Royal Tower Defense

Genre: Tower Defense

Players: 1

Game Company Bad Behavior Profile Page: Prison Games

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Review:

Royal Tower Defense, released on Xbox One and Nintendo Switch in 2021, is a Tower Defense game that’s clearly directly descended from developer and publisher Hidden Games’ prior release, Fantasy Tower Defense – the mechanics are largely the same, the in-game art style is similar. If you read my review of that game, you’ll know that I thought Fantasy Tower Defense was possibly the most bland, generic Tower Defense game I have ever played, so the question is, does the sequel fare any better?

Much like the first game, this game’s hand-drawn 2D visuals are okay but not especially great, and at times too tiny to be easily discernible. Perhaps in an attempt to add some personality, this time around between battles you get some decent anime-style menu art and a bit of story… but the art style of this menu art doesn’t really mesh well with the rest of the game at all, and the story is so poorly written that one suspects its author barely knew English. The music is a little better, going for a decent, but not especially noteworthy, orchestral fare befitting a game with a medieval fantasy setting.

As for the gameplay, well, not a whole lot has changed here. To the game’s credit, it at least makes an attempt at some semblance of a tutorial this time around, and the progression of gaining new types of towers and upgrades to place is a bit faster. And once again, the optional touchscreen support here is very good, and much appreciated. But otherwise this game falls prey to the same issue that plagued Fantasy Tower Defense – it’s just so painfully generic. There’s just nothing here that stands out or does anything truly unique or memorable.

Given that there’s at least marginal improvements made to a few parts of Royal Tower Defense, I was tempted to bump up its grade ever so slightly, but then I have to also take note that the price tag has jumped from $5 to $8, and I just can’t see this as being worth that amount when you could spend less than twice that amount to get a truly great Tower Defense game like PixelJunk Monsters 2. In light of that, it’s hard to imagine anyone getting their money’s worth out of this game, even if you’re a fan of the Tower Defense genre – you simply have so many better options, and don’t have to spend a great deal more to get them instead.

tl;dr – Royal Tower Defense is the follow-up to Fantasy Tower Defense, and while there are some small improvements made throughout the game, this is still a pretty bland and generic Tower Defense game, and you’re still better off spending your money on one of the many better entries in the genre.

Grade: C

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