Kingdom Rush Origins (Steam) Impossible Hero Challenge - Arcane Quarters Heroic

This is a fairly challenging map, with a difficult mix of hordes and bosses, physical resistance and magical resistance.  There's no secret to it besides a good build plan and really good micro.  Getting down the proper timing of Thunderbolts - and to a lesser extent Hero Spells - proved critical.

Impressions

This is kind of map that I would call "standard hard".  There are no games or tricks, just a lot of difficult waves of enemies with the mixes I listed above.  As such, it sorts our heroes pretty well into their usual rankings, and there isn't much to talk about.  I was a little surprised to give Bravebark a 'B' instead of an 'A', just like I was a little surprised to give Catha a 'B' instead of a 'C'.  Other than that, the grades are largely what you would suspect for a very hard map.

Final Grades

• Eridan - C
• Arivan - C
• Catha - B
• Reg'son - A
• Prince Denas - B
• Razz and Rags - C
• Bravebark - B
• Vez'nan - A
• Xin - B
• Phoenix - A
• Durax - A
• Lynn - A
• Bruce - B
• Lilith - A
• Wilbur - A
• Faustus - A

Best Choice

Wilbur kind of wins the award by default this time.  He didn't necessarily stand head and shoulders above the 'A' performers, but he still is definitely the best hero to tackle the map with.

Kingdom Rush Origins Impossible Hero Challenge - Arcane Quarters Heroic

Kingdom Rush Origins (Steam) Impossible Hero Challenge - Arcane Quarters Campaign

Well, I'm eating my words yet again, as we have yet one more trivial map.  Get the build right and the rest takes care of itself, with anything your hero does just being gravy on top.  By the end I'm upgrading Ashbite just for fun, and never even need to use Beresad.  So huzzah, 'A's for everyone and let's keep going.

I know I've said this before, but I really really believe this will truly be the last one.  As I write this I've actually already finished recording through the Shrine of Elynie map, so I know there are no more in the campaign, and based on my previous experience I do not believe we'll have that issue in any of the bonus maps, even in campaign mode.  So it should all be interesting from here on out.

Kingdom Rush Origins Impossible Hero Challenge - Arcane Quarters Campaign

Kingdom Rush Origins (Steam) Impossible Hero Challenge - The Ascent Iron

I really like this map - it's very challenging, and it really differentiates the heroes.  That is, you really have to develop a strategy for each hero according to their strengths, as opposed to just letting them sit at your chokepoint the entire time.

The first half of the map is all about fending off hordes of Twilight Harassers (and really, how perfect is that name for them?) and spiders.  The second half then becomes dealing with big enemies like Razorboars and a Twilight Golem, and all this with only ranged towers for DPS.  It presents an interesting challenge for almost every hero - AoE versus tanking, physical damage versus magical damage, etc.

Impressions

I like maps that feel easy to grade, and this was one of them.  Sometimes I struggle differentiating between 'A's and 'B's or 'B's and 'C's, but the performances here were pretty clear cut.

There are really no surprises with our A performers.  We have our honor roll of Wilbur, Faustus, Phoenix, and Vez'nan, and Reg'son joins them for his endless horde tanking ability plus Vindicator making the Twilight Golem and a few Razorboars non-issues.  I will say that I did hesitate slightly on Vez'nan's 'A'.  In the middle of the enemies there's a large pack on spiders on the south lane, and with his magical damage he did struggle to contain them, but ultimately he performed so amazingly on the rest of the map that it tilted the scales in his favor.

Arivan and Catha join the 'B' team for a pleasant change.  They both struggled with the large enemies at the end a bit, but their abilities did well at containing the hordes in the first half.

The 'C's were somewhat surprising.  I really expected to give Prince Denas, Bruce, and Lilith 'B's going in, but I really struggled with them.  With Denas I know it is just a function of his low DPS - near-endless tanking is great, but if you can't get rid of one wave of enemies before the next appears it doesn't matter much.  Being limited to ranged DPS with high armor enemies didn't do him any favors, either.  As for Bruce and Lilith, I'm starting to realize they're just not as great of characters as I wish they were.  They're not bad, just not good, and their rankings on our report cards are reflecting that.

