Nekomancer hits all the right notes, but doesn't march to its own beat

• Nekomancer: Tower Defence is out now on iOS and Android
• It offers an undead-flavoured, cat-themed take on the tower defence genre
• Is it any good? Well, here are my first impressions, having given it a go for myself

So what we've been doing more often on the site is looking at some of the newest releases and, short of an actual review, giving our initial impressions on the likes of Ultrapool. And today I've been having a go at Nekomancer, the cute cat-themed tower defence from developer Owl & Otter that's out now on iOS and Android.

In Nekomancer, you play the apprentice of the titular magical practitioner, who guards the limbo between life and death. But when you decide to take a peek at their magical secrets and mistakenly open the door to the underworld, it's up to you to put the dead to rest before your master discovers what's happened.

Resurrected

Now, onto my impressions. And to be honest, they're neither wholly negative nor wholly positive. This is a competent tower defence with long-term progression where you unlock new characters and towers to use in your base. Different characters have different abilities, and you can move them around the map to help cover spots your towers can't deal with.

The graphics are pretty pleasant to look at; I'm particularly fond of the green and greyish-blue hues that really communicate eerie undead themes. But the music can get very grating as it plays on a loop during each level, which gets annoying very fast. Fortunately, you can turn it off.

Gameplay is, unfortunately, pretty bog-standard. Place towers, take down enemies, gain points and spend them on upgrades to deal with the boss at the end of each level. Rinse and repeat, you've seen this all before.

But Nekomancer does have the occasional more interesting element to play with. For example, you occasionally receive blessings/burdens, which offer more powerful upgrades but also grant benefits to the enemy as well, such as increased attack or health.

Braindead

Unfortunately, what really puts me off Nekomancer is how it absolutely overloads you with things. New log-in events, festivals, adventure mode, dungeon mode, all these different upgrades and so on. It simply doesn't feel like it's offering the simplicity that you really look for in a tower defence.

That and the fact they chose to make the advisor who eases you into all of this an annoying little mouse doesn't help matters either.

Now, again this is only a first impressions piece, so I can't say for sure whether or not Nekomancer manages to offer something to really grab your attention further down the line. And if you have been looking for a brand-new tower defence that's competently made and decently fun, then you'll probably get more out of it than I did.

Still, if you're willing to give it a go, you may also find some fun in the other options that've had time to mature on mobile. Check out our list of the best tower defence games on Android for some of our favourite picks!