a hero of this class. Small example, by unlocking the Ninja class in the talent tree (see the Talents tab), a quest is unlocked, asking me to kill 20 Carcasses with a melee weapon and complete a mission in a level 3 area. Once this is done, that's when I pick up Sara, a Ninja Heroine, which I can then use. It is possible to recover it in different ways, in lamas-piñatas for example.
It is possible to assign survivors (which can be found especially during missions or in loot boxes) to locations of the fort to unlock bonuses. Such as a ranged damage bonus, traps that last longer, more effective gadgets, etc.
This page acts as an inventory, where you can find the diagrams of weapons and traps possessed, as well as the heroes, defenders and survivors.
The game gives pride of place to the variety in the weapons: swords, pistols, submachine gun, assault rifles, pump, sniper, and even heavy weapons like rocket launchers. There really is something for everyone and each category has several models.
Note that, as with the heroes, it is possible to improve weapons. They become more powerful and unlock passive bonuses.
The Transformation allows you to merge objects to get better ones.
If certain objects are no longer useful, it is possible to recycle them, to recover resources. It is also possible to add them to the Collection. More objects are added (but suddenly they become unavailable), the more a gauge increases. Once completed, the Collection level increases and a reward is unlocked. Other rewards can also be collected by completing Collections.
Fortnite also has a fairly marked RPG component, with the presence of many possibilities for evolution. There are two types: Talent Trees and Research.
At each level passage, or as a reward for certain quests, you earn Talent points, to be spent in the corresponding trees. There are 4, which unlock gradually, once the last level of the previous one is reached. The main line of each tree is quite clear and easy to identify, but there are many branching offs to reap some interesting bonuses. It's still early days to tell, but in my opinion it would be wise to take a look at all the branches and see what would be more beneficial to improve, depending on how you play. Personally, I mainly play the Soldier, so I'm going to go for the top branch which allows me to improve it.
The Research section works on the same principle, with several possible branches. However, Research Points are generated by the Shield, hour by hour (even when you are logged out). We must therefore remember to collect research points regularly, before reaching the limit and spending them. Research is categorized according to four factors:
- Technique - Increases damage from Traps, Skills, Gadgets, and Healing by 1% per point.
- Recklessness - increases health and regeneration rate by 1% per point.
- Attack - increases melee and ranged weapon damage by 1% per point.
- Resistance - increases shield and its regeneration rate by 1% per point.
As a quest reward, or by purchasing them, it is possible to obtain lamas-piñata.
By giving them a good blow with a stick in the face, we can recover interesting gifts: XP (allowing to evolve weapons and heroes) and other objects.
Far from being a Pay-to-Win, Fortnite nevertheless offers a special currency, the V-bucks, to buy llamas. But clearly, it can help move forward a bit, but it won't guarantee you get the best items in the game.
The main quest is clearly the big piece of the game, and as I explained before, it allows you to grasp all the intricacies of Fortnite. But beyond that, some quests are unlocked from time to time and offer other challenges:
- Tutorial quest, focusing on a feature of the game.
- Hero quest, to be completed with a specific character.
- Daily quest, up to three simultaneously.
- Various quests, asking to perform certain actions or complete a certain type of mission.
Resources and exploration
And there, we attack serious things! After selecting the mission on the map, here we are in the "war zone"! The environments are different according to the missions: city, plain, etc. This is felt on the items to be recovered. Urban environments are full of houses, and therefore metal and electronic parts. In more "natural" environments, we can dig and break the plants to recover materials that are also very useful.
Small note on a very well thought out feature: to recover resources, we have a pickaxe allowing you to hit anything in the world. When hitting an object, its resistance decreases depending on the power of your pickaxe (at the beginning, 25 points of damage per hit). But a small circle appears on the object to be destroyed. By aiming it, the damage points are doubled. This makes it possible to recover the resources much faster and to make the farm a little less monotonous. Note that you can then improve the pickaxe via the talent trees.
Every mission has a specific goal, but overall it's about finding a specific point and then defending it. But to this are added secondary objectives, which will require exploring the surroundings a little. For example, there are survivors who are welcome to save, since it gives nice rewards. We can also find radar towers, which will have to be built beforehand according to a very precise diagram or blueites to be collected, allowing to activate various devices (providing bonuses of attack, health, etc.).
The farming aspect is omnipresent, with three main resources that can be used for construction: wood, brick and metal. It is thus possible to break almost everything in the area: house walls, furniture, cars, plants and trees, ore vein and so on. Besides these three main resources, materials can be found or crafted, for themselves to be used to craft weapons and traps: scoth, sticky resin, boards, nuts and bolts, etc.
Construction and defense
After farming the resources, now is the time to use them! Each mission ends with a defense phase, where you have to protect a specific point and prevent the Carcasses from approaching it.
And we will have to use our neurons to build solid but also effective defenses.
Several types of construction can be used:
- Murs
- soils
- Stairs
- Pyramides"
Each of these types is available in three materials (least strong to strongest): wood, brick, metal. The quality can be selected with a simple right click.
At first glance, the possibilities are quite limited. But ... you don't have to rely on first impressions. By pressing the G key while targeting an element, we access a very simple and pretty damn editing interface. For example, by modifying a wall, 9 squares are displayed. I can deselect some to form another one of the structure type.
Here, by removing the top 6 squares, I can form a half-wall, allowing me for example to shoot the Carcasses easily. Of course, the downside is that the structure is less solid than a solid wall.
The possibilities are really numerous!
And of course, let's not forget the pitfalls! They will be very very useful to slow down or even eliminate the hordes of Carcasses which threaten the target to be protected. There are tons of different kinds, but here's a quick rundown:
Conclusion
To be frank, I hadn't especially heard of this game before. And I'm delighted to have been able to find out, because it will quickly become one of my favorite games of 2017! Taking, deep, complex but remaining accessible, it clearly has the cards in hand to become a benchmark in tower defense. Even the hermetic to this type of game like me can largely find their account there, the teams of Epic Games having had the intelligence to add to it mechanics of RPG and craft industry bringing a little freshness and diversity to it. 'together.
Of course, the game takes on its full dimension with many, especially in the advanced levels where the hordes of Carcasses come from all over. The cartoonish aspect and the ubiquitous humor are also welcome factors of fun and amusement.
The friend Oromis who accompanied me
As for the lifespan, we will have to hang on because between the areas (four in total) to explore, the levels (up to 100) to pass and all the talents / research to be carried out, this represents a good number of hours to build and slaughter the Carcass!
Clearly, Fortnite is likely to quickly establish itself as a new benchmark of the genre, completely dusting off tower defense. If we wanted to be picky, we could say that a PvP mode would be the icing on the hammer, but that would really be to find a negative point!
