This game was a pleasant surprise. I went into it completely blind just knowing that I love the Kingdom Rush games and honestly expected this to be like those games, just set in space. The first level proved otherwise and I was slightly disappointed but quickly got over that as the gameplay is just as engaging. I'm not big into space themed stuff but this game definitely had such cool settings, units/structures, as well as sound design that really brought it home for me.

I loved that there was a skill tree to grind on. I love my RPG's and if you're low IQ like me, it was great to just power level and brute force your way out of a level you were stuck on. I felt that the progression in worlds 1 and 2 were perfect. Everything scaled so appropriately and I felt challenged but not so much so that I felt it was a chore to try and beat (this was on the Veteran difficulty). Having said that, this actually leads into my main criticism of the game:

I feel that the whole game design of World 3 left a sour taste in my mouth. There was a huge difficulty spike starting with the first mission of that world that just continued to escalate to the point where it felt like the spawn of enemies had no pattern and they just set it to infinity. Mix that in with incredibly frustrating enemies (♥♥♥ those units that shoot those purple orbs) and you're left with limited options in your strategy because now you HAVE to go with the meta strategy to beat the level. I felt that took away my autonomy in how I wanted to beat a mission. It's also sad that the game ended on a very anti-climatic and strange boss battle where you operate this turtle looking machine that has to go through a portal after killing the boss? Repeat for 2 more times and then it ends. Idk just weird and also lacks replay-ability because of how long the intro scene is for that mission (and trust me you will die multiple times trying to beat it). I wonder if anyone else feels this way about the 3rd world because I see people online saying "the 3rd world is the easiest! You can cheese it so easily"... yeaaaaa. Anything is easy when you orbital strike everything into oblivion. Which is kind of my point - if people have to cheese strat a level to want to engage with it, then something is off with the fundamental design of that level.

All in all, it was a very fun game but I admittedly feel RELIEVED that I'm done with it. Which is very sad to say and not something you should feel after completing a game. Again that feeling was all invoked because of World 3. World 1-2 were incredibly engaging and fun. I still definitely recommend this game and look forward to now playing the sequel version in hopes that the devs improved upon some of the flaws in this version.

wat de sigma