Acorn Tactics

ACORN Tactics has its heart in the right place, but it plays it very safe. It's a very solid strategy RPG, taking elements of games such as Fire Emblem and Advance Wars and wrapping it in its own aesthetic. However, for as liberally as it borrows from its inspirations, it never goes above and beyond and does anything that might be construed as unique. Without many peers at the outset of the Switch's life, ACORN Tactics might be the kind of game to sate your SRPG cravings until something meatier comes along.

Overall, ACORN Tactics is a fun turn-based strategy release on Nintendo Switch with some pros and cons that you're either going to love or hate. There's more than enough content to justify its asking price, but the way how the game starts a bit on the slow side during the first handful of stages and the high difficulty of later stages might rub some people the wrong way. But if you stick with it you'll find a solid indie release that is worth a shot.

ACORN Tactics may start with the promise of becoming something enjoyable within the strategy genre in the Nintendo Switch catalog but unfortunately it doesn't live up to what it could be. Too slow during combat, very shallow in its mechanics and lacking feedback in crucial points, ACORN Tactics falls short of players' expectations and fails to deliver what is today taken for granted by most.

The amount of polish that went in and the lack of bugs that can often plague titles developed by small teams truly demands applause. The issue though is that a single person development team isn't capable of matching the same quality of similar titles like Mario + Rabbids that are developed by a large team. Had ACORN come out prior to Ubisoft's release, I think it would have been a nice preview to the tactical RPG genre on Switch, but trying to play it now just reminds me of how good Kingdom Battle was and that you would be better suited to investing your money into a big budget game that will provide better gameplay and much more replayability.

The Switch is perfectly suited to strategy games, but ACORN Tactics isn't one that should automatically go in your collection. It's a shame, because despite being quite charming, it isn't any fun.

ACORN Tactics is a very good strategy game with easy to understand gameplay mechanics that will keep you coming back for more until the end.

If you’re a strategy die hard I’d probably say the game isn’t well-suited to you since even if you eventually get to something challenging it will take some time since the pacing of the battles is pretty slow and meticulous. Graphically it isn’t going to win any awards but it is also very clean and shows glimmers of personality nonetheless. Perhaps even moreso than Mario + Rabbids I’d say this is a very accessible tactical strategy game for all ages and for newcomers it is likely a great fit since at least half of the missions take their time to layer on strategic elements piece by piece. While it isn’t blowing the doors off it is at least a reasonably good game for people interested in checking out strategy games on a budget.