I want to make a joke here where the only thing "impossible" about this challenge is actually finding a challenge, but I know I'll regret that. There are hard maps coming, and we might have to start handing out some Fs as soon as the iron mode for this map. But in the meantime we have another trivial A for everyone.
Kingdom Rush Origins Impossible Hero Challenge - Royal Gardens Campaign
This is one of those weird maps that isn't necessarily all that hard, but is very intense and nerve-wracking anyway. That's because even when you have good strategy and are using an ideal hero, it's still possible (unless you're using Wilbur) to get bad RNG and have a hyena slip through your defenses. That's because of a rather infuriating way the game works.
If you haven't figured it out already, ranged attacks are not guaranteed to hit in this game. When a ranged attack is made at an enemy, the projectile is aimed at the spot the enemy will be at. As long as the enemy is in fact in that spot when the projectile lands, it does damage. However, the projectile trajectory does not take into account possible changes in the enemy speed. This is why you'll see artillery towers at your choke point make seemingly bizarre shots sometimes - they're aiming where the enemy would have been if they had not been blocked by your melee towers.
All this applies to hyenas and their sprint ability - ranged attacks don't account for the possibility of them speeding up and slowing down, which sometimes allows them to run right through your defenses if the RNG is just right.
I knew all this already coming into this map, but I did learn something new about the game here as well. Hyenas can be blocked if they are stunned! Bruce used his King's Roar ability that happened to stun a hyena right next to him, which he then proceeded to melee to death.
Finally we get back to a somewhat challenging map. This map isn't too terrible, though. The only real challenges are taking down the hyenas in wave 2 when your hero doesn't have a ranged attack and just having enough DPS and cooldowns for when the swarms get thick.
Ugh, I was hoping to find a challenge here, but definitely not. This map doesn't even require a hero, honestly. 'A's for everybody, nothing to see here, let's move along.
Kingdom Rush Origins Impossible Hero Challenge - Redwood Stand Campaign
This map ended up being trivial, so all heroes get 'A's again. However, it took a bit of practice to get the setup right to where it is trivial. The key is creating a defense that can automatically take care of the constant stream of perythons on the left side without relying on a hero with a ranged attack. Once that is done, it's just a matter of the hero being able to take care of the stream of gnolls from the right side, which any hero can do trivially. I did discover it is possible to get really bad RNG at the beginning and have a flyer slip through my left defenses, and I did consider giving every non-ranged hero a B grade as a result since they can't provide backup in those situations, but in the end that proved to be very rare, so I decided against it.
I'm hoping this is the last map we'll have to give the 'trivial' label to, as the whole point of this exercise is to be able to grade and rank heroes based on their performance. We'll see as we move on to Redwood Outpost.
Kingdom Rush Origins (Steam) Impossible Hero Challenge - Waterfalls Trail Iron
This one was only mildly challenging, so no one gets worse than a B.
I knew as soon as I trivially completed the map with Catha that this one wasn't going to pose any challenge. I had to fight off boredom by making sure I caught every item going over the waterfall. So again, 'A's for everyone and let's move on.
Kingdom Rush Origins Impossible Hero Challenge - Waterfalls Trail Campaign
While this map isn't completely trivial, it's still easy, so everyone gets an A or B here. Even the Bs aren't really that bad, you just have to work slightly harder than with an A hero.
Finally we're back at a map that provides some challenge. Again, though, the scores are somewhat relative. I chose to examine each hero's performance when aggressively calling waves early. It made things a lot harder with some heroes, who nearly leaked mobs to the exit, but if I didn't call any waves early it honestly would have just been another fairly trivial map.
And once again we have a trivial map that everyone does well on. 'A's for everyone, high fives all around, and let's move on in search of more interesting challenges.
Kingdom Rush Origins Impossible Hero Challenge - The High Cross Campaign
I have a feeling I'm going to regret starting this before I'm done, but given how much I've enjoyed Kingdom Rush Origins, I had this idea for a new playlist (or rather, a set of playlists). The question is - is every hero good enough to take on Impossible mode? In my Impossible mode playlist I obviously chose the hero best suited for the map which made it easiest to complete, but can any hero get the job done? That's what this series will attempt to answer. I will do every map - campaign, heroic, and iron - with every hero.
For each map I will rank each hero on an A-F scale for how well they do. Here's what the grades mean:
I really hope I'll be able to figure out how to do each map with each hero so that I don't have to hand out any Fs, but given my experience already in my Impossible difficulty walkthrough I have a feeling that's not going to pan out.
We start over at the beginning in Gray Ravens campaign mode. As this map is so easy, every hero gets an A here, and there's nothing really to comment on. Honestly you don't even need a hero to complete it, even on Impossible difficulty, but we start here anyway for completeness' sake.
Completing this is going to take a very long time, and I'm not going to hold up other videos (like getting back to Baldur's Gate) while seeing it to completion. So expect me to finally get back to BG sometime soon. Oh, and Kingdom Rush Vengeance will be on Steam soon...
Kingdom Rush Origins Impossible Hero Challenge - Gray Ravens Campaign
