Asterix and Friends review - How well can the Gauls build a city?

If there's one cartoon character whose continued appearances in media throughout the years is really quite confusing, it's Asterix.

A plucky Gaul who beats up Romans in France seems like something of a niche franchise to sell, but he's made more than a few appearances in cartoons, films, and games over the years.

He's not stopping either, with the latest title, a once PC-only city builder and strategy game by the name of Asterix and Friends having made its way to mobile.

You're given a small, demolished village, and it's up to you to build it back up again and recruit a band of Gauls to help fight off Roman patrols.

To do this you'll need to gather resources from around the area, chopping down trees for wood, harvesting wheat, breaking rocks, and so on.

Doing all that eats up your food supply, which acts as the energy bar for the game, although this is easily replenished through your own buildings and endless rewards from levelling up and daily logins.

You'll also need to battle with Romans, which is a simple case of tapping the patrol you want to tackle, assigning the heroes you want to send into the fray, and making sure your attack stat is better than their defence stat.

If you're so inclined, you can also take on other players and their Gauls in other villages online, setting up your own champions to defend your villages and take on others.

You can also set up and join clans to trade your resources with others, and take on enemy clans in competitions.

It's all very straightforward, and it feels very familiar if you've ever played a city builder before - albeit with a classic French cartoon look attached to it.

And that's both good and bad. Asterix and Friends is a very solid city builder, with plenty of depth and mechanics to keep you busy as you build your home back to its former glory.

There's plenty of resources around to keep you going, and food is often plentiful in the early days, so you only need to worry about running out of energy if you pour endless hours into the game.

But you're only going to do that if you're not already playing a game just like it - and there's more than enough already available.

It's not particularly envelope-pushing in its execution, and you'll probably find more to do in another game really.

Overall, Asterix and Friends is a cleanly-presented, solidly-executed title that provides plenty of depth to keep even the most experienced player busy.

But it's not going to win over anyone who's already deeply invested in another city builder, and it's unlikely to hold the attention of someone who isn't inclined toward the genre.

All that said, it could well be right up your alley. Give it a look if you need something to fill a very specific void.