Those of you who are cool enough to have an iPhone will probably know about Apple Arcade already. For those who don't I can explain in short that it's a subscription service for games created by Apple. It costs about $5 and gives you access to 100+ games that are created by various developers and published by Apple.

Services like these are quite popular these days and it's no wonder Apple boarded the train as well. The games on there are relatively mediocre in my opinion though. I tried it for a free month a while back and while there were a couple of cool games I saw no reason to stay subscribed after the trial ended. I also don't like having to keep on paying $5 every month to have access to my games. If you end your subscription it means you can't play those games again until you subscribe again. It's not all that bad if you just want to stay subscribed for a month or two and power through a couple of games though.

The other day I was browsing the App Store for something to pass the time when I noticed a new Kingdom Rush game had been released. These games are awesome tower defense games and I already own all of the previous games in the series.

To my big disappointment this new one in the series called Legends of Kingdom Rush was an Apple Arcade exclusive. Luckily though Apple was willing to give me yet another free trial month so I decided to just jump on it and download the game, hoping I would be able to finish it in a month.

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First Impressions

I already knew when downloading the game that it would be different than the previous titles. They've moved away from the Tower Defense genre and into the Turn Based Strategy genre. A genre that I generally don't like. I was however quite intrigued by the mention of rogue like elements so that was the biggest pull for me.

In the style of previous Kingdom Rush titles the game starts out with some comic panels explaining the general plot. Some evil dudes are trying to take over the world and we have to stop them. Our main character is an imprisoned Paladin and we have to escape the prison and town. Not an ounce of originality but that's fine. I'm here for the gameplay not the story.

There isn't really anything original by the general gameplay either. The combat interface is a standard hex based battlefield where you move your characters along. Much like you do in Heroes of Might and Magic. Some heroes are melee heroes while some are ranged heroes. Each character moves and do their actions in turn. Bleh, boring. Show me the roguelike elements already.

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Roguelike By A Stretch

They weren't joking when they said that the game had roguelike elements because it really only has elements of it. If I were to put my own words on it I would say that that it is a turn based strategy game with a randomized map. Although if you look at the definition of a Roguelike a randomized map is one of the elements of a roguelike.

What they refer to as roguelike elements are really just lesser randomized elements. Each chapter feature a large map with branching paths. Each of these paths lead to a location that features either a combat encounter, a random encounter where you get to make a choice, or a shop. Every time you restart the chapter the paths will be different.

A combat encounter will take you into combat, unsurprisingly. These seem randomly generated at first but after doing 5-7 combat encounters you'll quickly notice that it's just the same recycled encounters repeating over and over. The same enemies, in the same positions, on the same map.

The roleplay scenarios are the coolest but they're quite underwhelming as well. You'll be placed in some sort of scenario and will have to make a choice. Do you ignore the bush of berries or do you pick the berries? Ignoring it means nothing happens but if you choose to pick the berries you roll some automated dice for the outcome that will be either good or bad. This usually means the berries will either have healing properties or be poisonous.

In some encounters you might find a pickaxe that you might or might not need for a random encounter later on. Some encounters lead straight to combat. Some perhaps give your character one extra point of damage. This is pretty much all there is to these random encounters. I was expecting these to have ability enhancers, new skills and all sorts of cool stuff. Instead the rewards are really minuscule. Shame.

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Verdict

If you were ever considering getting Apple Arcade for this then my tip is to just don't. The game is quite barebones and unoriginal and doesn't bring anything new to the table that's worth paying $5 for. At least not seeing as you only get to play it for as long as you're subscribed.

I feel like they slapped the Kingdom Rush name on this and added some lesser randomized elements just to be able to call it a roguelike and draw in a bigger crowd. I see no reason why this game would have gotten any traction if it wasn't called Kingdom Rush. It's a real shame they stepped away from their Tower Defense genre. At least the old games are still there with their huge replay value.

I'll probably be checking out a few other games from Apple Arcade before my free month runs out. I already cancelled the recurring subscription so I'll loose access in about three weeks. I'm excited to check out the good old Game Dev Story that I found on there as well. I had some good times with that game on my old iPod Touch. Let's see if it aged well.

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All images in this post are screenshots taken by me.