Cannon Brawl (Nintendo Switch) Review

Booting this up brings the first taste of the bombastic militaristic soundtrack, and a simple menu interface that the first option should be every player's first port of call: Adventure Mode. Told through basic portrait art character interactions, and solid gradual tutorial introductions, players are given their primary task of Cannon Brawl, which is to defend their Castle against attacks from enemy armies, and subsequently take down the opponent's stronghold in turn. Those familiar with the Worms franchise will find a similar setup here; a 2D destructible landmass, with artillery management and warfare. Cannon Brawl has its own spin on the idea, however, with real-time strategy plus Tower Defence added in.

Each side starts with just a castle, and a limited amount of funds with the goal being to reach the other side and take out the opponent. Using Territory Balloons can extend the radius of where players can build to; this being the primary means of reaching gold deposits that boost the funds replenishment rate. Making careful use of funding, mining settlement positioning, plus building and upgrading weapons to aim and attack the enemy ships and castle, is the key to victory, and this concept ticks all the right boxes; it's fun, engaging, and rewards skill with quick victories and higher rewards at the end of battle. A somewhat notable omission is the lack of Touchscreen support in handheld mode, but the cursor control via analogue stick works just fine.

Adventure mode is the main meat of Cannon Brawl, not only for its tutorial, but also for the lively narrative yarn featuring a princess seeking to rescue her father the King via warfare. Every zone, displayed on a Mario-like overworld level map has three medal awards given on good performance, plus new characters to unlock and use along the way that have their own special abilities when heading the army, as well new weapons and tools given periodically to play around with. A fairly lengthy Campaign mode, complete with an unlockable hard mode, backed by robust multiplayer offerings such as Local, Online and even Wireless between two units, plus daily achievement-like Quests to finish, and even an Armory option that uses earned credits to unlock new weapons and characters, ensures a lengthy amount of play for all militant-lovers and strategy aficionados.