Kingdom Rush Battles preview - "Thrilling tower defence with a touch of treachery"
- Work hard to earn your heroes and towers
- It's easier to win by sabotage than by sheer force alone
- Small screens are the bane of fat fingers
The sun is shining, the birds are chirping, and it's another beautiful day in Silveroak Forest - except that the peace is short-lived, because why is a magic portal materialising over the horizon, and why are all these chubby orcs and flying goblins attacking my kingdom?
Such is the beautiful chaos of Kingdom Rush Battles, and it's a true rush indeed.
Everyone's in a hurry, but that's okay
And I mean "rush" in both the literal sense and the semi-figurative sense, mainly because everything from that tiny poisonous spider to the hulking armoured golem is rushing to invade my kingdom - and that gives me an adrenaline rush like no other.Perhaps that's why the aptly titled franchise has lasted as long as it has, with a variety of iterations through the years. This time, as they say, it's personal - Ironhide is taking things up a notch by adding a PvP element to the core mechanic.
Now, if you're a tad confused, it's okay - I was too before I got into this. So, essentially, you'll still be placing towers and deploying your main hero onto the battlefield to defend against the oncoming and relentless hordes.
The catch is that there's another player doing the exact same thing at the exact same time on a split screen - and you'll need to do everything in your power to stop them from winning.
Tricks, treachery, and treason
This is where I find the so-called "tower defence" so intriguing - as the stage goes on and the waves keep coming, you earn coins to spend on placing more towers and upgrading their skills. But at the same time, randomised Boosters also pop up, and you have the option to either beef up your chances of survival with, say, faster cooldowns, or you can choose to curse the other player with, say, a farmer that hurls chickens at foes.It's cute, it's evil, it's fun.
These Boosters are what make Kingdom Rush Battles stand out, in my opinion, because it's not just a matter of trying to survive now - it's also about trying to sabotage your opponent with armoured golems and magic shamans. If only the screen weren't so darn small, it'd be perfect.
Fat fingers, small screen
This is where my main gripe with Kingdom Rush Battles comes in. Now, this might just be me, but I just find it incredibly hard to tap on whatever I want to tap on because the screen is so small (my poor eyesight certainly doesn't help).I understand that precious real estate had to be sacrificed to make room for two players, but in time-sensitive battles where one misplaced hero can spell the difference between victory and defeat, mistapping is just not acceptable.
That said, what I do appreciate about all this is that you'll really have to try and climb the leaderboards to unlock more towers and heroes. You can't just elbow your way through or hope to win by sheer force alone. It takes real strategy, quick thinking, and that roguelike-induced drive to try and try again until you finally get it right - and that sweet satisfaction of surviving each stage is simply unparalleled.
And while that means it's a long, long, long road before you reach god-tier, it also means you need to earn your rank - how that affects player retention and monetisation in the long run is still up for debate, of course.
By the way, everything here has been cute-fied with the franchise's signature art style, which means that while the tiny orcs are nasty, they also have no business being this cute, so I'm actually pretty torn about letting them in and maybe even giving them a cup of tea.
At the moment, Kingdom Rush Battles is currently in soft-launch in the Philippines, Indonesia, Canada, and Uruguay, and Ironhide is actively gauging interest and gathering feedback before it goes on a full-scale global launch.
I'm thoroughly enjoying myself despite the difficult road to the top, though, so here's hoping I can unlock more heroes and towers on my quest for Kingdom Rush dominance - if my nemesis' chicken-throwing farmers don't get to me first.