And of course, it wouldn't be a hard map if Razz and Rags didn't earn a 'C'.  Looking at my grades spreadsheet, he's in serious danger of dropping below a 3.00 GPA.

Final Grades

• Eridan - C
• Arivan - B
• Catha - B
• Reg'son - A
• Prince Denas - C
• Razz and Rags - D
• Bravebark - B
• Vez'nan - A
• Xin - C
• Phoenix - A
• Durax - B
• Lynn - B
• Bruce - C
• Lilith - C
• Wilbur - A
• Faustus - A

Best Choice

Despite not being able to tank the Razorboars or Twilight Golem, Phoenix's AoE DPS is just so amazing that she made quick work of this map.

Kingdom Rush Origins Impossible Hero Challenge - The Ascent Iron

Kingdom Rush Origins (Steam) Impossible Hero Challenge - The Ascent Heroic

Again we have a heroic mode that's just a slightly harder remix of the campaign mode.  Given how easy the campaign mode was, "slightly harder" doesn't mean a lot, so everyone comes out with either 'A's or 'B's here.  There weren't really any surprises in who were the 'B' students, so again we'll skip impressions and go straight to the grades.

Final Grades

• Eridan - B
• Arivan - B
• Catha - B
• Reg'son - A
• Prince Denas - A
• Razz and Rags - B
• Bravebark - A
• Vez'nan - A
• Xin - B
• Phoenix - A
• Durax - A
• Lynn - B
• Bruce - B
• Lilith - A
• Wilbur - A
• Faustus - A

Best Choice

It feels like it's been a while since Wilbur took the top spot, but he does so here in convincing fashion.

Kingdom Rush Origins Impossible Hero Challenge - The Ascent Heroic

Kingdom Rush Origins (Steam) Impossible Hero Challenge - The Ascent Campaign

I was hoping that after finishing the enchanted forest section we would well and truly be done with trivial maps, and so far I'm mostly right.  This map was pretty easy regardless of hero, but our bottom two performers, Catha and Razz, did noticeably struggle a little bit more than our 'A' students.  They still did okay, so they do get 'B's, but it does save us from having another trivial all-A map.  There's really not much to say otherwise so we'll skip the impressions this time and go straight to the grades.

Final Grades

• Eridan - A
• Arivan - A
• Catha - B
• Reg'son - A
• Prince Denas - A
• Razz and Rags - B
• Bravebark - A
• Vez'nan - A
• Xin - A
• Phoenix - A
• Durax - A
• Lynn - A
• Bruce - A
• Lilith - A
• Wilbur - A
• Faustus - A

Best Choice

There were a lot of great performers for this map, making it too difficult to choose a clear winner.

Kingdom Rush Origins Impossible Hero Challenge - The Ascent Campaign

The Road Ahead

I'd like to indulge myself for a moment by imagining that there's anyone who actually reads this blog or cares about my YouTube channel and talk about the road ahead.  I know there actually isn't, so this post will just be a way for me to put my thoughts down in writing.  Having just finished a milestone in my Kingdom Rush Origins Impossible Hero Challenge, I figure this is a good time to do so.

The Past

Let's start by talking about the games I've already done, because some things are not yet complete:

