Do you ever get the urge to play a tower defense, to fall into the patterns of building, upgrading and churning through waves of enemies? No? Maybe it’s just us, but there’s something familiar and satisfying about them, and Elemental War TD definitely looks like it’s aiming to satisfy that urge. Elemental War TD is out now on Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S and PC with Play Anywhere capabilities.
There’s nothing revolutionary about Elemental War TD. This is very much your trench-based tower defense, with enemies sticking to the paths you’ve made for them like well-behaved baddies. The towers are your expected tesla coils and mortars, and you’ll be upgrading them in an effort to protect your base. It’s achingly unoriginal, but sometimes that’s exactly what you want.
The emphasis is very much on more of the same, accent on the more. Elemental War TD is promising 65 different towers, which is a decent chunk (as long as it’s not cheekily counting the upgrades to towers), alongside 107 enemy types, seven scenarios and 47 different item types, including deathly poison bombs and a mithril chassis (?). Watching the trailer, you’re getting all of the abilities that you’ve come to love from tower defense games, so it’s all here: ice towers to slow enemies down, giant melee towers for close range attacks, and mortars to overwhelm at range. It’s like a greatest hits of tower defense.
On the negative side, it does look a little on the ragged side visually. Hopefully the gameplay and design is enough to make up for the circa 1999 tower and troop renders, as it’s not going to be seducing you with it’s wondrous beauty. We’ll find out in our full review.
While there is no multiplayer by the looks of it (there are highscores, but that doesn’t count, while the PC version does happen to have multiplayer modes), there are plenty of ways to play. There are five difficulty levels, three single-player modes and a level design editor, which sounds shwifty. It’s reasonably rare to get a tower defense level editor, so we’re up for giving our own creations a go.
Features include:
- 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
- 107 different monsters containing 21 elementals
- 20 quests for bonus items in Hero Mode
Elemental War TD is out now on Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S and starts at £15.74 from the Xbox Store. It’s also out on PC.
Game Description:
Are you ready for the next level of Tower Defense games? Endless single-player gaming fun Three innovative game modes, five difficulty levels, seven scenarios, countless maps and enemy types – the single player offers you everything you need for long-term gaming fun. Compete in rankings with your friends and players from your city, your country and the whole world – and check out how the best play via detailed rankings. Easy to use level editor Create your own maps in the included editor and publish them so everyone can play them!
