The alliance of Linirean towers with Dark Army heroes and vice versa dominates the whole of this entry to the Kingdom Rush series and that's not a bad thing. Two heroes can be active at any given time, presumably so you could have one of each, though you chose to double up instead. The upgrade tree is no longer a series of slight improvements to this tower type or the other as it's now all about different ways to balance the alignments of heroes and towers you chose to bring to the battlefield. Barracks as well, one of the main things this series does differently than other games in the tower defense genre, take a back seat to quickly maneuvering heroes and placing reinforcements, making for a more frantic sort of experience.

Maybe it was the sheer amount of powerful heroes and towers available by the end of the campaign - when Impossible difficulty is unlocked - but I can't say I noticed a difference between the top difficulty and the one below it. That story flipped entirely when it came to the Heroic and Iron challenges though. For a few of those, I had to knock it back down to Causal, even after blazing straight through the latter Kingdom Rush levels on Impossible.

One thing that may have played a role in that reversal, at risk of spoiling the central mechanic of the last third of the game before a tooltip does it for me, is the Glare of the Overseer hazard. It's always placed in such a way that it frustrates and demoralizes before the level even starts. Usually this sort of thing would reinvigorate strategic thinking, but with all the dangers it represents and no way to reasonably stop them from triggering, the only course is to work twice as hard. The extra abilities it activates in enemies were a joy to watch and did themselves lead to a shift in approach though.

Alliance - before counting up the hours to be spent in different difficulties or the Heroic and Iron challenges - features the same amount easter eggs to hunt for through the standard fifteen levels as the rest of the Kingdom Rush games did at launch. It may not always seem as long as previous entries due to its three parts feeling quite disconnected. The thematic changes, especially between the first and second part, cause the game to read as three very short games tied together instead of a single unified one. The leap in enemy health at the beginning of each of these parts doesn't help either, but that does even out as more gold and a greater diversity of towers are added to the mix.

In the end, that might all just be a justification for wanting more, the first installment of which is impatiently anticipated in October, despite that being only three months after Alliance's release.

Fun game fairly short at the moment but worth the price all around and a great countioation of the series! I love the other games and have beat them on mobile!

One of the best kingdom rush I have ever played. I really enjoyed my time with it, and its really challenging at the end it cost me a lots of attempts to get all 3 stars.