• I want to do a 2nd quest video for Castlevania analogous to my first one.  There are a few secrets in the 2nd quest that aren't in the first, and the 2nd quest is obviously a lot harder, so I feel it is video-worthy.  If you recall my original post on the game, I talked about doing a speed run.  However, in the time since then I've realized that speed runs are just not my thing.  I'm a 100% kind of guy.  I may still try to do a high score run, we'll see.
• I pinky swear I really will finish my Baldur's Gate walkthrough at some point.  I love BG, but an issue I have with really large RPGs is that I need to be in the right mood for them in order to maintain momentum and keep going.  Once I lose momentum, it can be hard to get it back.  I don't remember what distracted me originally.  It may have just been fatigue with the game (I actually have several more videos that I completed but just haven't uploaded because they need editing).  But fear not, at some point I will get that itch in the back of my mind that will propel me back into the game.
• The only thing I still have to do for Ravenloft: Strahd's Possession is update my gameplay guide with new copies of the maps.  On this playthrough I did a much neater job of annotating the maps, and I'd like to put those better images into the guide.
• Now let's talk all things Kingdom Rush:
• I'm still loving my Impossible Hero Challenge.  I was worried that I was going to lose steam at some point (see the momentum problem I talked about above), but I'm actually still quite jazzed.  In terms of recording videos I'm actually working on the Shrine of Elynie, and I'm excited to finish that and start working on the bonus maps, which I know will really put our heroes to the test.
• I would like to do a Veteran Hero Challenge (since there is no "impossible" difficulty) for both Kingdom Rush and Kingdom Rush Frontiers as well.  However, this is probably going to be way down the line.  Let me admit something: my Impossible Hero Challenge series really was born from a sense of guilt.  You see, when I did my walkthrough series for the game, I chose the hero best suited for the map.  However, on Steam you get all the heroes when you purchase the game versus mobile where only the first three are available and you have to purchase the others.  I know there are people on YouTube doing walkthroughs for the game using just the free heroes, and that put an uncomfortable itch in my brain that I wasn't truly one hundred-percenting the game by using the better, non-free heroes.  So I decided I wanted to go back and do the maps with the free heroes, and then the idea hit me for this series of doing all the heroes and ranking them.  I still have that itch for both KR and KRF since I did the same with those walkthroughs.  However, doing a video series like this is a huge commitment (for Origins I will ultimately do 1,104 videos - 23 maps x 3 modes x 16 heroes).  The thought of tackling that for two more games is enough to keep the itch at bay for now.
• Kingdom Rush Vengeance is out on Steam now.  However, I have steadfastly avoided the temptation to purchase it yet.  I know the moment I do that I will switch over to it and have a hard time ever getting back to Origins.  So I am waiting until I finish my Impossible Hero Challenge before moving on.
• I really want / need to update my gameplay guides for all three games.  However, doing so is just never as exciting as actually playing the games, so it's a matter of pushing myself to do so.

The Present

I've got a few things in the works right now:

• Having completed Ravenloft: Strahd's Possession, I decided to go ahead and tackle the sequel - Ravenloft: The Stone Prophet.  This one is going to take a while, however.  I've only played about half of the game prior to this (it's just not as good as Strahd's Possession and I lost interest before finishing).  I need to do a first playthrough to figure everything out for an optimal walkthrough, then go back and actually record a walkthrough.  It will probably be a couple of months.
• Just as the Halloween season inspired me to get back into Ravenloft, it also inspired me to go back and play Limbo.  I'm currently working on a no-death, all secrets run.  I just need a little more practice before I start recording my attempts, and then of course it's a matter of actually making that perfect no-death run.

The Future

I certainly have many games in mind that I want to do - so many that I somewhat despair of ever actually getting to them all.  For this section I'm going to limit myself to games and series I've already played before.  I'm not sure what order I'll do them in, so I'm going to group games by genre:

