You have a build phase that sees you placing traps, turrets and more to fend off foes, with the game giving you a large variety of tools including trampolines that will let you bounce all over the map and even on top of enemies at the cost of HP. You can really get creative with how you plan things out and you can take advantage of environmental elements such as traps and explosives, as well as teleporters. Experiment a lot here, because you will find a lot of ways to set up effective defenses.
The action phase sees you take direct control of your character to find the enemies and activate traps, but it may not be exactly what you expect. Your defenses require electricity to run and electricity requires wind turbines which require wind in turn, and this gives a different degree of strategic planning. You can create wind using a cleaning brush to generate wind, but there are a limited amount of spots you can do this.
No, instead Tempest Tower is all about harvesting the souls of your enemies to create more defenses and move further. This game is all about constantly moving, expanding and evolving and there is a high stakes feel that puts a healthy anxiety in the gameplay. Of course these changing map also brings more hazardous environment elements and these can be used to your advantage, as long as you can quickly think and adapt.
You will need to learn to adapt quickly as the enemies can easily wreak havoc with your plans. Some enemies take way too much damage before going down, while others will block your defenses and obstruct your path even as the environment changes. This is part of Tempest Tower’s charm, however, as it is a game that does not let you just rely on one strategy to cheese your way through.
Tempest Tower is a game that is designed for short gameplay sessions and the mechanics, such as harvesting and using souls to power your tower, do not allow for long sessions. The enemies taking lots of damage before they die is tried into this, as it is the game forcing you to experiment and find new ways to take them down faster. It is a bit clunky, but it ultimately works okay.
Tempest Tower is overall a decent game with a good artstyle that is vibrant and colourful and contains a quirky atmosphere. There are smooth animations in the combat and the enemies are very well designed, as as the stages. The music could be much better, but that is the only real complaint I have in terms of the audio/visual design, and the game does well in presentation for the most part.
Tempest Tower does a lot to try something new with the Tower Defense genre and does give a satisfying experience for the most part, aside from some clunky bits. If you want to try a game in the genre that pushes it in a new direction, then Tempest Tower is for you.
Disclaimer: A review key was provided
