

It helps keep things feeling fresh, living up a familiar formula with great touches, though Likewise, levels are also filled with things you can tap on to help you out, such as magic plants that attack anything in range, or simply make you grin a bit, like the topiaries that pay homage to classic games. It makes for a game that feels a little more dynamic than your typical tower defense, offering more difference between levels than simple path layout. Stages in Origins can be very unpredictable, with enemies finding shortcuts and new spawn points appearing when you least expect it. While the mechanics are the same apart from some swaps like the loss of the Dwarven Bombard tower in favor of a Druid type that deals the same sort of splash damage, Origins has clearly spent a ton of time and effort into crafting new environments and enemies.

But while the gameplay hasn't really shaken things up much, Kingdom Rush Origins is what you've come to love with its muscles oiled and polished until you can see yourself in them. All of this should sound familiar to fans, and indeed if you've been with the series from the beginning, you'll feel right at home. Some enemies drop gems that can be spent on single-use power-ups, for when you need that extra bit of devastation. How well you handle a stage you've won determines the number of stars you're awarded, which can be spent on permanent upgrades for tower types and abilities. You've got your spells, which can unleash handy destruction but come with a cool down tiner, and your powerful hero unit, who can level up and learn new skills and always respawns after a time. You build and upgrade towers of different types at build sites along the pathway, trying to prevent enemies (who drop the loot you use to create your defenses) from reaching the opposite side of the screen. Kingdom Rush Origins, now available for iOS and Android, is still a Kingdom Rush game, which means a lot of tiny little heroes and monsters duking it out with adorable Adam West Batmen sound effects.

There are few realtime strategy/ tower defense games that achieved the sort of massive success of Ironhide Games' Kingdom Rush games.
