Cataclismo, A Modest Review

Humanity is on the brink of exhaustion. Monsters have taken our place at the top of the food chain, and precious oxygen is becoming increasingly scarce. When the sun sets, horrors rise from the mist. Soldiers stand on the walls, and if those walls fall – so will humanity. That feeling of dread and anticipation before your strength is tested is the core of Cataclismo.

Cataclismo is a mechanical blend of everything and anything. Commanding units and managing resources will be familiar to anyone who has played an RTS game. However, the mechanics of detailed city-building and intervals of enemy attacks add an element of depth to the entire experience. These are complementary elements, and the result is a highly entertaining and tense game.

Check out our latest blog if you want to know when should your kid start playing video games? 

The Story of Cataclismo

In the campaign, we follow the remnants of humanity who have taken refuge in the last city – Hogar. The eponymous Cataclismo has caused the appearance of the mist and turned people into monsters. It is clear that the monsters are winning the war of attrition, and humanity has organized one last expedition to try to undo the Cataclismo. Leading the expedition is Lady Iris, the protagonist and humanity's last hope. Iris, using magic, must travel to the source of the scourge and find out how to stop the monsters.

The main campaign is divided into linear missions where the goal is to get from point A to B, with limited building elements, and missions where you develop the city and must survive several nights. There are also several side tower defense missions that are more of a fun challenge than a core part of the campaign, but they are worth playing. In the main missions, during the day you gather resources, train your army, and build walls, and at night there is only one goal – survival. The monsters grow stronger every night and attack from multiple directions, so your defense plan must be impenetrable. Linear missions still require effective building skills – sometimes the biggest challenge of a mission is building a bridge with limited resources.

What Makes Cataclismo Different?

In most other strategies, you just click to build a wall and that's it. In Cataclismo, you have to design the wall block by block, and the higher and more complex the wall, the stronger it is. However, some units perform best at heights below five meters, and some above ten. So you have to embed windows at certain heights to maximize the potential of your troops. If it rains, you must keep your soldiers dry to maintain their accuracy, and missions in caves require lamps to see the monsters in the dark. You can upgrade ordinary houses, and since your building space is limited, you can get creative by stacking houses on top of each other, but the entrance to the building must always be accessible.

The amount of time required for building contributes to a sense of fatigue towards the end of the campaign. Especially since you have to repeat it over and over from mission to mission. The last few missions felt somewhat repetitive to me, and the final mission took me five hours. By the end of the campaign, I was as tired as the soldiers who had been standing on my walls for days, although the pacing of the game was mostly good.

The Flow of Time

Although Cataclismo is a real-time strategy, at any moment you can pause the flow of time and decide what to build. Without this feature, the game would likely be very frustrating because you wouldn't have time to think through your decisions. With the pause, you won't be forced to make a choice due to lack of time. You can always stop and think. If you want to build a large wall with all the features to make your troops as effective as possible, there's no pressure.

Building works on a coordinate grid system, allowing you to be very precise and construct magnificent structures. If you want to share your artistic creation with other players, simply mark what you want to save, and you can upload your building to the Steam Workshop immediately. The same applies if you need a specific structure but don't know how to build it effectively – just check the Workshop and download whatever you like.

The Gameplay of Cataclismo

The key thing Cataclismo has done brilliantly is the synergy between the story and gameplay. Since humanity is on the brink, the maximum number of soldiers is quite small. Sending troops to serve as cannon fodder is not an effective strategy because every person matters, and every death is a big hole in the defence.

The best parts of Cataclismo are those final nights in the main missions, when the monsters attack from every direction, and the walls are on the verge of collapse. It's a great satisfaction to see the defense succeed, but it's somehow even more satisfying when the walls fall, the monsters break through, and you quickly adapt to the ensuing chaos and succeed despite the losses. Fortunately, these moments are relatively frequent.

When you finish the campaign, you can test your tactics and building skills in a handful of custom maps or in a roguelike mode where you get a randomly generated map and the goal is to survive as long as possible. If that's not enough, you can design your own maps or download maps from other users. Although there is no multiplayer offering, Cataclismo is still full of content.

The Look and Feel

The story pleasantly surprised me. The mechanics of saving and loading the game, something that is common in most games, is used here as a narrative element. Lady Iris has the ability to transfer her consciousness to a previous version of herself and correct the mistakes she has made. At the beginning, Iris is inexperienced and lively, and by the end, she is a completely different person because she has experienced hundreds of failures.

Tonally, the game is very consistent – the dialogues are well-written, with a hint of despair in every line, although the voice acting of the secondary characters is sometimes unconvincing. The story will pull you into the world, and there is nothing in the game that will break your immersion.

The visuals are beautiful, despite the simple graphics. The art style is minimalist, with simple shapes and textures, but the animations are still quite detailed, especially in the environment when the grass and trees sway in the wind. Between missions, Cataclismo uses images with narration to tell the story. 

The immersive audio design in Cataclismo shines with our C6-100 headphones, delivering crisp environmental details, haunting monster sounds, and a stirring soundtrack that heightens the tension and atmosphere of every mission.

This kind of presentation might seem uninteresting, but the images are truly beautiful, and the drawings enchanted me, while the music matches the mood. Technically, the game is not demanding at all, the frame rate is stable even when there are several hundred enemies on the screen, and during the entire game, I did not experience a single stutter, bug, or crash.

In Conclusion

Cataclismo is truly one of those games I would describe as a hidden gem. The three main pillars on which the gameplay loop rests – building, combat, and resource management – complement each other and create a fantastic experience. The story is interesting, with a strong protagonist and a great atmosphere, and when you finish it, the other modes are elaborate enough to keep you entertained for a while.

If that's not enough, you can start creating your own content for the game or try out what other users have made. The art style is gorgeous, and technically, the game is not demanding at all. Cataclismo will appeal to all RTS fans, and even if you're not a big fan of the genre, I would still recommend it for the great story and creative building possibilities.

Cataclismo brilliantly combines elements of RTS games and detailed building, creating a new whole that will test your planning skills and tactical prowess. With a strong main campaign, side modes, and the ability to create content, Cataclismo is well worth playing.

Rating: 8.5/10

Cataclismo is a highly engaging and well-crafted RTS with a strong narrative, deep building mechanics, and excellent synergy between story and gameplay, though it can feel repetitive towards the end of the campaign.