Kingdom Rush Vengeance (Steam) Impossible Hero Challenge - Northerners' Village Heroic

We've used several words to describe the maps so far in the game - "hard" has just not been one of them.  This one is best described as "interesting", as it at least attempts to do something interesting with the enemy mix.  Both sides get many waves of Wildlings with a Valkyrie following at the rear.  The idea is that as you start killing the Wildlings at the front, the Valkyrie immediately resurrects them as Draugr.  It's cute, but easily countered by using reinforcements to block the Valkyrie and separate her from the Wildlings.  At least they tried to make it hard.

Kingdom Rush Vengeance Impossible Hero Challenge - Northerners' Village Heroic

Kingdom Rush Vengeance (Steam) Impossible Hero Challenge - Northerners' Village Campaign

Well at least this one only took 16 minutes instead of 20.  What a snooze-fest.  My initial Veteran-difficulty playthrough of this game was way more challenging and interesting than this.  I need to look at the numbers, but I'm wondering if they dropped the percentage increases between Veteran and Impossible for this game compared to Origins and that's part of why it's so easy.  Impossible difficulty should be a reward for playing back through the game again, but so far this whole challenge is just a chore.

Kingdom Rush Vengeance Impossible Hero Challenge - Northerners' Village Campaign

Kingdom Rush Vengeance (Steam) Impossible Hero Challenge - Frozen Rapids Iron

There was just a major mistake made in the design of the iron modes for this game.  In previous Kingdom Rush games it's always worked that iron modes restrict you from using two of the four categories of tower: barracks, ranged, magic, and artillery.  But since each tower category had two specialization upgrades, you effectively had four towers to choose from when tackling the level.  This made it a bit of a puzzle, as you had to figure out which ones were most effective for the enemy mix they were going to throw at you (which usually involved some big curveballs).  Sometimes the best build strategy ended up being something out of the ordinary or a bit of a surprise, which made you feel clever when you figured it out.  But here all that's gone out the window.  This iron mode restricts you to one tower.  One.  Gee, I wonder what I'm going to need to build?  Yes, there are some pre-existing troll huts and Specters Mausoleums given to you, so you need to figure out how they fit in, but again it's painfully obvious like Northerners' Outpost iron and there's just nothing to figure out.  Throw in an enemy mix that is nothing surprising or particularly difficult and you have an iron mode that's just a chore to finish instead of a satisfying challenge.

Kingdom Rush Vengeance Impossible Hero Challenge - Frozen Rapids Iron

Kingdom Rush Vengeance (Steam) Impossible Hero Challenge - Frozen Rapids Heroic

Another map where there's a lot of intensity, but no challenge.  I've used this description multiple times now, and if you don't know what I mean, it means there's a ton of mobs being thrown at you, virtually filling the screen, but yet it's nothing your defense can't easily handle.  It is, as Shakespeare said, a lot of sound and fury, signifying nothing.  Our quest for a challenge rolls on.

Kingdom Rush Vengeance Impossible Hero Challenge - Frozen Rapids Heroic

Kingdom Rush Vengeance (Steam) Impossible Hero Challenge - Frozen Rapids Campaign

This is what I was talking about in my blog post for my Veteran walkthrough playlist - it takes 20 minutes to do this map, even when instantly calling every wave!  It just pushes the game into slow and tedious territory.  This map at least dials up the intensity, if not the challenge, so that my first few run throughs with the weaker heroes were mildly interesting, but by the time I got to the later heroes I started playing around with the build order just for fun to entertain myself.  And when you can do an entire map without ever using reinforcements or Soul Impact you know it's too easy.

Kingdom Rush Vengeance Impossible Hero Challenge - Frozen Rapids Campaign

Kingdom Rush Vengeance (Steam) Impossible Hero Challenge - Northerners' Outpost Iron

I can't tell you how disappointed I was in this one.  After the heroic mode being at least mildly engaging if not challenging, this one was utterly trivial.  Talk about spelling it out - it was abundantly clear where I was supposed to place the melting furnaces and to use the trolls both for blocking and damaging the wyverns.  It's things like this that make recording these videos just a tedious chore.  But we press on anyway!

