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Defend Your Castle Review for the Nintendo Wii

Defend Your Castle Review for the Nintendo Wii

Defend Your Castle is a title that has an extremely simple premise. You have a castle to defend, and there are lots of stick-figured people running to destroy it. You defend your castle by disposing of these stick-figured people by grabbing them with your Wii-mote and flinging them across the screen. For the first few levels this seems pretty easy. But then things get interesting. < /p>

Defend Your Castle screenshot

As you progress in the game, more and more hordes of stick people will start showing up, and some will even bring weapons. Then you will notice the arrival of monsters that cannot be picked up off the ground. Fortunately, you will have several resources at your disposal to deal with these ever-growing intruders. After every level you are awarded a certain number of points. These points can be spent adding upgrades to your castle. Some upgrades can only be added once, like a sorcery or archery tower. More defensive power-ups like castle wall fortification can be continuously built upon.

One of the first power-ups you will absolutely need is the conversion pit. This pit appears every so often and allows you to drop in enemies and convert them to allies. These allies are incredibly important because they will be the fuel that drives every other power-up. And later on in the game you will need lots of allies to shoot arrows and help you defend the castle, so it is a good idea to stock up early.

Defend Your Castle screenshot

Although this game is really a blast to play, it should be said that the difficulty of the gameplay rises quite sharply around the fifteenth level. Instead of enemies coming at you in groups of three or four, they will come at you in groups of ten. The enemies also get much faster, and the difficulty in later levels is quite frustrating. This is definitely one area where the game falters a bit, just because the game has such a casual feel to it in the beginning. Once you get to a certain point, this game becomes virtually inaccessible to someone without extremely fast reflexes.

The visual style in this title is quite striking, simply because it looks like it was created by a local kindergartener. The stage has a diorama-feel to it, and little clouds hang down from the ceiling on strings. The castle looks like it is made of cardboard, and all your enemies are stick figures. And your on-screen reticule is a bread tie (the plastic ones that look like they have little teeth, not the twisty ties.)The whole visual style is quite crude, but it somehow retains a little bit of charm as well. The only qualm I have with the visuals is that when you are playing in more advanced levels, the simplicity of the stick figure hordes makes it quite difficult to distinguish them when you are faced with a whole bunch in a group.

Defend Your Castle screenshot

As far as control is concerned, this title is extremely simple. You grab little stick figures with the Wii-mote and are able to fling them across the screen with a flick of your wrist. Most of your power-ups are controlled via point and click, except for the magic power-up, which is controlled via a double tap on the d-pad.

Defend Your Castle screenshot

Sound in this game is not-so-good. There is absolutely no music, and the sound scheme relies solely on sound effects from the invading stick people and your own equipment. The stick people make little “ouch” noises after you fling them; the bombs go “kaboom” (there is literally a human voice that says “kaboom”); and if you let the little people close enough to your castle you can hear them beat on it. These little noises can get annoying, especially during harder levels when things are going very fast and all you hear is a choir of fist pounding and little, stick people noises. It can really give you a headache.

Another painful aspect of this game occurs after you’ve played for about an hour or so. Because the game relies on you licking your wrist very quickly, you may find yourself with one heck of a case of Wii-wrist after playing too long. So even though Defend Your Castle might be really fun, if your wrist starts hurting, give it a rest.

Overall, Defend Your Castle is a worthwhile title and a steal at only 500 points. Fans of games like PixelJunk Monsters will be drawn to its “defend the tower” style gameplay, and it is also fun for those who enjoy a quick pick-up-and-play experience. But I would exercise caution, especially to those who think this game is all fluff. There is definitely some difficulty in this title, and don’t be surprised if you play through a level several times. It may be frustrating, but perhaps in this way Defend Your Castle is rewarding as well. Just remember, stop playing when it starts to hurt!

RATING OUT OF 5 RATING DESCRIPTION 3.8 Graphics
Cutesy, hand-drawn characters give this title a fairly decent visual charm. And even though the drawings are crude, the game runs at 480p. 4.0 Control
Controls are very easy to pick up, and conducive to frantic movement. 2.0 Music / Sound FX / Voice Acting
There is no music, but little screaming/pounding noises will flood your eardrums. It’ll definitely give you a headache if you play for too long. 4.0

Play Value
With supposedly “endless” levels and up to four-player co-op, this title will keep you on the defense for quite some time!

3.7 Overall Rating – Good
Not an average. See Rating legend above for a final score breakdown.

Game Features:

  • 4 Player jump-in cooperative gameplay – Defend your Castle with up to 3 pals!
  • Compete with your friends for kingship – Get crowned for dominating other players and earn the right to manage the Kingdom!
  • Enhanced physics, particle, & weather effects.
  • Play on your big screen TV from the comfort of your couch in high-resolution Progressive Scan.
  • Screen Resolution: Up to 480p (Progressive Scan, Widescreen).

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