Tower defense is a special meditative-casual genre that surprisingly often pleases players with quite decent, and sometimes even cult games. Although it would seem: an unpretentious idea at the heart of the gameplay, a minimum of dynamics, a not too deep world – where to turn around??
Developers from Nival, who have recently been “developing” mainly in the field of online entertainment with constant “donations”, decided that the genre is ideal for returning to the field of – scary to say – the real "single player". Moreover, not just a single-player mode, but a game that does not involve the purchase of resources for money.
Although already from the title Prime World: Defenders it becomes clear that the authors are from Nival under no circumstances began to work at a loss. After all, what could be a better advertisement for the “big” Prime World than the fun associated with its ancestor, the general concept of the world!
The global map is drawn mainly for the surroundings. Swords stuck in the ground today are the last squeak of atmosphere.
Fans of Prime World will read painfully familiar words in the very first comic-like screensaver: “prime”, “docts”, “adornians”. And for the uninitiated, a short “young fighter course” will help, designed to quickly demonstrate to beginners the realities of the world – in a nutshell and a few pictures.
So, in the universe in which we have to build towers, an amazing energy was discovered – prime. This resource allowed part of the population to develop powerful technologies, and stimulated part to magical mutations. Endowed with the gift of witchcraft, in other words. There is a war between the first (Docts) and the second (Adornians). But our heroes are not particularly interested in this.
A team of so-called defenders, whose voices we will hear off-screen during battles with opponents, rushes around the “prime zone” in search of artifacts. This is a most dangerous area, rich in both energy and monsters, which are called “chud” here. Flesh of the flesh of the prime, local monsters are just waiting for the moment to steal a valuable resource. Our job is to prevent them from running away with our wealth. As usual, we don’t take prisoners, we shoot enemies on the spot.
The need to reach a pile of primes, grab your load and return back the same way makes the monsters a little more vulnerable than in most similar games of the genre. And, among other things, it gives us a little more time to think.
However, not all missions are related to the defense of prime reserves. It happens that a monster breaks into an artifact that our heroes need. It happens that our castle is attacked. In general, it happens in different ways, but the essence of the fun remains the same: we set up towers and enjoy the process of automated shooting of adversaries.
Card modified products
Initially, we have two branches of weapons at our disposal: towers and spells. None of the defenders are directly involved in the battle, but we can nevertheless use magic. In order to launch some magical prime bomb at a monster, no additional expenditure of resources is needed in battle. However, all types of enchantments can only be used with a certain time interval. Towers, on the contrary, work continuously, but their installation is not free. Moreover, the more structures of the same type we rivet, the more expensive each subsequent building of the same “suit” costs us. The developers hint in every way to the player the need to include a variety of watchtowers in his outpost.
If you put the towers in a row on both sides, the expression “pass through the gauntlet” will immediately have another meaning.
From the bodies of defeated enemies, https://mpbetcasino.co.uk/login/ as usual, drops… again a prime, for which new combat installations from those in our deck are purchased in battle.
Yes, exactly the deck. Because all methods of killing monsters, be it spells or towers, are given to us along with cards. Some cards are issued for successfully completing a level, but the player who relies on this basic set in a battle with the “bosses” will be stupid and naive.
The most “delicious” weapons fall out of chests, the contents of which are drawn according to the principle of a lottery. Or purchased in store. With chests, everything is simple: as a reward for completing side missions, we are allowed to choose one random one from five cards located face down. Most often, all sorts of little things drop – low-level towers and spells or a little silver.
A star from the sky, a coin from the “mob”..
Silver – not gold, as is usually the case in games – is needed for most non-combat expenses. For silver coins you can buy new cards in the store, and most sets are a pig in a poke: we are only aware of the approximate level of the “boosters” that we purchase, but not about the specific functions of those towers and spells that we come across.
In addition, silver is necessary to redeem talents related to combat skills only indirectly. Usually we are talking about bonuses to silver and prime reserves or about additional slots in the deck for towers and enchantments. After all, no matter how many cards we have in our general collection – which is also not bottomless – we can take only a limited number of “killing” devices with us into battle.
