Legends of Kingdom Rush – PC Review

Genre: Turn-based strategy roguelite
Developer: Ironhide Game Studio
Publisher: Ironhide Game Studio
Release Date: July 14th, 2022
Edited by AlexKnight2005

Evil magic has started to take over the land; what could the townsfolk ever hope to defeat them? Luckily, a band of heroes escaped the clutches of their wrongful jailing and will make the journey to defeat this land foe! It won’t be easy, but they’ll make new friends along the way, which could help them.

Legends of Kingdom Rush is a turn-based tactical strategy game mixed with rogue-lite elements. The stage setup and the world are based on the running title of Kingdom Rush, which is known for its tower defense games.

They decided to take a different approach to this game and combine aspects of multiple genres to create the mechanics. It can be interesting if done correctly, but the ideas seem to clash a bit down the road. The map layout to travel is similar to the roguelikes, where the areas are places you can choose to go on a path, where different spots have either enemies, events, shops, or items. You can plan accordingly to go to certain areas due to how your party is set up or if something piques your fancy. Each level consists of your getting to the end where the boss is; after defeating them, you can move on to the next level. At any point, though, if your entire party is wiped out, you lose everything you had and need to start from the beginning again.

There are a few heroes to pick from at the beginning that provide the basics for combats against the typical enemies you’ll encounter. And during your journey, you’ll also get to recruit a random member to your party during your choices along the paths that don’t stay at the end but still provide needed help. If certain criteria are met, you can use them for the next adventure. Each hero has different abilities that you level up depending on how many areas you do, along with a separate leveling system during the map sequence. They can be mages, summoners, healers, fighters, or assassins, all with a style you can tune to your liking. Just like any turn-based game, each class has advantages or disadvantages on the field. Some can move farther than others or are strong at ranged attacks but suffer from lower health. In contrast, others have a lot of health but can only move a short amount but do amazing damage. Depending on how you’d like to balance that, it can be fun to figure out what works level to level.

Issues appear during the mix of roguelike and turn-based RPG elements with leveling and the classes. It feels weird and out of place to have two different leveling systems where one doesn’t even stay. Your heroes’ overall level lets them unlock new abilities, but those abilities can only be unlocked if you choose to give them a level up during the map phase, which they lose regardless if you beat the level or lose. It makes progression feel kind of unrewarding. Especially when you’re limited to who you want to level as you can only get a certain amount of experience per run to give. There isn’t anything else to progress with besides maybe getting a new hero to use or the linear storyline. Since the only thing you can continue to work towards is the new heroes you can potentially unlock, which are already passively given just by playing, the gameplay doesn’t provide enough initiative to push for certain things.

The game has a fun cartoony style with cool and weird-looking characters. They all fit the land well, making for what you think any fun style can provide. While the sound design is simple to fit its style, it fits well within its world. With exactly what is stated in the game’s description, the bad, corny jokes are a staple. Overall, visually fun aesthetic but very reminiscent of the mobile game art style.

The way they had an idea to combine turn-based and rogue-lite were interesting, but as you continue to play, it feels like it wasn’t connected properly and falls short. Having what seems to be an already fleshed-out strategy and level design but not having either mechanics from either genre fully or not having them implemented fully from one side or the other felt like the core gameplay was lost. It didn’t have enough to keep the attention or incentive to continue.

It had an interesting concept, but it was incredibly hard to find encouragement to trek on till the end. While it does offer some cool characters, it’s weirdly gated by how short the amount of time it takes to beat the whole game. To try these new characters out, you’d need to replay the areas you’ve already beat with minimal procedural actions. There aren’t new events to unlock, new types of weapons, or items to unlock; once you go through with what you had before, it doesn’t offer much replay value besides the challenges.

Pros:

• Fun art style
• Interesting concept

Cons:

• Short
• Little replay value for what it was going for
• Conflicting Ideas
• Almost no progression or reward system

Avorok gives Legends of Kingdom Rush a Drastik Measure of 4.8 out of 10.0 (48)

I feel they played a bit too safe with what they did, and it ended up falling short. It was well made and wasn’t glitchy or full of bugs, but the overall gameplay itself was just too off-putting and short. However, I wish to see something along these lines more often, such as a turn-based rogue-lite or roguelike. You can pick up Legends of Kingdom Rush on Steam for $14.99.