Royal Defense: Ancient Menace is a Tower Defense style game developed by Big Fish Games. In it, you will try to defend against the rising hordes of orcs as you build towers and bunker up behind your castle.
The story of the game is pretty straightforward, so much so that the brief summary on the beginning paragraph says it all: You are tasked to protect your base from invading orcs. At first it might not seem so, since you start by being under attack by wargs (in essence, very large wolves) but you soon realize who is behind these attacks as their orc masters come as added units riding them. Since this is a Tower Defense game, you will take a mostly passive approach to the war against the orcs, mostly waiting for them to attack you as you blast them with your cannons. But more on that later.
The game’s art style is indeed to the point, with a very war-like aesthetic. All roads are torn down and destroyed, with molten lava pouring out from nearly every hole on the ground. This unsettling landscape is what you will come to call home, as you use every cliff and surface to establish your defenses.
While everything is in 2D graphics, all units have a 3D quality on them that makes them pop out into view. Enemies and allied units alike have a distinct look and sound, and that really helps while strategizing on the different levels since having a clear look at all times is crucial.
Gameplay wise, this is as classic as a Tower Defense game can get. Your main goal is to survive, that is to have your central base survive. If it takes enough of a beating, you lose. The way your base is attacked is by the approaching enemy units, who follow a set path and go across it until they reach your fort. To stop them, you have to place cannons and other diverse methods of artillery at strategic points around the roads, and blast the nasty orcs as they rush by. These turrets cost gold, and while you start each level with some the only way to make more is by killing orcs.
Placing the turrets is the main way to achieve victory in the game, since you need to pay careful attention to understand where your cannons can fire, and where the enemies are coming from. Before a wave starts, you have a small indicator showing you from which avenue they will storm from. You can place turrets close to their entry point, or if you’re feeling savvy you can place them at crossroads, so each turret can be of use in multiple scenarios. If you notice a heavy wave coming from an already crowded area, you can also spend gold on upgrades, making your artillery shoot further and faster, and of course deal more damage. A big step up of this title among its peers is that you can place a cannon on top of your base as a last line of defense, since if you get attacked from a lowly defended angle you at least always know where the enemy is headed.
As the game advances, the strategy deepens, and if you’ve been paying attention you will know what to expect. For example, the base cannon you can build has the ability to shoot down aerial units, yet you won't encounter one for quite some time. Once you do, these units ignore the regular paths and the game will not point you towards the newest solution, since there isn’t one; you simply have to realize to use your old, original cannons against these creatures. Besides the cannon types, you also have to strategize when to use certain power ups, like the meteor shower that does heavy damage against crowded foes, or the ice beam that slows down units. One is deceptively more powerful than the other.
Royal Defense: Ancient Menace is a fun and fast paced game that will give you the thrills you are looking for with little filler on the side. It really goes to the point, and the point is non stop action and plenty of orc slaying.
