Kingdom Rush

My first impression of this game was... well lets just say I didn't like the game. The first two levels I completed didn't appeal to me, they were pretty easy, and the fact that there were only 4 towers for the entire game made it feel like it was missing something. By the time I started playing the 3rd level, I had lost interest.
So if I had to say anything about the game at that time, I'd have said it's just another not that exciting tower defense game although I did like the way the art is done for it.

That is where I was wrong. I had not played the game far enough.

After a while I noticed that Kingdom Rush was popping up here and there, and then it was recommended that I play it.

I gave it another shot after someone told me there was a StarWars reference for one of the towers.

And so, this is Kingdom Rush...
A simple tower defense game, but a lot more entertaining that I had expected.
12 Different Missions, each having 3 different game modes with set rules, and the option to set the difficulty to easy or normal for each mission.
4 different towers that are required to be upgraded up to 4 levels in order to be effective. The player has a choice between 8 types of level 4 towers.
Two spells are available for use in damaging and slowing the enemy forces.
An upgrade page also allows the player to choose which towers or spells to improve.
Anytime before a mission the upgrade points can be reset so a player can adjust as needed at anytime.

There's also the Premium Content that a player can buy. I have not tried this out (I don't buy/pay for stuff online) so I only know what it has from what I've heard or read. The Premium content gives the player an extra spell to use, 15 more stars that can be used in the upgrade page, some extra gold for each mission, an additional reinforcement for the reinforcements spell, and... costumes for the reinforcements.
The costumes do sound cute because one set are StarWars characters. The other two sets are said to be Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat.

Now the game play is simple place your towers and let the enemy come marching in. But only one tower, the Barracks (*maybe I should call it a building?*), automatically trains troops that come out onto the path, and you can control where they stand within the limits of the tower. This is where the game differs from other TD games. There are many times you have to move these troops to a key point to either slow or trap the enemies that come marching in. One of the Mage towers, when upgrade, also works just like the Barracks.

The part I love about building and upgrading towers are the random audio comments each tower says. Some I felt are plain and expected. But later upgraded audio comments I found hilarious. One of the mage towers has a StarWars Reference to Yoda's "Do or Do Not, there is no Try", although that mage tower did not sound anything like Yoda. One of the Dwarfs in the Artillery tower swears when you upgrade, hence why I like using the Artillery a lot.
The third StarWars reference I found was written on the description for one of the upgrades, the famous "It's a Trap".

To aid the towers are the two main spells that come in handy always. I find myself spamming the Reinforcements spell just to slow down the horde rush of enemies, while using the Rain of Fire spell just to reduce or damage the enemies that have swarmed my troops. I'm not sure but it maybe possible to play every mission without using both these spells, which could be a worthwhile private challenge for any player.

The early missions I found rather uninteresting... This is due to the tower upgrade limit. It wouldn't be much fun if you could have a level 4 tower cleaning up enemies like nothing on the very first mission, but I guess I find that kind fun. But the later missions are well worth playing. Some maps have an added extra tower that is unique to the selected missions. I only found 3 of such on 3 different mission. The first is just a powerful barracks type with Elves, that I almost never used because I felt the cost was too high (for this reason I must play this mission again, I'm sure I'm missing something) just to both repair and buy troops. The second is a powerful Sasquatch unit that can be unlocked by using the Rain of Fire spell on it's cave and then spending 500 gold to call it out. The third is my favorite tower that I spam and the only tower that does not automatically attack but requires the player to manually target enemies for each charged up shot. These little extras in the game made it fun to play, but I was disappointed that I couldn't find any others towards the end.


The Enemies themselves are not that hard to destroy once you have the essential towers put in place and provided that they can damage enemies in key spots. The early waves and the number of enemies that come out at once are what the player would have to worry about. If there are not enough barracks but too many enemies then they will just run past without a scratch, while if some towers are not upgraded early enough then the stronger enemies will just take little or no damage. The bosses interest me the most, the later two can actually prevent towers from working by freezing or locking them. The player gets the chance to unblock by clicking on the affected towers.

At the time I started writing about Kingdom Rush, I had not played the final mission but since I've been experiencing some Internet related issues it gave me more time to play. Frankly I was disappointed in the final mission because it was... just too easy to complete. I think only a single enemy got close to the end of the path, but the rest were blocked off by only 6 troops from my barracks. The number of waves were also very short and I expected more from that mission.
I think I have the upgrade page to blame, as it makes the towers a lot better.
In a way, without the upgrade page, it may not be possible to complete the game. Cannot say for sure unless someone tries.

The game also has some replay value for each map with the additional game modes that contain some rules. I found that those rounds having forcing me to give up on using my fav towers was annoying but an interesting challenge. One map allows you to use nothing but Barracks, while another does not allow you to use any mages and archers, especially when that map contains hordes of flying enemies and you are forced to find out a way to beat that round. That really is the fun in replaying the map with some set rules.

A bonus to this game is that you can save your progress online or locally. By saving it online, I was able to play it while on my trip & at work & at home. It also has the option to import the locally saved game to online, but not the other way around.

I've gone on too much about this game. The only thing I currently really really did not like was at the end we get a small illustrated comic. It somehow made me feel odd. But it's the way the developers wish to express the ending, so it's fine with me... although I wouldn't play just to see that ending.

I read up somewhere about the game would be having an expansion, and I look forward to when it comes out.
If you have not played it, then I recommend that you do play Kingdom Rush either on this page below this post, or on the Armor Games site.



Play it @ Armor Games
Or Play it Here...