Swords & Soldiers II

Arriving this week, Swords & Soldiers II will be another Wii U eShop exclusive, following up on the popular WiiWare original which - eventually - also found its way to multiple platforms. This time around more is made of the Wii U's options with the GamePad, however, and as of the time of writing this title is exclusive to Nintendo's system.

Rather like fellow Wii U download exclusive Affordable Space Adventures, however, some have been disgruntled with the price for the 21st May release; it's undoubtedly a premium download, as it'll cost $19.99 / €18.99 / £16.99. We've been impressed by our time with it so far but, nevertheless, that pricing will always divide fans.

Developer Ronimo Games has seen a lot of these comments and has forwarded the following statement to Nintendo Life, explaining the reasoning and philosophy behind the pricing.

Swords & Soldiers II is a self-funded passion project, created with a lot of care and craftmanship in over 3 years of development. The whole game has been built from the ground up to support the new and amazing hand animated art style and kickass new gameplay features, such as:

- Two completely new factions and one upgraded classic faction, adding lots of new units, spells and buildings.
- the Custom Army feature, allowing players to build their own army out of over 45 elements.
- Multiplayer mode where each player has their own screen, fully utilizing the Wii U gamepad.
- Epic and ridiculous narrated storyline with sidequests and minigames and over 40 challenging bonus objectives to complete.

There should be room for bigger, better and higher quality indie games. We feel Swords & Soldiers II is such a game and the price is a reflection of that.

With the rush to the bottom seen on multiple platforms there's undoubtedly a lot of pressure on Indie developers that aim to retain the value in their games.

Where do you stand on this? Are you supportive of projects like this that maintain these prices, and do you think there is room on the eShop for "bigger, better and higher quality indie games"? Let us know.