Repterra

You Wanna Know If It's Worth It?
As someone who grew up during the golden age of RTS games, think Red Alert 2, Command & Conquer, Age of Empires, Stronghold, StarCraft, and so many more, that I can't list off the top of my head. I can’t help but get excited when something new tries to capture that magic. Do you remember those endless hours of strategy, challenge, and fun? I sure do. But so few these days know how to recreate it. It's always these long 4X complex monstrocities.
Repterra is all of that nostalgia, but with a modern twist: it’s procedurally generated, and it borrows the best elements from the greats. You’ll find classic colony building, resource gathering, production management, hero based RTS, and the ever-present threat of enemy swarms barreling toward your town hall. Massive hordes (like They Are Billions!) keep you on your toes, and you get to fortify your position, manage familiar units, and, yes, tame, raise, and breed dinosaurs. It’s wild, and the action just keeps coming, in all the right ways.
Despite the variety, Repterra isn’t bogged down by complexity. It’s accessible but still manages to deliver a serious challenge, from Easy all the way up to Insane. Personally, I managed to scrape a win on Very Hard, but the highest difficulties are brutal, the enemies just don’t go down! Quick thinking, clever rotations, and smart defenses (like using trees for walls) are absolutely essential.
If you love classic RTS games and want a fresh challenge, Repterra is absolutely worth checking out. But, while it is almost the perfect title, let's point out some of my concerns.
Issues
I had a few concerns while playing this game that stood out to me. First, there’s no option to garrison your units inside watch towers or most of the buildings you construct. Strangely, you can put them inside derelict buildings, which feels inconsistent and limits your tactical choices. It would be great to have more control over where my units can take cover, especially in my own structures, which could possibly even increase their own firepower, similar to archer towers in a game like AoEII. On the positive side, being able to have units ride dinosaurs is a fun touch, but it doesn’t fully make up for the lack of garrison options.
While you can tame Plesios and other elites, you don't seem to have the ability to Tame the elite pterodactyls. They don't do a whole lot of damage, honestly, so no big deal there.
Since it's using the old-style of RTS. You can kite units with the hero, to keep your armies alive as they pick off the strong tanks. Good for helping them promote into higher tiers and fend for themselves, when you unlock the healing passive and such or find a hospital. It's one of those old-quirks that is both a good and bad feature since its a classic gimmick that is a part of hands off strategy and cheese.
Another issue is the absence of quick formation tools. You can’t easily organize your units into preset or complex formations. Instead, you have to pause the game and manually position each unit in the desired zones, which becomes tedious, especially when trying to set up elaborate defenses. This limitation makes it nearly impossible to manage large-scale strategies efficiently. As a result, I often had to rely more on sniper and artillery towers for defense, using them as my last line of protection when the walls were breached.
It uses a form of Roguelite progression. The more you play, the more things like 10% increase to production and other such values you can unlock, which are limited to a maximum of (4) when you've fully unlocked the full list of perks. Weird, I feel like it defeats the purpose. You don't have to use it, it's just... weird to see it. Like, if you were playing Age of Empires and using the monks to hold onto a relic, it's the joy of searching for them, not having a perk given to you immediately to tell you where it is on the map, before the game even starts. It would be better to have the ability to see all the resource boxes on the map as a research upgrade instead of this out of game feature, in all honesty.
Overall, these missing features and weird features made the gameplay feel a bit restrictive. I hope future updates address these areas to give players more tactical flexibility and smoother control over their armies, since this is still n Early Access. Lots of possibilities still to come.
Conclusion
Repterra manages to balance nostalgia and fresh ideas, offering a top tier experience for strategy fans. While a few things hold it back from being truly great, it’s clear there’s a solid foundation here and plenty of potential. I’m cautiously optimistic about where it could go from here, and for anyone who enjoys this genre, it’s definitely one to keep your eye on. I'm still enjoying every moment, and the more stages I unlock, the more desperately hopeless it seems for my own survival, but that's the best part.
Video Review TBD
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TLDR: They Are Billions + Red Alert 2 + dinosaurs = Repterra.
Repterra has an awesome retro RTS vibe and aesthetic, addictive gameplay loop, unlockable upgrades / perks, solid classic RTS with base building, resource management and wave based siege defence mechanics.
Really fun game even in early state with more content in the future and an active dedicated developer who listens to feedback and addresses bugs quickly.

A fantastic base defense game in the style of They Are Billions.
Currently in demo and early access it is a big rough around the edges. But the developer is skilled and i believe he will eventually polish this into a proper gemstone.

Has the Apeman taming system from Original War
Has an economy resembling A.R.S.E.N.A.L Taste the Power
Has some combat gameplay, units, and even structures that resemble Red Alert 2 (and other C&C titles, like C&C Generals upgrade system)
Has some gameplay that resembles They Are Billions.
Has a Roguelite element that resembles Vampire Survivors
I will say the originality isn't there, but this developer has really good taste in games. It is a slop game, but an okay one. Some units vocals sound suspiciously similar to other games I've played, but the content is still there. Get it cheap though.

All around a fun game and I like where its going! Its in the spirit of They are Billions which is good.
I'm just gonna list things I would like fixed/changed:
1. Dino breeding is a great idea but way too tedious. I really hate the time I have to spend microing this.
2. Heroes are great but would like to see more customization with them. Maybe items or skills.
3. Turtle dinos are bugged I think when mounting them.

Its very good for what it does: a nice rapid PvE RTS with lots and lots and lots of enemies. The dev is very active.

its fantastic . its like a good diplomacy is not an option . good base building mechanics and good army mechanics . my one complaint is mixed units being commanded together sometimes get confused . i wish there was an option to force units to default to a stance