I apologize for the unexpected hiatus my YouTube channel and this blog have been on. Life hit pretty hard with the beginning of the new year and I had to take a break, and then of course any time you get out of the habit of doing something it takes a lot of work to get that momentum back, but at last here we are again.
The good news is that I have a fresh enthusiasm for Kingdom Rush, because if you haven't heard already the fifth Kingdom Rush game - Kingdom Rush Alliances - has been announced. Apparently it will return to the engine the first three games ran on, as opposed to the Vengeance engine which nobody liked as much. Here's hoping it also returns to the spirit of the first three games as well.
While no release date has been announced, I've still got a lot to do to get ready. I feel like I've been playing catch-up with the Kingdom Rush series for the last several years, but here I have a chance to dive into and produce content for a game at release. First I have to finish the new Hammerhold DLC. That shouldn't be a problem, as on my current schedule I should be publishing the final video for it on April 9th. I also have to finish my Isfet videos to add to the Impossible Hero Challenge, but those are pretty easy to crank out. Once I finish the DLC I should be able to publish one new map every day, which would finish that series in just a few more weeks. I also need to do the new DLC map-specific achievements, but again that's really easy to do.
The big challenge is I need to play Legends of Kingdom Rush to make sure I'm caught up on the lore (such as it is for the Kingdom Rush series). It's a tactics RPG, which has never exactly been a popular genre for me, but at this point I feel so committed to the Kingdom Rush series I would be remiss not to do that game. I will do video content for it, but if I can't get it finished before KR5 launches I'm not going to let that stop me from getting into that.
But back to where we are right now, I'll admit right now that it's been nearly a month since I completed this map, so I'm a little foggy remembering some of the finer details, but I did enjoy yet again another worthwhile challenge. This is yet another tale of two maps. I always start a new map with the bottom tier heroes (Veruk, Asra, and Oloch), and I found this one quite challenging. I couldn't insta-call new waves but had to manage them carefully. Then as I got into the bottom row heroes things were much easier. I was able to insta-call every wave, and with the additional experience I now had with the map I wondered if I couldn't redo the lesser heroes with insta-calls. So I went back and redid the top row of heroes, and with the lone exception of Oloch I was able by and large to insta-call every wave (there are some waves where I end up waiting a second or two because reinforcements are about to come off cooldown, but I still largely consider it an insta-call).
I must say I really liked this map design. I like the mechanic of the pyramids adding a little confusion to where you think enemies will come out. I especially liked the boss fight with Sha'tra. I much preferred that he was using special abilities against us as opposed to us going toe to toe with him in an actual fight, and the tower destruction ability was a nice callback to the final boss fight from Frontiers (although it's not random here and much easier to plan for thankfully).
Impressions
The grades are pretty standard and unsurprising here after the shakeup we had with the previous map. Jun'pai and Grosh did earn 'B's among the bottom row heroes unfortunately, but then this is a pretty challenging map. We're still waiting to see if they can throw a map at us that can challenge our true heavy hitters though.
Final Grades
- Veruk - C
- Asra - C
- Oloch - C
- Margosa - B
- Mortemis - C
- Tramin - B
- Jigou - B
- Beresad - A
- Doom Tank SG-11 - A
- Jun'pai - B
- Eiskalt - A
- Murglun - A
- Dianyun - A
- Jack O'Lantern - A
- Grosh - B
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