X-Morph: Defense

Genre: Tower Defense / 2-Stick Shooter

Players: 1

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Review:

X-Morph is a Tower Defense game combined with a 2-Stick Shooter, a combination that ends up being one of those “peanut butter and chocolate” sorta’ deals where each of the two types of game in itself are pretty good, but together they form something that is truly special.

Players take on the role of aliens invading the Earth – you’re looking to mine the planet for its resources, and those pesky Earthlings keep trying to get in your way. To fend them off as your mining and terraforming efforts are underway, you will command a ship to shoot down enemy forces and deploy defense towers to attack incoming vehicles.

So to start with, let me say that for an indie game, X-Morph: Defense looks amazing. The battles take place in intricately detailed cities full of buildings that can be destroyed in am impressive shattering of their construction, and with skyscrapers toppling in particularly impressive fashion when you do. There’s also often a lot of action going on at any given time too, as tanks and planes swarm around you. I only wish the game would let you get close to the ground level to see the action from that perspective.

The game’s tutorial is pretty good, slowly introducing you to the game’s concepts part by part, first getting you used to piloting the spacecraft, which fights like a typical two-stick shooter, and then teaching you about installing and upgrading defense towers. This is very forgiving too – if you put one in the wrong place, you can always pick it up again to retrieve your resources back and place it down elsewhere.

However, the game goes a few steps farther in both its 2-Stick Shooter and its tower defense parts. On the side of the 2-Stick Shooter, you have massive, detailed mech bosses, as well as the ability to duck and weave behind buildings to shield yourself from incoming fire, or shoot them down to topple them onto enemies.

However, what really delighted me was that on the tower defense side of things, one of the primary strategies is to link the towers via fences, with which you can actually force enemies to re-route onto different paths, controlling the paths they take to reach the destination. It’s such an obvious addition to the tower defense genre, I’m shocked it isn’t standard, as it completely changes the way the genre plays so you’re not just reacting to enemies, but actively manipulating their actions to your benefit.

There is so much good stuff in this game, but its biggest flaws seem to be what has been left out. The splitscreen co-op campaign that’s in other versions of the game is not included here. Also, it would have been really nice to get some touchscreen support for the game, especially since placement of turrets can feel a bit awkward and finicky at times.

However, while those omissions are disappointing, overall I am absolutely delighted with X-Morph: Defense. It’s not only a game that does two very different genres well, but mixes them together in a way that works beautifully. Fans of both Two-Stick Shooters and Tower Defense games should absolutely pick this one up.

tl;dr – X-Morph: Defense mixes the Tower Defense genre with the 2-Stick Shooter to create something even better, with impressively detailed environments and some really inventive gameplay. This game is a blast to play, and while the Switch version is sadly missing some features, it’s still an absolutely wonderful game.

Grade: A

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This game has been nominated for one or more of eShopperReviews 2019 Game Awards:

Runner-Up: Most Original, Best Strategy Game

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