Kingdom Rush Vengeance Impossible Hero Challenge - Northerners' Outpost Iron

Kingdom Rush Vengeance (Steam) Impossible Hero Challenge - Northerners' Outpost Heroic

Again we teeter just on the edge of a real challenge, but all our heroes did adequately 'A'-worthy jobs again.  I did go back and redo my recording with Oloch, changing the build order just slightly to make things a little easier for him.  Not that he was in danger of not getting the job done, but the original recording was just a bit messier.  I toyed with the idea that it might warrant a 'B', but it was borderline and I just don't like the idea of our first real grades being to give a single hero a 'B'.  So we continue on gradeless and hope for more in the iron mode.

Kingdom Rush Vengeance Impossible Hero Challenge - Northerners' Outpost Heroic

Kingdom Rush Vengeance (Steam) Impossible Hero Challenge - Northerners' Outpost Campaign

While I'm hopeful we are very close to our first real challenge, I know better than to expect it from the campaign modes.  The final campaign of this stage (with the boss fight) might well be worthy of grades, but at this rate I'm expecting the campaign modes to continue to be trivial until at least then, and this one was no exception.  You know it's trivial when by the end you're just purchasing all upgrades and building out your defense to the nth degree just because you can.

Kingdom Rush Vengeance Impossible Hero Challenge - Northerners' Outpost Campaign

Kingdom Rush Vengeance (Steam) Impossible Hero Challenge - Mid-term Report Card

As I established with my Impossible Hero Challenge for Kingdom Rush Origins, at the end of each stage of the game (the three sections of the campaign and then the bonus levels) we do a report card to see how our heroes are faring.  The problem here is that every single map so far - even the heroic and iron modes - has been trivial for all our heroes.  They really nerfed the difficulty of this game.  Again, I don't want to sound too negative, as I do like the game, but I'm just disappointed in this aspect of it.  By this point in Origins we had already had one of the hardest challenges of the whole game - Royal Gardens iron mode - to say nothing of the plenty of other maps that were difficult enough to differentiate our heroes by grades.

All this is not to say that I haven't gotten any useful feedback on the heroes.  While we've given all of them 'A's so far, I can definitely tell the differences between the 'A+' performances and the 'A-'s - but again, I swore I would not get into plusses and minuses in my grading scheme.  Even though we don't have the grades yet to back it up, I want to revisit my initial impressions in the first post of this challenge to see how they've changed.

In general I feel like my impressions were largely accurate.  The thing I've been most impressed by in doing this challenge so far is that hardly any of the heroes feel weak.  While that's great from an 'enjoyability of the game' standpoint, it makes them hard to differentiate in terms of who is most powerful.  I feel like the heroes have separated themselves into clear tiers, but within each tier it's not at all clear who should be ranked above whom.  Here are the tiers as I see them right now:

