Orc Incremental Review — Orcremental

Orc Incremental is exactly what it sounds like: a game where you build an incrementally increasing army of orcs to wreak havoc upon the land and claim untold plundered riches. An auto-battler with roguelite elements, some might describe the game as a reverse tower-defense title. You send your initially weak warband out, clearing levels of increasingly difficult enemy waves as you collect gold coins to upgrade your offense further. Starting with a single orc and a dream, you will inevitably grow into a force to be reckoned with, knocking down the fortified castles of man with catapults, goblin shamans, and a perpetual force of fireballs.

Orc Incremental follows the simple yet captivating loop of beating a level, collecting gold, increasing your strength, and defeating the next level pretty closely, with a rebirth option giving you the chance to start your run over in exchange for powerful upgrades. I don’t think it would be an unfair comparison to say that Orc Incremental feels like a high-budget version of a game you’d find on Newgrounds or Armor Games back in the day, which I assure you is some of the highest praise this nostalgic gamer can give you.

The best way to play the game, in my opinion, is by unlocking the “Warpath” mechanic through rebirths. With this active, the game changes from a level-to-level progression and instead sends endless waves at your orc horde until they finally die. Each wave sent toward you is actually a progression to the next level, and when your horde finally dies, you’re rewarded with a lump sum of gold. This is not only extremely rewarding, but I found it a super satisfying orc fantasy: charging forward with my horde and seeing just how far we could go before finally being taken down.

As far as upgrades and unlocks go, the game has a small cast of minions you can field, each with their own unique stats and usage in battle. Rarer variants can also be discovered, and the same units don’t always have the same stats when you pull them. Basic upgrades persist throughout and allow you to boost things such as unit health or damage, tied to each specific unit class.

I will admit that I quickly grew bored of the roster of orcs and goblins I could unlock in the game. However, their uniqueness really shines through totems, which serve as battlefield boons that can drastically change your gameplay style. From rage-inducing power-ups to mutations that cause your orcs to explode on death, and even a resurrection totem that brings your army back as ghosts, totems are really where the army-building strategy shines, and I was pleasantly surprised by the variety they brought to builds.

Unfortunately, the game woefully lacks variety in an area a game like this desperately needs: the actual levels and progression. Sure, over time you begin to unlock new enemies in the waves that spawn to oppose you, but you quickly notice a woeful recurrence in the game’s levels: every 10 levels you will face the same wizard, and every 20 the same demon, with mild variations to their attack patterns and stats each time. Beyond those variations, these two are completely the same throughout and are the only bosses. Their presence is a painful predictability, and facing them beyond the second time is a dreadful bore. There are occasional new bosses, but they’re few and far between.

Once the initial charm of discovery wears off, you start to realize that Orc Incremental doesn’t have a lot there to discover in the first place. There aren’t that many units to add to your army, and the vast majority of upgrades are simple statistical changes which, while you might expect them to be in a game like this, are really boring to invest in. The most meaningful and exciting part of the rebirth system is the Warpath unlock, which does add a significant enhancement to the core gameplay, but the rest of this tree really just boils down to, again, statistical upgrades.

It is a difficult balancing act, I realize, to make a game that is exciting and new for the early levels, where the player hasn’t invested a lot of time into the game and is still paying attention to each and every new level they enter, and one where a player can consistently plow through hundreds of levels at a time with their incredible build without having to pay too much attention. Still, I feel like Orc Incremental could have done a bit more: A shift away from so many flat statistical options in the rebirth tree, and maybe ever-so-slight variations in the repeated bosses would make the game feel a lot fresher in the time you spend glued to the screen.

Regardless, Orc Incremental is far from a bad game. While its repetitive elements can really show, especially in the early, slower parts of the game, and not all of the upgrades are what I would call particularly exciting—especially when it comes to the rebirth mechanic—a lot of attention is given to another, vitally important element of the game: builds and the variety available to them. While certain elements of the game are bound to feel slow and repetitive, you’re absolutely able to overcome that and pick up momentum as your builds begin to take shape and you plow ahead. However, at times you may find yourself wishing that momentum were a bit faster.

Try Hard Guides was provided with a Steam code for this PC review of Orc Incremental. Find more detailed looks at popular and upcoming titles on our Game Reviews page! Orc Incremental is available on Steam.