You could be forgiven for thinking that this was a Rewind Review. Haegemonia: Legion of Iron was originally a PC title, released way back in 2002 when Daniel Bedingfield was letting us all know that we gotta get through this and Barry Bonds was hitting his 600th home run. Back then, Haegemonia was praised for being and excellent 3-D space real-time strategy game. The game was especially good at presenting the player with a myriad of systems to study and master before they could hope to be successful in conquering the galaxy. The mobile release of Haegemonia does its best to bring that same game and place it into the palm of your hands and honestly succeeds in doing so, for better and for worse.
Haegemonia is an extremely faithful translation of the PC classic to a mobile platform. Little has been lost in the port and that is both its greatest strength and its greatest weakness. The screen is noticeably cluttered from all of the UI elements. Things that used to be able to be hidden behind a button press now need to exist on the screen somewhere and the game suffers for it.
The galaxy is a big place and someone has to conquer it, and that’s where you come in. After humans have left earth and colonized the solar system we do what we do best and fight it out to decide who gets to own it all. Haegemonia tasks you with controlling everything about your galactic conquest in real time. Combat is handled very simply, just select the units you would like use and then select what you want them to shoot at. You can choose whether your units attack the hull, engines, or weapons systems of an enemy base or unit but otherwise it’s the normal routine of gather your forces and hope for a victory through concentrating your firepower and outnumbering the enemy if you can. Once you’re in a battle though, there’s no chance for retreat, so you have to make sure that you have the numbers and firepower to take care of business. Luckily you can pause the action so you don’t go crazy in the middle of a battle.
The game uses a mission structure to keep you moving toward your goal of domination. Each mission has a handful of different objectives you need to complete in order for success. Some specific objectives need you to do research or have you spying on a rival faction. There are also “take back this system” sorts of missions which have you throwing together a fleet and putting the hurt on your enemies. Haegemonia keeps the pacing up by sticking in distress calls and time limits to some side objectives as well. Racing from system to system to keep your friends alive or bringing reinforcements to planets under siege keeps things unpredictable and fun.
Planets are your main resource because they are the only objects which can build ships and bases. Conquering planets and keeping their populations happy is always your main goal. Then depending on how you choose to spend the points you get every level, you can research technology that gives you industrial and population help or tech that gives you weapons and systems to outfit your ships with. You can send spies on missions to sabotage your enemies’ efforts and through your mining efforts you can ensure that you are bringing in enough money and resources to keep your war engine running. There is never a dull moment in Haegemonia, there’s always something that you should be doing.
Given the route some strategy games like Clash of Clans and Rise of Sparta have taken recently and the sheer amount of interconnected systems at play here, it would be easy to imagine this as a free to play title. One where every little bit has been diced up and locked behind a price point. Thankfully the developers decided to go a different route and release a full game that comes in at a slightly higher, but fair, price point.
Clunky menu system aside, the real problem with this port is its camera. Haegemonia uses a variety of taps, double taps, swipes and multi-touch gestures in order to let you have as much control over the camera and selecting units as possible. While this may be a good idea in theory, in practice it just never works the way you want it to. The gestures either don’t register or register as something unintended. This is especially troublesome when you fail a mission because you couldn’t figure out what direction you were being shot from. Tough games are not an issue, however, the difficulty should come from fighting the enemy and not from fighting the camera.
Taking a game with the scope, size, and complexity of Haegemonia and bringing it to mobile platforms is no easy feat. Doing it well deserves even more credit. Yes, the game does have its rough spots but for fans of real time strategy there are few experiences out there for you to enjoy that match up with what Haegmonia is offering.
Is it Hardcore?
Yes, definitely.
A faithful recreation of a classic hardcore RTS title that should remember that being hardcore does not mean having to be obtuse.