• At the top Eiskalt and Murglun are clearly head and shoulders above all other heroes.  They have a very Phoenix vs. Wilbur from Origins kind of dynamic - Eiskalt is like Phoenix and is best for dealing with large hordes of enemies, while Murglun is like Wilbur and is best for taking on single powerful enemies.  As you may remember, Phoenix took the top spot in the Origins challenge, but literally by the slimmest possible margin.  I feel it's going to come down to whether there are more horde vs. powerful enemy maps.
• The third, fourth, and fifth spots are still up for grabs between Beresad, Doom Tank SG-11, and Jack O'Lantern, and it's very hard to order them.  Every time I think of a reason to place one of them in the third spot, I think of another reason to put a different one there.
• The third tier is made of Mortemis, Jigou, Jun'pai, and Margosa, and again it's hard to rank them, especially because they're so different.  Jigou is without doubt the best tank in the game and is virtually indestructible (I feel confident we'll be able to call him the best tank in the whole series by the end).  Margosa is a great tank as well, but trades less survivability for much more DPS.  Jun'pai has a very useful kit and is great at both dealing with hordes and supporting a chokepoint.  Mortemis is basically a one-man chokepoint.  Again, it's going to come down to the types of maps we have to differentiate them.
• Poor Tramin I feel sits in a tier all by himself.  I definitely see him as weaker than all the above heroes, but at the same time stronger than the free heroes in the tier below.  We'll see what the grades say, but I'm feeling pretty confident about him taking 10th place.
• The free heroes - Veruk, Asra, and Oloch - form a tier at the bottom, which is appropriate for F2P heroes.  Here the ranking is much clearer.  I definitely believe Asra is the best of all of them and Oloch is clearly the worst.  Oloch has several problems I'm sure I'll go into detail about in later posts, but he is just very weak compared to all others.  Most notably, his hero spell, Seal of Isolation, is ridiculously weak compared to all others.  I'm debating whether it or Razz and Rags' Changeling from Origins is worse, but it's going to take some time to figure that out.

I'm disappointed to not have any real grades yet, but I'm still enjoying this challenge all the same.  I'm just aching to get to some real challenges finally.  Stick with me and we'll get there.

Kingdom Rush Vengeance (Steam) Impossible Hero Challenge - Bolgur's Throne Iron

Nope, not yet.  After heroic mode I had hopes that maybe this was the one, but while again there was the faintest of challenges, all heroes did 'A'-worthy jobs.

This is the first time I've done any of the iron modes, so I was surprised to see pre-built Goblin War Zeppelins when I started the map.  Of course I don't consider it to break my "only free towers" rule, since they're provided by the game, but it was fun getting to use them.  It's a brilliant move, really, giving F2P mobile players a chance to experience the premium towers and get that "see what you're missing" feeling to prompt sales.  I feel quite sure we'll see more premium towers in future iron modes.

Kingdom Rush Vengeance Impossible Hero Challenge - Bolgur's Throne Iron

Kingdom Rush Vengeance (Steam) Impossible Hero Challenge - Bolgur's Throne Heroic

I almost graded this map.  There was actually a hint of a challenge here, and things get slightly intense at a couple of points.  Veruk and Oloch required a little more management than the other heroes and I briefly considered that they might deserve 'B's, but considering how important this is - deciding when we have our first real challenge of the game - I went back and did them again and decided their performances were merely 'A-'s compared to all the other heroes.  Still, it gives me hope that we're nearly there.  Perhaps iron mode will push us into grade territory?

Kingdom Rush Vengeance Impossible Hero Challenge - Bolgur's Throne Heroic

Kingdom Rush Vengeance (Steam) Impossible Hero Challenge - Bolgur's Throne Campaign

ZZZZZ...<snort>, what?  Did something interesting happen?  No, the first boss fight was a total snooze for all the heroes?  Okay, wake me when there's a challenge.

Kingdom Rush Vengeance Impossible Hero Challenge - Bolgur's Throne Campaign

Kingdom Rush Vengeance (Steam) Impossible Hero Challenge - Clockwork Factory Iron

Another map, another batch of trivial 'A's.  The disappointment train rolls on!

Kingdom Rush Vengeance Impossible Hero Challenge - Clockwork Factory Iron

Kingdom Rush Vengeance (Steam) Impossible Hero Challenge - Clockwork Factory Heroic

Same old same old.  I am convinced at this point that we'll get through at least stage 6 with no meaningful challenges.  I have to say I'm a bit disappointed and how much they nerfed the difficulty, but I still like the game.

Kingdom Rush Vengeance Impossible Hero Challenge - Clockwork Factory Heroic

Kingdom Rush Vengeance (Steam) Impossible Hero Challenge - Clockwork Factory Campaign

These levels are so boring it's getting tedious to make all these videos.  Fear not, I remain committed and will press on in the firm belief that one day we actually will face a real challenge.

