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This collection of games (which are grouped together because they are all DLC’s of the first one) Is the gold standard of tower defence games and mobile games today. This strategy game defined itself for the satisfying gameplay, unique and exciting upgrades for towers, and a hilarious art style and theme. It’s mobile version is the best game for travelling and the PC version is just as fun. Rarely do you see a game developed for mobile that is so fun, it becomes a successful steam game aswell. However they unfortunately broke the hearts of their fans when their last game suffered the temptation of the lucrative gacha game form of monetisation.
Kingdom rush has an incredibly unique art style, it’s sprite work is truly fun to watch and have such smooth, simple animations for projectiles that you never feel lost on the screen like many in it’s genre like Bloons BT6. This is combined with such a passionate amount of comedy put into every level. Enemies have funny death animations, Boss fights have funny mechanics, there is probably the largest quantity of pop culture references out of any game. Bosses will pick up enemies and throw them at you, Indiana jones will appear in the background, clicking on sheep make them explode (an incredible reference to it’s Genre-maker Warcraft 3). The player is bombarded with such a large amount of fun frivolous eye candy that it separate’s itself from the usual brain rot stimulation of the genre where you just watch a barrage of effects. Audio is used perfectly to make Towers seen fun to listen to, and while having a mostly jolly feeling to it can definitely provoke a coolness factor in towers like the assassination barracks. This is what gives the game such a personal feeling, and with so much effort put into every aspect of the game’s visuals and audio I can safely say it is one of the most visually pleasing games I've played, and definitely the best on mobile.
The towers are interesting, and despite not following the tier system invented by the Bloons franchise, has a compelling progression and upgrade system. Towers have a basic upgrade for the first 2 times, and the final upgrade gives the option between 2/3 variations of the towers. These are followed with upgrades to improve that tower. Every tower feels different from it’s opposite, and provides unique advantages within the game. It is a game that promotes variation and instead of devolving into a Meta for the game, allows for players to cook up their own combinations. An example to this is how I personally dealt with swarms of enemies. One mage tower variation is necromancer, who raises a skeleton whenever they kill an enemy. One bomb tower variation is to shoot massive AOE nukes in one area slowly. Combine these and you create an endless army of skeletons which delay the enemies long enough to be bombarded with bombs. They all compliment each other in a very impressive way that feels so satisfying to figure out for yourself. Enemies have unique ways of challenging the player, encouraging you to vary the ways in which your towers operate. Some are massive and will one-shot your minions, but die fast to mage towers, other come in hoards so large they will overwhelm barracks. Additionally the game will constantly surprise you with the level design. Cliff faces you originally thought were for set design will have enemies crawling up from midway through a game, enemies will cut through forestry and create a whole new lane to defend. Sometimes levels work in your favour, having unique minions that fight along side you, or a massive dragon that can be used as an ability to wipe out a whole lane. Single concepts that I would commend a game for having 1 or 2 of are in every single level yet you never feel overwhelmed or confused as to how they could be used.
The only issue with this game is it has a mildly predatory monetisation system. Due to this being a single player game this is essentially like criticizing the trailer to a movie but it should still be mentioned. The first 3 games only have monetisation in the form of some power ups and new heroes to unlock. These are both fine because power ups never feel required and the default heroes are varied enough to be fun without spending money. The power ups don’t give any more credibility to your playthrough as there is no leader board, no online pvp, it is essentially like being able to pay to not have parts be a challenge. The actual part which made me feel like it was a degradation of the game’s quality was in the final game. The final game “Kingdom Rush - Vengeance” introduces many turrets, but also charges for additional ones which are only accessible by paying. Think about this how you want, it could be considered a DLC product, but because the turret system and unlocking new upgrades is a large amount of the enjoyment of the game, it was sad to see that a few were locked behind a paywall. However to reiterate, this is a single player game and none of the purchases feel needed so it is a small complaint, and in my mind I am content in knowing they have more money to develop more of these great games.
Overall without a doubt, this is the greatest Tower Defence game by such a large margin, and is one of the most fun and relaxing games I have ever played. There is an amount of passion in these games as with the Ori games, the Larian Studio games and the Enter The Gungeon games, and with such a funny crowd pleasing style to it this is a must play for everyone. It is impossible not to like these games and I honestly cannot imagine another game of the genre topping them in the future.