Earlier this week, Battlecruiser Games and Valkyrie Initiative updated Age of Defense with a prologue titled Age of Defence: Prehistory. At the time, I didn’t have enough experience in the ages to give an appraisal. That time has since dawned.
A tower defence title in the style of Kingdom Rush (I’ll make an effort not to refer to that throughout), you have a village of Neanderthal babies to protect from all forms that derive from the primordial soup, and it must be DESTROYED with the help of caveman-equipped towers.
We have to sneak this little line in: Age of Defense doesn’t reinvent the wheel (ha!) despite its recent revamping. You’ll be presented with a map with a winding path or two, perhaps some ready-placed towers, and an indication of where the waves will begin. Your job is to strategically place the towers most efficiently to combat the threat.
When this review was drafted, I moaned about the lack of dialogue and misinterpretation of the images, much like the excellent Boxville or another Neanderthal experience – Fire: Ungh’s Quest. I often overthink simple semiotics, and without Nic Cage to narrate these cave folk, I was initially frustrated. However… hover long enough, and the tooltips lead the way, and unsurprisingly, the gameplay is, indeed, intuitive.
Age of Defense follows the simple principles of an all-rounder tower (spears), ground/splash damage (boulders), and armour-destroying (shamen) that all have advantages and can be upgraded with better range and increased power as you progress. One area where the game does add a twist is the support tower.
I’ve already forgotten the tower’s name, but its purpose is to allow you to build more towers and buff nearby structures, improving range and power and adding a goo-type thing. These are essential in your plight against your enemies and make the whole upgrade-juggling element both exciting and thoughtful.
Age of Defense shares many similarities with a particular franchise, though it doesn’t have the same storytelling aspect, preferring to rely on cave-drawing animatics. Initially, I thought the humour was a little diluted. However, in the rare moment of taking in the scenery, I noted that there are a lot of in-jokes and Where’s Wally? (Waldo—across the pond friends) elements that you blink and miss.
The art style opts for a cartoony feel and works great, and surprisingly, so too does the UI once you get used to it. One of the things that made it more engaging was the frequent bosses, often populating areas where you still need to place towers. This isn’t the type of game where you want to invest in a definitive path like in PixelJunk Monsters with a premeditated course for the boss – they’ll pop up out of the blue and attempt to thwart that perfect run you’re aiming for.
What I love about Age of Defense is the skill tree. For each win, you’ll accumulate currency to invest in permanent abilities such as better range, stronger attacks, variations on towers that create a new class that is sometimes OP, and much more. This not only adds depth to gameplay but also replayability and that desire for perfection.
When I wrote my draft for this review on my phone, it was initially negative, moaning about the UI from when I played the prologue. However, it took just two more stages to change that opinion and devour one after the other, investing in new ‘tech’ and stat increases and anticipating where the next boss would attack from.
Looking to quench that thirst for the tower defence? Let me point you in the direction of this bad boy. Great fun!
