October 14 was the release of domestic tactical strategy Partisans 1941 by the Friv2Online Games Studio. The project is dedicated to the partisan movement, which was active at the very beginning of the Great Patriotic War, actively hindering the invaders. As far as the authors managed to convey the spirit of the era and the complexity of partisan sorties, we tell you in our review.
Autumn 1941, muddy roads washed out by rain, shrivelled wooden huts, and Nazi invaders acting as if they had already won. Such a picture strongly resonates with what we are used to seeing in games about World War II.
No Stalingrad, the Battle of Moscow, the Kursk Bulge, or the liberation of Poland. Just a remote hinterland left behind by the Red Army, where fear, despair and hopelessness have now settled in.
Such a unique setting is emphasized by minimalistic, but stylish picture, which in some places looks like a serious cartoon. The friv game is clearly not a high-budget project, so for its modest conditions the authors have coped with the graphics to perfection.
Especially successful were the drawn images, which symbolize various events that occur with the player's squad. Looking at them, you really get into the atmosphere of this terrible time.
And even with all the minimalistic graphics, the authors managed to pay attention to a lot of historical details. Military equipment, buildings, uniforms and weapons - all this is carefully drawn and corresponds to the real prototypes as much as possible.
The combat part also looks as down-to-earth and realistic as possible. Explosions don't bang on half a map, soldiers don't depict pictorial deaths, and grenades don't try to pass for a bunch of dynamite. The feeling of seriousness of what is happening does not leave for a second.
Optimization is at a decent level. The friv game runs on Unreal Engine, but we can't say that it needs powerful hardware. Still, there are not so many detailed objects on the maps.
The situation with the sound is twofold. On the one hand, the music and voice acting are of high quality. Guitar motives perfectly convey the required atmosphere, penetrating to the depths of the soul.
As for the voice acting - the actors are not overplayed, they quite get into their roles and are not annoying. On the other hand, the main problem with the sounds of "Partisans" is their small number.
There are only 3-4 tracks of music, and they get boring rather quickly, although they are of high quality. Many characters at the stage of combat operations remain mute, communicating with the help of text clouds, which looks quite strange for 2020.
In general, the audiovisual part is done perfectly, although it would be nice to have a greater variety of sounds. However, the picture is pleasant enough to look at, and the most important thing is that it retains historical accuracy.
At first sight Partisans 1941 looks like a distant ancestor of Commandos series. And we must admit that the first impression is not deceptive at all. The concept of these games is really almost identical, except that Partisans has a peaceful stage between combat operations, which is very reminiscent of the XCOM series mechanics.
At such times, the player gets the main base under control, which allows you to get various bonuses. And many of the buildings will need to be built in the course of the storyline, because at the beginning of the settlement is a pretty pathetic sight.
And each building is responsible for its specific function, easily readable in its name - kitchen, medical tent, weapons workshop or fishing pier. The resources of your squad are constantly limited, so you must choose wisely.
In addition, fighters can be assigned to missions that take place "in the background", outside of the story quests. Such missions can bring resources, bonuses and equipment items to your piggy bank. And you also need to keep a balance of planning logistics, choosing between the extraction of food or getting equipment.
The main operations are a classic stealth strategy, aimed at managing the unique members of the squad. This means that there are no hackneyed conventions like enemies not noticing the player's fighters a meter away, or guards calming down after finding a dead partner.
The operatives are unique and appear in the squad as the story progresses. Each wields a certain type of weapon and special abilities that are used situationally. Some throw knives, others are able to sneak among enemies to scout the area, and others are more suited for open confrontation.
Present in Partisans 1941 and pumping system, which allows you to personalize the player's wards can be even more accurate. Make a soldier a master of hand-to-hand combat, a grenadier or a specialist in explosives? It is quite realizable, but you should not throw away points, because the characters grow slowly enough in levels.
It's worth taking into account that it's hardly possible to clean the map with a machine gun if you want to. In open combat, the player's squad has chances mainly only against opponents of the initial level. It is still possible to cope with a corrupt militia, but regular troops are already able to lead the task to its early failure without any problems.
The limited resources and ammunition, which is mainly replenished from the corpses of enemies and from the boxes scattered across the map, works for this. In the friv game the system of property belonging division between the local population and fascist invaders is realized. And if you loot civilians, it will have dire consequences due to a bad reputation.
During battles, the main questions arise only to the user interface. For example, there is a very inconvenient choice of interaction with corpses, because of which you can often, for example, pick up a body, when in fact you wanted to pick up a throwing knife. Tactical time slowdown is very lacking in the action queue, and in its current form, planning a multi-step elimination of several enemies will be a real headache.
Partisans 1941 is quite interesting to play, but it should be taken into account that the gameplay will completely depend on the difficulty level chosen by the player. On easy and hard difficulty all hardcore will fall under the possibility of saving and loading at any time, and gameplay will challenge seriously only on the maximum difficulty, punishing for the slightest mistakes.
Of course, the friv game features dozens of other minor mechanics like injuries, dogs that need to be tricked, or moonshine bottles that can take down entire patrols. But if you like thoughtful and unhurried games based on concentration, then the best solution will be to explore all the charms of this strategy in person. The price doesn't hinder it much.
Partisans 1941 is a unique project. Although it is created by domestic developers, but it does not overreact with excessive patriotism or strong politicization of events.
This is a friv game about people, who were forced by fate to fight with weapons in their hands for their families, homes and the opportunity to live the way they think is right. And the setting alone, which tells the story of the eternal exploits of the guerrilla movement, is worth the price of admission to your collection. Just don't expect too much from the game: the guerrillas are not a regular army after all and made do with what was available.