Kingdom Rush Origins PC Gameplay 1080P 60FPS. As soon as you know Kingdom Rush HD is a tower defense game the brain starts ticking over with comparisons: the best and worst and the many, many more that operate in a limbo of mediocrity.

Mobile games, often repetitive by nature, can be hit or miss on PC and consoles. Kingdom Rush, like its first sequel Kingdom Rush Frontiers, is a major hit on the Switch. This simple tower defence game is a surprising gem packed with nonstop action and replayabili.

Four years after Kingdom Rush: Origins, Ironhide Game Studio is back with the fourth installment in the Kingdom Rush series. In Kingdom Rush: Vengeance, the tables have turned, as you play as the evil resurrected wizard Vez’nan in his quest for revenge on the forces of good.

On the surface this might seem like a simple orc-and-goblin reskin of the four standard tower types fans of the series are familiar with: ranged, magic, artillery, and troops. However, the tower defense genre has evolved since finding a home on mobile devices, and Ironhide Game Studio has a few tricks up its sleeve to keep things fresh.

Is it enough to justify spending $5? Read on to find out!

Flipping the script

The first few minutes of Kingdom Rush: Vengeance set the scene for the rest of the game. The evil wizard Vez’nan is resurrected to find his castle turned into an amusement park for curious elves and dwarves. This kicks off a campaign to reconquer his land with the help of orcs, goblins, demons, skeletons, and other baddies.

Kingdom Rush: Vengeance will feel familiar to fans of the series. This is a good thing, since tutorial essentially finishes halfway through the first stage. You start with the four tower archetypes, and unlock more as you progress through the game’s 17 levels.

With 15 waves and no autosaving between waves, play sessions feel a bit too long for mobile

Early stages are pretty short, with five to ten waves of enemies, increasing to 15 waves round halfway through the game. Combined with not having an option to speed up the action other than calling waves early, later levels feel long. It’s not a game you can pick up and play in short bursts. Kingdom Rush: Vengeance is a game you’ll want to sit down and play for at least 30 minutes at a time, which is unusual for a mobile game.

Games like Bloons TD 6 get around this with an autosave feature between waves. This was left out of Kingdom Rush: Vengeance — there isn’t even a pause between waves. Keep that in mind before you start playing so you don’t lose your progress.

Commanding the dark army

One of the features the Kingdom Rush series adds to the tower defense genre is its hero system. In addition to plopping down turrets in strategic locations, you need to move your hero around the map to slow down sudden surges of enemies.

Kingdom Rush: Vengeance leans hard into this gameplay, which is far more interactive than similar titles. Halfway through any level a new path might open up in a spot where you haven’t built a single tower. Later, enemy heroes might shower arrows on your defenders at random intervals in the match. Clever use of your hero, spells, and items are the best way to survive these hectic situations.

Six of the game's nine heroes are locked behind a paywall

Throughout the campaign you can unlock three heroes in total, with another six heroes locked behind a paywall. Each hero has their own abilities and ultimate (the third spell you can use), and they level up as they gain experience.

At no point is it necessary to pay for heroes, as usual for the series or the genre as a whole. Still, a paid game with in-app purchases might put off some users. This is only made worse by the decision to lock away a full two thirds of the game’s heroes behind $3 to $8 micro-transactions.

Unique tower customization

The biggest departure in Kingdom Rush: Vengeance from its predecessors is the upgrade paths for towers. Rather than four basic towers with upgrade paths that dramatically change their abilities halfway through a level, Vengeance opts for more basic towers with more linear upgrades.

15 best paid games on Android

In practice, this means your Shadow Archer tower is always a simple archer tower. This sounds lame until you unlock other towers that fulfill a similar role, like the boomerang wielding Goblirangs, or the bone tossing Bone Flingers. They don’t change much, but these towers and their unique mechanics are available from the start of each match.

This adds an extra level of strategy before the match even begins, since you have to choose just five towers to take with you. You may find yourself hopping out of matches after a few waves if you’ve made the wrong choice.

With 11 towers available as the game progresses, there’s no lack of variety despite the simplified upgrade paths. For those with deep pockets, there are an additional five towers available for purchased. Like paid heroes, the purchasable towers are in no way necessary to complete the game, and in most cases other towers fulfill a similar or identical role.

Paid towers are not required to complete the game, but their presence may turn away some users

Still, that brings the number of in-app purchase types to three, with gems, heroes, and now towers available behind a paywall. To some it might sound like Ironhide has embraced the evil nature of Kingdom Rush: Vengeance with this level of monetization, but it’s par for the course in the mobile market. Developers have to eat too, and a game as polished and balanced as this deserves a full course meal.

Kingdom Rush: Vengeance review – Conclusion

Despite its potentially controversial in-app purchases, Kingdom Rush: Vengeance is an excellent game. Fans of the previous games in the series will not regret picking this one up. Those new to the series and on the fence can always try out the first game, Kingdom Rush, which is free to play.

Click the link below to download the game from the Google Play Store, and let us know in the comments what you think of it!