• First let's talk RPGs:
• I'm a big fan of the old SSI AD&D games, and I definitely want to do their Darksun series: Shattered Lands and Wake of the Ravager.  Shattered Lands is one of my favorite RPGs of all time.
• Speaking of AD&D, after I finish BG1 (I promise!) I absolutely want to do BG2 as well.
• Of course no old games channel would be complete without the Ultima series.  I haven't played every single one, but I definitely want to do 1-7 and both Ultima Underworld games.  I'll probably do 8 as well.  I don't know if I'll have the stomach to do 9 - for those who don't know, it's the equivalent of the Star Wars prequels for Ultima.  I'd ideally like to include the two Worlds of Ultima games (Martian Dreams and Savage Empire), but that may have to wait.  I have no plans to do any of the console games - whether ports or originals.
• I'm a huge fan of the Quest for Glory series.  I've never played 5, but I have completed all the others, so definitely expect 1-4 and eventually one day 5 as well.
• There's a nearly-forgotten old game called The Summoning that I absolutely adore.  It's an old-school isometric action RPG, and it's fantastic.  It was made by a company called Event Horizon, which later became DreamForge and made the two Ravenloft games.  It's actually a semi-sequel to an earlier game called Darkspyre.  I'd like to try to play that one first, but we'll see.
• I've only ever played Lands of Lore 1, not 2 or 3, but I would like to do a video for it.  It's an interesting entry in the history of CRPGs - noteworthy, but not game-changing by any means.  I'll have to see if I'm inspired to try 2 and 3 afterwards.
• I'm interested in doing playthroughs of the original Diablo now that it's out on GOG.  However, I will admit this is low on my priority list.  I'm not sure how well a randomly generated hack and slash dungeon crawler would do as a video series.
• Now let's talk about simulation games:
• Most all D&D games made back in the 80s and 90s were made for the AD&D rules.  Very few were made for the Basic D&D rule set.  However, there's an obscure old game called Stronghold (not the better known Stronghold game from 2001) that was that I'd like to do.  It's not an RPG, but a 4X kind of game, but from way before modern 4X conventions.  As such, it has a certain charm in how laughably awful its interface is.  Nevertheless, I've spent many pleasurable hours with it, and I'd love to keep its memory alive. 
• Warcraft 1 and 2 are available on GOG now, so I'm planning to do series for them.
• I'm toying with the idea of doing the original MicroProse X-Com games - at least the first two.  I've only ever played Terror From the Deep, but if you don't know, it's largely just a re-skin of the original UFO Defense.  I have no interest in the few other games made after that, but I would like to do the 2012 Firaxis X-Com as well.  It is perhaps the best example ever of a remake of a game that captures the heart and spirit of the original while improving on it in every way.
• Speaking of MicroProse, they also published the very excellent games Master of Orion and Master of Magic.  The Master of Orion series is well remembered, as evidenced by the 2016 remake.  Master of Magic seems to have become a game that time forgot, however, even though it is just as good as - or arguably better than - Orion.  I'm not sure how well these games would do as videos, but I'm at least keeping them in mind.
• I played an old strategy game named Warlords 2 back in the day.  It probably wouldn't make for good videos, but it's one of those games I might do just for fun at some point.
• I'd also like to stroll down the history of FPSes as well:
• The original Wolfenstein 3D and its sequel, Spear of Destiny are definitely on my list.
• How could I do classic FPS games and not do Doom 1 and 2?  I have so many fond memories of Doom deathmatches with my friends from my teenage years.
• Half Life 1.  Enough said.
• My favorite FPS games of all time, however, are Serious Sam The First Encounter and The Second Encounter.  I don't have the time to go into why I love them so much here, but as far as I'm concerned, this is the height of FPS glory.
• And now miscellaneous PC games:
• Star Control 2 is one of the most fun and best written games of all time.  The story is serious, but at the same time it's possibly the funniest game ever made.
• Long before the modern Magic the Gathering games, there was originally the 1997 MicroProse game which took place in the world of Shandalar.  It was quirky, to be sure, but I have great nostalgia for it.
• Raptor: Call of the Shadows was a vertical-scrolling shooter from the 90s.  Not particularly memorable, but I did have fun with it back in the day and might do it just for fun.
• Plants vs Zombies
• Portal 1 and 2.
• This blog started out with a NES game, and I haven't forgotten them.  I need to get an El Gato to record from my NES Classic first, though, so it may be a while.  There are other games not on the Classic I want to do as well.  Here is the complete list I plan to (eventually) do:
• Castlevania 2 and 3
• Contra and Super C
• Final Fantasy
• Gauntlet
• Ghosts 'n Goblins
• Gradius
• Kid Icarus
• The Legend of Zelda 1 and 2
• Marble Madness
• The Mega Man series
• Metal Gear
• Metroid
• The Ninja Gaiden series
• Punch-Out!! (I'd do the original Mike Tyson version if I could)
• R.C. Pro-Am
• Shadowgate
• Super Mario Bros. 1, 2 and 3

The Far Future

I feel like just doing the games above that I've already played will take the rest of my life, but there are so many more classic games I want to play as well.  I'll just have to see if I ever get to them:

• There are several classic D&D games I still haven't played:
• Planescape: Torment
• Icewind Dale 1 and 2
• The Gold Box series
• The Eye of the Beholder series
• Other miscellaneous Forgotten Realms games
• The various DragonLance games
• I've always been interested in the Might and Magic series.  A friend in high school got really into them and I watched him playing them some, and they always looked like solid RPGs.
• MicroProse produced a game named Darklands that has somewhat been forgotten, but those who know it hail it as one of the best games of all time.
• I did technically play King's Quest 2 when I was a little kid, but I had no idea what I was doing.  I do love classic point and click adventure games though, so I'd love to do the whole series.
• There was a lesser known RPG series named Castle of The Winds.  History has not remembered it well, probably because it had the oddity of being a Windows 3.1 game, but I had a friend in high school who played it a lot and liked it.  I'm all for rescuing the memory of old games.
  
