Leaving Early Access today after nine months with a fresh update is Elemental War, a Tower Defense game from Clockwork Origins.
This one is a little unusual, in the way that unlike a lot of Tower Defense games there's no story campaign to play through. Instead it offers multiple game modes for single-player including a standard 60 wave defence mode, a survival mode to go as long as you can and a hero mode where your enemies are given random abilities. On top of that, there's also a level editor and a versus online mode to send waves against other players. You can see some gameplay from a recent developer video below:
Direct Link
Feature Highlight:
- 65 different towers from a Ballista to a Volcano
- 3 singleplayer modes: Classic Mode, Survival Mode, Hero Mode
- 47 items from a Mithril Chassis to Deadly Poison Bombs
- 48 monster abilities from Gold Rush to Invincibility
- 7 settings from desert to ice world
- 21 different skills in multiplayer with multiple upgrades
- 107 different monsters containing 21 elementals
- 20 quests for bonus items in Hero Mode
Truthfully, I haven't had the best time with Elemental War. After playing through quite a lot of Tower Defense games, nothing in Elemental War really stands out. I find the interface far too large and overbearing, making me feel boxed in. The zooming feature is rubbish too, requiring some heavy flicks on the mouse wheel for it to do anything and it jump-zooms, rather than smoothly scrolls in towards the map.
The difficulty even on the highest mode is simply too easy and I end up bored with it. Most of my time was spent staring at a new wave appearing, then dying as soon as they enter the level due to the ability to just place towers right outside the portals. There's just no challenge in it.
I did like the upgrade system though, taking down special enemies and then using their element to upgrade a tower. That's pretty cool but apart from that, it's just another TD game that doesn't really stand out from the crowd. Shame.
Find it on Steam if you want to try it.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
stretch611 Jul 21, 2019
My full steam review: https://steamcommunity.com/id/stretch611/recommended/917850/
The initial waves are quite simple... because that is how you get your initial elements. There is a fast forward option to breeze through the easy waves. Every 5th round, an elemental monster is released (or you can call for one every 5 rounds if not in random element mode.) When you kill it, that element can be used to build or upgrade towers. While a single tower can be upgraded and possibly kill off the first 4 or 5 waves alone the waves get progressively harder once you have unleashed 2 or 3 elements.
There are 192 different towers in the game. Essentially they are based on the various elements. Fire/Air/Earth/Nature/Electricity/Water/Shadow towers based on the 7 elements in the game. But to get to 192 towers you need to combine fire and water for a steam tower, fire and air for a smoke tower, water and earth for a mud tower. You can combine up to three elements which all the combinations make 192 different towers.
Unless you are playing one of the modes with unlimited waves you will never collect all the elements. This means that only a subset of the towers are unlocked. (And even on unlimited, they are not all unlocked until wave 105... and good luck getting that far.) This brings out the true beauty of Elemental War... Your strategy needs to change based on the towers you have available. In random element mode, you are forced to use a different strategy every time you play and for me, this causes infinite replayability.
I already have more hours playing this game than I do in Dungeon Warfare and all 3 Kingdom Rush games (and I bought it back during the winter sale on steam.) I am actually close to having as many hours in Elemental War as I do in those 4 other TD games combined,
This is definitely a buy if you like Tower Defence games.
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