Kingdom Rush Vengeance Impossible Hero Challenge - Clockwork Factory Campaign

Kingdom Rush Vengeance (Steam) Impossible Hero Challenge - Golden Brewery Iron

There was at least a glimmer of a challenge here when I started this one, but ultimately with the right build (which isn't hard to figure out when you only have two towers to choose from) it ended up not being a problem.  I know challenges will come eventually, but right now it's hard for me to feel like I'm providing value with this series so far.

Kingdom Rush Vengeance Impossible Hero Challenge - Golden Brewery Iron

Kingdom Rush Vengeance (Steam) Impossible Hero Challenge - Golden Brewery Heroic

Well there's still zero challenge here so it's all 'A's again, but I feel bad making these posts with no real content other than the link.  To that end, since there's nothing to comment on regarding the videos themselves, I'd like to add more thoughts regarding the game that I've developed.

First, I'm really disappointed that this game is definitely buggier than previous entries in the series.  The previous three games were largely bug free on the main.  None of the bugs are really that big of a deal.  Mostly they are just problems with input responsiveness (not responding to mouse or button clicks), although during this particular playlist - I believe in Eiskalt's video - I did have an instance where one of my Specters Mausoleums froze and wouldn't fire anymore, necessitating selling it and rebuilding another.

Second, I'm rather shocked by how much they have nerfed spells (i.e., Soul Impact and reinforcements).  I'm assuming this is due to a desire to refocus the gameplay on towers and heroes.  Both spells perhaps reached the peak of their power in Origins, the previous game, where a lot of the hardest challenges came down to managing them very well, and perhaps the developers felt that was the wrong direction to go.

For reinforcements, it's notable that you no longer can have two sets out at once.  In previous games - at least with all upgrades - it became standard that reinforcements had a 10 second cooldown but lasted for 20 seconds.  So if you were always using them as soon as they came off cooldown, you would always have two sets (four units) of reinforcements on the field.  Here, even with all upgrades, the cooldown is 14 seconds with a duration of only 16, so there's virtually no overlap between sets.  In addition the units are weaker compared to their most recent Origins counterparts.  Now granted, we do have the Pit Lord upgrade, which is pretty cool and powerful, but I don't like that there's now an element of RNG in how much you can rely on your reinforcements.

But reinforcements got it easy compared to the nerf bat that was taken to Soul Impact.  In Origins Thunderbolt was immensely powerful - like clean out your chokepoint completely kind of powerful.  Only the most powerful enemies in the game couldn't be killed by a direct hit.  But Soul Impact can only kill the weakest enemies here, while moderately damaging more powerful foes and only tickling the strongest ones.

In previous games Rain of Fire / Thunderbolt had two very clear use cases: you either used it as an "oh crap" reaction to save a situation that had gotten out of control, or you used it preemptively to take out a dangerous mob or group of mobs that would be a major problem if they actually made it to your chokepoint (see Demon Legions in the original Kingdom Rush for the perfect example).  Here the only use seems to be using it on large groups of enemies to make things slightly easier.

I don't mean to sound so negative, as I really do like this game, but it's always easier to talk about the negative than the positive.  I'd like to have some positive things to say about our heroes, but first we have to find a real challenge for them.  I honestly think at this point we're going to make it into the second act of the game with all trivial 'A's.  I hope I'm wrong, but we'll see.

Kingdom Rush Vengeance Impossible Hero Challenge - Golden Brewery Heroic

Kingdom Rush Vengeance (Steam) Impossible Hero Challenge - Golden Brewery Campaign

Sorry, but it's still a snooze-fest.  At least all the padding from these easy 'A's bodes well for our heroes' final GPAs.

Kingdom Rush Vengeance Impossible Hero Challenge - Golden Brewery Campaign