• Besides the original NES Final Fantasy, I've never played any other games in the series (yeah, I know), but I've always been interested in them.

This list is by no means complete - my GOG and Steam wishlists are much, much longer than this - but I feel I have to exercise some restraint and list only my highest priorities.

Great Games, But Not in the Cards

There are some games which I love unreservedly, but have no plans to do videos for:

• I'm a huge fan of the Borderlands series, but I have no desire to play them all over again.  It takes so long to 100% even one character, it would take years to do just 1 and 2.
• I love Skyrim as much as anybody, but I highly doubt anyone would be interested in watching my hard core OCD way of playing it.  I might change my mind on this one, we'll see.  On that note, however, this is the only Elder Scrolls game I've played, and I'd really like to do 1 through 4.  1 and 2 might be more amenable to doing videos for.

Kingdom Rush Origins (Steam) Impossible Hero Challenge - Mid-term Report Card 2

Having finished the faery forest it's time once again for a report card.  Let's look at the tallies and see how things have shuffled around:

• Wilbur - 4.00
• Faustus - 4.00
• Phoenix - 4.00
• Vez'nan - 3.91
• Bravebark - 3.82
• Durax - 3.76
• Reg'son - 3.55
• Lynn - 3.55
• Prince Denas - 3.52
• Lilith - 3.52
• Xin - 3.48
• Bruce - 3.42
• Eridan - 3.39
• Arivan - 3.39
• Catha - 3.30
• Razz and Rags - 3.12

Our three true damage dealers retain their straight-A streak, but Vez'nan's streak of perfection came to an end on the Neverwonder map, where the heavy doses of magic-resistant enemies proved too much for him.  Bravebark and Durax swap the 5 and 6 positions with each other, but remain within 0.06 of each other, as in the last report card.

While Reg'son's GPA only improved by 0.16, he nevertheless leaps way up in the rankings, going from third to last to being in the top 50%.  This isn't surprising, as mushrooms and Bandersnatches are particular specialties of his, and he grabbed no less than three Best Choice awards in this section.  Lynn joins him in jumping up from 13th to 8th.  As the enemies get bigger her strengths come more into play.

Prince Denas, Lilith, and Xin maintain their middle-of-the-pack rankings, but Arivan plunged from 9th to 14th.  There were a lot of maps he really struggled with on this go-round, generally due to his low DPS despite being a true damage dealer.  I have a bad feeling it bodes poorly for him in the second half of this series.

Bruce sadly maintains his spot in the 12th position.  I'm really hoping in the next section - with its heavy emphasis on large enemies like Razorboars and Twilight Golems - that we'll see him shine and move up the rankings.

The usual suspects round out the bottom of the rankings, but whereas Catha and Razz and Rags tied for last place on the last report card, Razz's GPA really plummeted and he unquestionably takes the distinction of worst hero here.  Catha struggles with very low DPS, but her Hero Spell is quite good and has a short cooldown.  Razz, however, has even worse DPS (the lowest of any hero), poor survivability, and Changeling is a very hard Hero Spell to find good use for.  While the idea of turning two large packs of enemies against each other and having them destroy one another sounds fun, the reality is that those kinds of scenarios are few and far between.  Usually the best use you can make for Changeling is just stalling a pack of enemies for a few seconds, which pales compared to all the other Hero Spells.

In terms of the maps themselves, we only had four trivial 'A' maps in this section, which was a nice change of pace from the first round of maps.  The hardest map turned out to be The Unseelie Court heroic, with an average score of 2.88 - almost rivaling Royal Gardens iron in terms of difficulty.

The next section of the game is only four maps long, but they're hard ones and have a different dynamic from a lot of the maps we've done so far, so I'm interested to see if or how the rankings shake up.  With eleven maps behind us and only four maps before us that's not a lot of chances to significantly change a hero's average GPA, but considering we're still only talking about 0.88 between the top and bottom, it doesn't necessarily take a lot to change the rankings - especially in the middle of the pack where the separation is very small..