I've been a fan of Kingdom Rush for well over a decade now; I remember playing the mobile release for hours on my brother's crappy iPod, where not only were the icons and hit boxes ridiculously small, and how practically half the game was locked down behind a paid DLC wall, but my brother's device was in such bad shape, that I'd cringe every time I tapped the screen, scared that the glass would somehow crack even more than it already has. (and yet, even after all that time and abuse, that son of a gun still works!.....well, barely. it turns on). It was only during the 2020s when I actually got the PC version, which goes without saying is like ten times better than the mobile port I was playing before; but enough reminiscing about crappy iPods, is Kingdom Rush actually a good game? uhm.. yeah...?


GASP!!! The kingdom is in DANGER!!! An evil wizard-thing randomly shows up and is like “hey you know what I'm gonna take over the world and kill everyone” and only YOU and YOUR band of heroes can rush in and SAVE THE DAY!!!! !! !! !….. Of course, the basic plot is just window dressing for the REAL meat of the game: over twenty levels of Tower-Defense goodness. There are four different tower categories to choose from, each having their own pros and cons. The Archer Tower is your standard ranged attack; fast, easy damage. not a lot of power, but has some decent range. very cool. The Wizard Tower has good strength and great range, and can weaken enemy armor; but unfortunately, it's pretty darn slow, and many of the monsters are magic resistant, so that's just dandy. The Bomb Tower is a blast. …... (*cough*) uhm it it shoots short range explosives that can deal decent damage to several enemies at a time; but then on the downside, it's even slower than the wizard dudes. Last and least (in my opinion, that is), the Barracks. They send three soldiers out into the battlefield, blocking and attacking whatever enemy walks into their general area. The concept is fine, but these guys are weak as heck. Each tower can be improved upon four different times, producing a good variety of strategies to choose from. With your Archers, do you want to turn them into Rangers, with rapid fire shots and poison darts? OR would you like the Musketeers, with perfect accuracy and practically unlimited range? And with your bombs, would you rather the Big Bertha, and shoot a bunch of missiles and junk; OR would you rather have a Tesla? . . . . . . they shoot lightning at the enemies, and they're really cool; and no way associated with Mr. Billionaire Twitter Man. And let's not forget the HERO. Early in the game, you're given a whole smorgasbord of cool characters to pick from; each with two unique abilities, and can go anywhere on the map. When it comes to these guys, I usually go for ranged; with my two favorites being Bolin Farslayer and Thor. Bolin has a shotgun and drops landmines every few seconds, and Thor is Thor, the god of frickin' thunder. so like OF COURSE he's super cool. With that said, not every hero is made equal. Some guys, like Hacksaw or King Denas, are noticeably a lot less useful than others; having lower stats, lamer abilities, or generally just feeling like a dud. (the heroes actually cost real money on the mobile app version, and I remember my brother buying a couple heroes and being like what the freak this guy totally sucks!!). Some of the tower “improvements” are the same way. With Wizards, you could either go full Arcane, with instant death spells; or go Sorcerer, with the ability to turn enemies into sheep. it's kinda funny, but the sheep can still attack and invade your land; so who's gonna want to choose the Sorcerer? Finally, the game is surprisingly really easy, and every level just feels like it ends abruptly; at least during the main campaign. But those are just nitpicks. It's still super super fun.


Kingdom Rush is an incredibly well made game; it's just for the longest time I took that for granted. It probably had something to do with how I was an idiot tweenager, or that I was playing on a shattered phone with a screen smaller than the palm of my hand, but dang; I never realized what I was missing. The hand-drawn visuals are absolutely gorgeous. The map has tons of variety; starting in the open grassy plains, going deeper into the woods, climbing up a snowy mountain, before ending up in the enemy territory; at the center of a volcano. It's nothing you haven't seen before, but the variety is rock solid. The tower designs are awesome; all perfectly representing the power levels visually and all being totally distinct from one another. I even made a bunch of LEGO versions as a kid, including the Holy Knights and the Musketeer Tower; THAT'S how much of an impression they left on me. All the little cartoon characters look so cute. doesn't matter if it's an ogre or a gargoyle or a wererat or whatevs. they just look like silly goobers! The game can hold an insanely impressive amount of enemies on screen at once; often throwing over fifty different monsters at you without the frame rate even breaking a sweat. And then there are just fun details; like how every single one of your soldiers has a different name (yeah! you go get 'em, Sir Domino! ); or how if you click on the wild sheep enough, they'll just straight up explode (doesn't work on the magic sheep, though); or the roughly forty two thousand pop culture references. Look! There's Ratatouille! There's TMNT! There's Lord of the Rings! There's Lord of the Rings! There's Lord of the Rings!..... okay, like, more than half of these are just Tolkien related, but still! come on! you gotta admit this is cool! And that leads me to the game's biggest issue: it won't shut up. I'm perfectly fine with the visual gags and references, but the fact that every tower and hero spouts some “famous” quote every time you click on them is just crossing the line a little too far. For example, whenever you click on the Elves, they go “I see dead people”, and like omg that's what Cole Sear said in the hit movie The Sixth Sense the very same movie where the twist is that Bruce Willis was dead the whole time M. Night Shyamalan you are a GENIUS!! And like, it probably would've been funny once or twice, but every time?? shush. On the other hand, the music is just kind of there. It's decent, and fits the scenery, but it's nothing memorable; and all of it is just twenty second loops anyway. Totally alright, because the rest of the game is just that good.


Not only is the original Kingdom Rush still very very good; it's ALSO the best game in the franchise by far. Granted, I haven't played ALL the other titles, but the ones I have played suffer from sequelitis. They all try to go bigger and better, but they just give you more of the same; with every issue I listed here being more prevalent than ever before. OG Kingdom Rush just feels pure. The gameplay is still fresh, it doesn't overstay its welcome, and it's still tons of fun. Factor in the close to perfect production values, and you've got yourself a classic. I would play it on my phone, for old time's sake, but it died.

kingdom qm

Two thumbs up for the original entry of the series!