With the runaway success of games like Plants Vs Zombies, Dungeon Defenders, and, our personal favourites, Defense Grid 1 and 2, tower defense games have over the years become an increasingly popular genre on next gen consoles.
As huge fans of Defense Grid, Anomaly War Zone Earth and Toy Soldiers, we were very excited by news that Hero Defense had finally made its way to the Xbox One. In fact the announcement had the editor grinning and rubbing his hands together like a randy uncle at a family wedding.
Developed by the mavericks at Happy Tuesday (those of Coin Dash! And Pumpkin Sweet Adventures fame), Hero Defense is top down tower defense game with a few surprising RPG elements thrown into the mix.
The game is centred on a dark and gothic world where the nefarious Count Necrosis and his army of darkness have invaded a helpless town, destroying buildings and doing away with locals. To battle the Count you get to control five heroes: the Count’s estranged son and self-avowed vampire slayer Jack, an octogenarian widower called Barrows who’s out to revenge his dead wife, a suitably named Jane-Doe murder victim who has been resurrected, a witch called Sam Hain and a half werewolf called Wylde. Each character has different abilities, strengths and weaknesses and it’s your task to place each one in the path of the attacking horde. Think rock, paper, scissors and you’re half way there.
While this all sounds pretty standard fare for a tower defense game, Hero Defense does come with some new ideas to keep you engrossed in the game. The first is the fact that, after you’ve placed your characters on the map, you can pick them up and reposition them. As the enemy changes direction, you’ll have a few frantic moments hastily trying to reposition your hero before the horde breach your barricades.
The second unexpected element was the ability to go into town after completing a level and spend gold to restore certain buildings. Restore a building and you’re rewarded by new abilities and upgrades. For example, if you rebuild the Forge you get to add new abilities such as stronger attacks during battles. Excellent. During the battles you’ll earn money, orbs and gems that you can use to repair buildings, enhance your characters abilities and build shrines. In Hero Defense, shrines are used to either enhance all of the characters abilities or they can be specific to any one of the five.
While the first five or six levels of Hero Defense are tutorial type challenges that introduce you to various aspects of the game, the learning curve is quite steep after this. Many of the maps are unbeatable unless you return to earlier maps, repeat them and level up your character. While this increased the games challenge, we found this aspect a bit too much of a grind, especially when you might find yourself playing the same map six or seven times in order to move on.
Graphically Hero Defense does a solid job in creating interesting and varied maps. The characters are well animated and easily distinguished from each other. While lacking the overall polish of Defense Grid 2, Hero Defense’s dark environment really does have you feeling that you’re taking part in a gothic horror film.
Each character in Hero Defense is well voiced and, quite often, the campy, irreverent humour will have you smiling and nodding your head with silent appreciation.
The only minor gripe we had with the game was with the camera. Quite often we found ourselves wrestling with the camera angle as we tried to place our characters in the right spaces as more and more paths sprang up. There is an option to freeze the game and reposition your character, but slightly more control over this aspect would have been a step in the right direction.
This is, however, a very minor gripe that does little to detract from what is a thoroughly enjoyable experience.
Overall, Hero Defense is a great offering for both newbies and seasoned tower defense gamers. There’s just about enough variety and challenge to have you returning to maps and trying to beat the game on a harder setting. And, once you beat a map, there’s an almost tangible sense of achievement that has you punching the air in victory. For anyone who’s ever played Defense Grid or Plants Vs Zombies, or even if you’re just curious about the genre, Hero Defense is a must buy. Highly recommended.
8 out of 10.