Game: Kingdom Rush
Genre: Strategy | Action
System: Nintendo Switch (also on Steam, Android and iOS)
Developers | Publishers: Ironhide Game Studio
Age Rating: EU | US E10+
Price: EU €7,49 | USD $9.99 | AUD $10.87 | UK £8.99| CAD $ n.a.
Release Date: July 30th 2020
Review code used, with many thanks to Ironhide Game Studios
Kingdom Rush is the first game in this series of tower defence games from Ironhide Studios. It was originally released as a flash browser game in 2011, but it’s come a long way since then. There have been three more games in the Kingdom Rush series. Kingdom Rush Frontier is the second game in the series and is already out on the Nintendo Switch and I reviewed it previously, which you can read here.
Fantasy Medieval
Set in a fantasy medieval era, in Kingdom Rush you play as the Royal guard who is defending the kingdom against waves of all sorts of evil hordes and the demon Vez’Na.
Kingdom Rush follows the formula of a typical tower-defense game. You place towers on the side of a path to destroy enemies that appear in predetermined waves. The objective is to defeat all the waves before they reach the end of the path, using the towers and certain abilities. Letting too many enemies through results in a Game Over.
There are four basic tower types, arrow towers, manned by arches, magic towers manned by mages, barrack towers with three little solders and bombard towers with a team of two dwarfs. All your towers can be upgraded five times, by using the coins you earn as you kill the waves of enemies. Upgrading the towers gives you more defences and powerful firepower to take out the waves of enemies with.
Two Abilities
You also have two cooldown-based abilities that can be used freely. One is a meteor strike from the skies that will damage any enemies it hits. The other brings out three soldier reinforcements which you can place on the playing field where ever you want them. The reinforcements are very handy when you’re in a pinch and feel that you’re being overrun by the waves of enemies. Having the ability to plonk down three reinforcements of soldiers has saved a few stars I would otherwise have lost on a level.
As time goes by you unlock heroes that fight for you with their own abilities and can be moved anywhere on the map, in all, there are twelve heroes to unlock. They gain experience when fighting so your heroes can become even stronger.
There is a vast range of enemy types from orcs and ghouls to goblins trolls and wulfs to name but a few. Some enemies are armoured which protects them from magical fire, so choosing and placing the appropriate tower to defeat the enemy is an important factor when you are considering what towers to use.
Game Modes
Correctly placing towers is, of course, essential, but players also have to decide which enhancements they want to purchase (using coins earned exclusively in-game), where to place reinforcements and when to summon meteors from the sky while the oncoming hordes keep advancing towards you. The pace of incoming enemies demands a significant level of strategy to handle successfully. Kingdom Rush isn’t a hard game, but it is a challenging game especially if you want to earn three stars on each level.
You have the choice of three types of game difficulties on stating up the game, Casual, Normal and Veteran. If you are looking for a real challenge I suggest you try the game in Veteran mode as you will certainly find it a challenge. There is a Champaign mode, this is the story mode of the game. After you beat the campaign mode with a three-star rating on each level, Iron challenge and Heroic challenge modes open up.
These two new modes offer you different types of challenges, such as only having two types of towers available to place or not being able to use a Hero during play. These sure do offer a challenge to the player to complete the game 100% if that is your goal.
Visuals and Controls
Kingdom Rush has vibrant colourful cartoon like visuals and they do look great on the Nintendo Switch screen. You’ll hear shouts of “Freedom” and “Reinforcements” from your army of troops on the field and grunts and cries from the waves of enemies as they meet their doom from the firepower of your towers. It all adds up to make a good-natured, humorous game for the player to get lost in.
Controlled by joy-con and touchscreen and either option works absolutely fine and the game runs just as smoothly as it controls. If there was one thing I would like added to the game it would be a fast forward button to speed up the waves of enemies but it isn’t a major issue and the game is fine without it.
Conclusion
Kingdom Rush is very well balanced, charming and with enough difficulty in it to even keep the veterans of Tower Defence games coming back for more. And with the extra modes and challenges Kingdom Rush offers the player a lot of content for replayability.
Kingdom Rush is a classic example of tower defense, it combines elements of old and new and brings it to the Nintendo Switch as a very fluid battle simulator. Really, if you’re looking for a solid, amusing and satisfying Tower Defense game you should pick this one up.
Final Verdict: I Like It A Lot 
As someone who has played the original version on Kongregate.com, it’s nice to see this will still breathe life when Flash will be taken down at the end of this year. I might even pick this up later on the Switch to have a tactic game to play once in a while on the go.
Hi Kishou,
It’s definitely worth picking up on the Switch and the second one in the series, Kingdom Rush Frontiers. Both are good solid TD games. Thanks for commenting.