Kingdom Rush Online

• Topics

  Replies

  Views

  Last post

Kingdom Rush Pc Review Cnet

• Kingdom Rush: Vengeance Bug Reporting
  1, 2, 3by RaZoR LeAf » Sun Nov 25, 2018 11:05 pm

  50 Replies

  37193 Views

  Last post by Maher079
  Thu May 30, 2019 9:30 pm

• Kingdom Rush Wikia - NEW Discussion Thread
  1, 2, 3by RaZoR LeAf » Sun Nov 18, 2018 6:12 pm

  59 Replies

  34603 Views

  Last post by AerisDraco
  Thu May 23, 2019 2:23 pm

• Kingdom Rush and Kingdom Rush Frontiers Bugs
  1 ... 39, 40, 41 by Jefferino1 » Wed Jun 19, 2013 5:32 pm

  806 Replies

  515202 Views

  Last post by a018925
  Sun May 19, 2019 8:30 am

• Kingdom Rush: Rift in Time - Boardgame
  by RaZoR LeAf » Thu Feb 28, 2019 10:54 pm

  9 Replies

  8964 Views

  Last post by RaZoR LeAf
  Thu Apr 25, 2019 7:19 pm

• Kingdom Rush: Vengeance
  1, 2, 3, 4, 5by RaZoR LeAf » Tue Jul 17, 2018 8:43 pm

  85 Replies

  57594 Views

  Last post by Uranato
  Thu Mar 28, 2019 1:30 pm

• Kingdom Rush Origins Bugs
  1 ... 9, 10, 11by TibsThePhoenix » Sat Nov 22, 2014 10:43 pm

  217 Replies

  229444 Views

  Last post by Hbanh89
  Fri Mar 15, 2019 6:34 am

• A HERO IS BORN - The Hero created by the Community
  1 ... 62, 63, 64 by The_TaTs » Tue Feb 03, 2015 12:57 pm

  1273 Replies

  558146 Views

  Last post by Silverblaze
  Wed Aug 26, 2015 11:02 pm

• Boss Stage Discussion
  by Uranato » Mon Dec 14, 2020 3:44 am

  4 Replies

  240 Views

  Last post by Uranato
  Fri Dec 25, 2020 6:18 am

• Hero Spell Discussion
  by EpicPhantom999 » Mon Dec 14, 2020 3:44 am

  6 Replies

  138 Views

  Last post by EpicPhantom999
  Mon Dec 14, 2020 9:18 pm

• BOSS STAGE ELIMINATION GAME (closed)
  1, 2, 3, 4, 5by Uranato » Sun Nov 29, 2020 6:41 am

  88 Replies

  1502 Views

  Last post by Uranato
  Mon Dec 14, 2020 4:04 am

• KR Hangman + Lamely Trashtalking!
  1, 2, 3, 4, 5by EpicPhantom999 » Mon Nov 30, 2020 1:23 am

  87 Replies

  1319 Views

  Last post by EpicPhantom999
  Sun Dec 13, 2020 1:36 am

• Poll for Boss Stage Elimination Game players
  by EpicPhantom999 » Mon Nov 30, 2020 3:06 am

  3 Replies

  232 Views

  Last post by Uranato
  Wed Dec 02, 2020 5:45 am

• (KR Series PC) Problems connecting headphones while running
  by seonguki » Fri Aug 28, 2020 8:59 am

  0 Replies

  587 Views

  Last post by seonguki
  Fri Aug 28, 2020 8:59 am

• Finally 'The Dark Tower' (Veteran) without rain of fire
  by sismachine » Sat Jun 20, 2020 9:34 pm

  3 Replies

  1089 Views

  Last post by Ninja
  Sat Jun 27, 2020 10:39 am

• KINGDOM RUSH: THE ULTIMATE CONCLUSION
  by Thejoker » Tue May 05, 2020 9:35 am

  2 Replies

  2070 Views

  Last post by RaZoR LeAf
  Tue May 05, 2020 10:36 pm

• Is it impossible to beat kingdom rush without Artillery?
  by Beresad Gold Hoarder » Mon Feb 17, 2020 8:27 pm

  2 Replies

  2540 Views

  Last post by Beresad Gold Hoarder
  Tue Feb 18, 2020 6:28 am

• KR:F on Switch?!
  by Ninja » Thu Feb 06, 2020 2:10 pm

  5 Replies

  2968 Views

  Last post by AerisDraco
  Sun Feb 09, 2020 4:02 pm

• Kingdom Rush Vengeance lack of full 18:9 display
  by Hbanh89 » Sun Dec 29, 2019 10:47 am

  0 Replies

  2607 Views

  Last post by Hbanh89
  Sun Dec 29, 2019 10:47 am

• A COMPREHENSIVE GUIDE TO THE CURSED BARGAIN
  by Uranato » Tue Nov 05, 2019 4:04 pm

  0 Replies

  3616 Views

  Last post by Uranato
  Tue Nov 05, 2019 4:04 pm

• KRV towers: The Big 3
  by kicorse » Sun Sep 22, 2019 3:48 pm

  11 Replies

  6564 Views

  Last post by Uranato
  Tue Nov 05, 2019 4:02 pm

• Did my hero idea become canon?
  by Ariock » Sat Oct 26, 2019 4:15 pm

  1 Replies

  3005 Views

  Last post by RaZoR LeAf
  Sun Oct 27, 2019 4:14 pm

• The community asked for it!
  by RaZoR LeAf » Sat Oct 26, 2019 11:11 am

  1 Replies

  2710 Views

  Last post by AerisDraco
  Sat Oct 26, 2019 7:21 pm

• Heard good things about this game
  by PitNata » Fri Sep 06, 2019 2:34 am

  0 Replies

  2975 Views

  Last post by PitNata
  Fri Sep 06, 2019 2:34 am

• The Devs are gonna listen to our balancing stuff
  by NastyBird339 » Wed Apr 24, 2019 2:39 am

  2 Replies

  4988 Views

  Last post by PitNata
  Sat Aug 31, 2019 2:01 am

• Aeris' KR Civ-type game thing
  1 ... 9, 10, 11by AerisDraco » Sat Aug 26, 2017 6:04 pm

  213 Replies

  117758 Views

  Last post by PitNata
  Sat Aug 31, 2019 1:49 am