Finally, without silver it is useless to even look into the forge – a special place where cards can be forged. We have, for example, two identical “bird shooters” – essentially, giant slingshots for shooting down flying enemies. We don’t need identical cards, but they can be merged with each other in the forge to get a reinforced and improved version, which in terms of destructive power and rate of fire is superior to even a more expensive tower of a similar effect called “air guard”. At least until we do the same manipulations with the “guard”.
You see a strange spinning thing of unknown purpose on some cell? Feel free to put a tower there – maybe it won’t explode.
There are two ways to improve towers. Reforging adds some efficiency to our defensive structure on a permanent basis. Evolution makes it possible to improve combat equipment right during the battle – also for prime. One way or another, the process of “finishing” the arsenal, in addition to a round sum in silver, also requires card sacrifices.
In general, this whole complex card and lottery system turns out to be more interesting than the usual algorithm for the genre “passed a level – got a new trap, saved up money – bought an improvement in the store”.
And note, there is no purchase of ultra-powerful structures for real infusions here. Although the additional game currency – stars – at first glance looks exactly like another tool for scamming players. More precisely, it would look like if these things were bought for real rubles or dollars. There are very few stars in the game, they are given out only for completing story levels and in “lottery” chests – if you’re lucky. Meanwhile, unique “boosters” – the best cards – can be bought in the store for exactly this currency.
Chud-chud and a little more chud
The number and quality of towers pleases the eye and brain. There is a tank with poison on a high leg, and giant slingshots, and a melancholic cobblestone, and an eye on a hill – right in the style of Sauron.
There are also a lot of monsters. Harpies, kobolds, satyrs and other representatives of the mythological fauna mixed together, among which the “boletus” – a kind of mushroom trolls, covered with fly agarics from head to toe – stand out.
In addition to the variety of species, each type of enemy is divided into three subtypes: one is weaker, the second is “strong average”, the third is elite. In general, the developers took good care of diversity. They just forgot to do the same with the cards.
A polite idiot will never tear down these cute market stalls. Cute monsters walk in single file between our objects, so we don’t have to worry about global destruction.
No, the story locations are fine. They really differ from each other in configuration, surroundings and direction of movement of crowds of enemies. Since towers can be placed anywhere, but only on designated cells, we sometimes have to work hard on the next level, figuring out how best to place defensive structures. After all, on some platforms there are also bonuses – to damage, rate of fire, radius. By the way, you can get an additional prime in battle by breaking Chud totems. To do this, you need to position the tower so that the totem falls within its range of action.
And everything would be fine, but from a certain point completing the main storyline becomes a problem. You can solve it with the help of side missions that allow you to “pump up”, gain more tower mass and rush at the enemy with renewed vigor. Usually we are talking about three independent locations around the point where we need to be according to the scenario.
So, the maps of these additional levels are literally copied from the “story” sections of the prime zone that we completed. Naturally, repeated playthroughs cannot arouse enthusiasm in the player and greatly discourage. It’s good that it’s possible to speed up the process of monster attacks by half and run through side locations quickly. Otherwise it would be completely rotten.
And we don’t allow anything to your device!
This whole “soup set” is accompanied by quite nice three-dimensional graphics, a rather clumsy camera and more or less banal story scenes, which are damnably lacking incendiary humor in the spirit of Orcs Must Die!
A bit of irony wouldn’t hurt the characters’ voiceovers spoken during the battle. All these variations on the theme “the enemy will not get through” begin to get seriously boring somewhere around the fourth location. Fortunately, the sound can be turned off painlessly – this will not affect the gameplay in any way.
A slightly more serious problem is bugs with screen resolution. The reviewer, for example, managed to run the game on his computer only in windowed mode, because for some reason the only available resolution in the list was 1024 by 768. And only launching the game on an alternative device showed that there are actually many more options. However, given that the version of the game available for pre-order is currently called beta, one can hope that the developers will complete their project by the official release date.
What is the old man pouring there?! Two objects that solve any problem – a glass and a cucumber. Everyone knows it.
IN Prime World: Defenders, there are definitely some shortcomings. But they are not able to outweigh the undoubted advantages: the original card system, the variety of towers and monsters, successful “pumping” and the need to strain the gray matter a little in order to pass the next level.
Pros: interesting improvement system; good story levels; many towers, spells and monsters; nice graphics.
Cons: trivial plot; annoying remarks from the characters; technical shortcomings.