Streamline
  • Home
  • Spotlight
  • Reviews
    • Action
    • Strategy
    • RPGs
  • Most Hardcore
    • Devices
    • Gifts
    • Gadgets
  • About Us
Hardcore Droid
Hardcore Droid
  • Home
  • News
    • News
    • Spotlight
    • Interviews
    • Consoles
  • Reviews
    • Action
    • Adventure
    • Strategy
    • RPG
    • MMOs
    • Racing
    • Indie
    • Hardware
  • Best Of
    • Top 10 Games
    • Best RPGs
    • Best Action
    • Best Puzzlers
    • Best Strategy
    • Best Indie Strat
    • Best Indie RPGs
    • Most Hardcore
  • About Us
    • About Us
    • Game Jobs
    • Archives
    • Attributions
    • Opportunities
  • Strategy

Kingdom Rush Origins Review

  • December 6, 2014
  • Meirion Jordan
Spread the love

Kingdom-Rush-Origins-Best-Android-Strategy-Game-ThumbBecause I was abducted by a wizard riding a griffin and imprisoned in a magical cave for the last five years, I didn’t play the first two Kingdom Rush games (that’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it, dammit!). I must say that up until this week I wasn’t too bothered about this: ‘Pshaw,’ I thought, straining at the bonds of my ethereal prison, ‘surely no game so popular can actually be good? Surely the greasy peasants (thinks I, as the wizard’s greasy peasants prodded me with their pitchforks) that normally buy every Android game on earth and award it 5 stars on Google Play just for failing to transfer all their money to an account in the Cayman Islands, or for not laying its eggs in their heads and letting its insectoid young devour them from within, can’t actually be right about anything, can they?’

Well, perhaps they can, because the latest game in the series, Kingdom Rush Origins, is actually pretty great. It may be very similar to the previous Kingdom Rush games (having compared notes with some rather dedicated fans of the first two games on YouTube I can safely say that it does appear very, very similar), but this doesn’t change the fact that its brand of tower defense is one that works. For someone coming afresh to the series (curse you, wizard! And your greasy peasants!) I can really appreciate why this game has such a following among casual and hardcore players alike. First up, it’s a looker. The art for this game is about as lovely as you could hope to see packed into the 7-10 inches of a tablet screen; while it’s not perhaps as conceptually rich or provoking as something you’d spend hours ogling in the Louvre,  it’s still tremendously handsome, and every map and environment is awash with lovely details. I think one of the moments I realized how far this game stood out above its competitors was when, in one of the early levels, occasional objects would come floating down the river in the middle of the map – and when I tapped them I would be rewarded with a cutesy little animation, and even an achievement when I stopped enough dwarves going over the waterfall in their little barrels. It’s just gorgeous, and I wanted to give those little wee dwarves a hug.

Kingdom-Rush-Origins-Best-Android-Strategy-Game-01

This attention to detail isn’t just lavished on the game’s surface, though. As a hardcore player (or at least, reviewing this for the benefit of hardcore players) if the gameplay were a stinker I’d be a lot less delighted about the time lavished on the art assets. But the gameplay is rock solid. It is more solid than the biceps of somebody who throws houses into pits of fire for a living. It is almost as awesome as being somebody who throws houses into pits of fire for a living. It really is good: it’s not just that it adds in things like heroes and melee units to direct about the place with judicious tapping, it’s that it uses these and other more familiar tower defense elements to create a system that responds with amazing precision to the player’s decisions. More than this, though,  Kingdom Rush: Origins’ variety of enemies, and the number of pointy (or pointy and magical) things you can shove up said enemies’ backsides, is rich enough to create an elaborate system of counters and balances. On harder difficulty settings real thought is needed to ensure that you will have the right sorts of damage, at the right time, and in the right combinations. I found that even on normal difficulty I couldn’t simply breeze through levels using my default ‘hotbox’ strategy (box up the monsters in a small area with slows and soldiers, then lather them in area-of-effect damage). I had to vary my choices of towers, and pick upgrades in response to the precise situation the game threw at me.

The game did have a few curveballs to throw at me, sometimes in ways that caused an almost guaranteed loss: there are a few levels in Kingdom Rush Origins that open up new lanes of attack for the monsters part of the way through, and you need to know about some of them in advance to have any chance of surviving. But the levels themselves are designed to reward multiple playthroughs, so I was comfortable with playing a level through several times in order to get a perfect score. It felt, more than anything, like a nod to the difficulty levels of old-school console games: the game rewards a detailed knowledge of its systems, and isn’t shy about offering a serious challenge in places. A full completion of the game looks like it would need some fairly serious playtime, and I’m enthusiastic about this prospect. Everything about this game is carried off with charm, even humor, which puts a nice bit of candyfloss around the razorblades of its more serious game modes.

Kingdom-Rush-Origins-Best-Android-Strategy-Game-02

I’m even impressed at the implementation of in-app purchases here. You can spend extra money on this game in two ways: first to get gems that unlock bonus items which provide one-off boosts to your progress through a level, and second to unlock new heroes. I never found gems either in short supply or indeed particularly necessary, and I am completely ok with new heroes being offered as what is essentially DLC. There’s no multiplayer, so no pay-to-win, and you just don’t need to spend extra money on this game to progress. It feels like a solid compromise between offering the game at a knock-down price and allowing people to pass more money to the developers.

In short, I enjoyed this game, and I’d go so far as to say it’s one of the finest tower defense games you could buy on Android just now. Ladies and gentlemen, the king has just entered the building. Go play with his kingdom, why don’t you?

Hardcore?
4

Definitely.

Delightfully presented and lovingly drawn, Kingdom Rush Origins’ exterior hides a superb tower defense game of such depth and subtlety that it ranks closely alongside the other games in the series.

Related Topics
  • Android Tower Defense
Meirion Jordan

Meirion Jordan is a Welsh poet, editor and critic. He has published three volumes of poetry and has performed his work in the UK and in Europe. In his time off from gaming he can usually be found in a traditional pub session, playing fiddle with his ceilidh band.

Previous Article
  • News

Bitcoin Billionaire Arrives On Play Store, Courtesy of Noodlecake Studios: Hardcore Droid News

  • December 4, 2014
  • Zackery Cuevas
View Post
Next Article
  • Action

Samurai Showdown Review

  • December 7, 2014
  • Claire Donner
View Post
You May Also Like
La Casa De Papel promotional image
View Post
  • News
  • Strategy

Netflix Announces La Casa De Papel Mobile Game

  • Frankie Negron
  • June 21, 2022
View Post
  • Strategy

European War VII: Medieval Review

  • Michael Knight
  • June 13, 2022
Green Game Jam Mobile Game Companies
View Post
  • Adventure
  • News
  • Simulation

TerraGenesis: Space Settlers Joins Green Game Jam

  • Allison Van Oirschot
  • June 10, 2022
MARVEL SNAP cover image
View Post
  • News
  • Strategy

MARVEL SNAP Coming To Mobile

  • Frankie Negron
  • June 3, 2022
Idle Campe Empire Gameplay
View Post
  • Reviews
  • Simulation

Idle Camping Empire: Game Review

  • Keene Short
  • May 27, 2022
View Post
  • Reviews
  • Strategy

Nova: Iron Galaxy Review

  • Stormie McNeal
  • May 25, 2022
Disney Twisted Wonderland
View Post
  • Adventure
  • Reviews
  • Simulation

Disney Twisted Wonderland Review

  • Allison Van Oirschot
  • May 24, 2022
Dungeon Life title image
View Post
  • Previews
  • RPG
  • Strategy

Dungeon Life Preview

  • Frankie Negron
  • May 20, 2022
0 comments
  1. Pingback: เว็บตรงสล็อต
  2. Pingback: near-2-u.com
  3. Pingback: WordPress Hosting
  4. Pingback: Comment emprunter un prêt personnel ? - Global créditComment obtenir un crédit à la consommation ? - Global Crédit

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

The Latest
  • Undestroyed: Shadow ARPG Review
  • Dottir Freedom Vs. Sennheiser Sport TW Review
  • The Rise of GameFi
  • 888 Poker Casino UK Review
  • Netflix Announces La Casa De Papel Mobile Game
  • Fantasy Raid: Diablo-like RPG Review
  • Tips Hosting a Virtual Games Night (Mobile Friendly too!)
  • Home Building Games Remain Top Picks on Android
  • Pre-Register Now For Chimeraland
  • Chronicles of Infinity Review
Meta
  • Register
  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.org
Hardcore Droid
  • Reviews
  • Spotlight
  • Hardcore
Core Gaming on the Android OS

Input your search keywords and press Enter.