Kingdom Rush Frontiers

Tuesday, June 25, 2013,

NEW YORK, Welcome to Kingdom Rush Frontiers, the sequel to last year's on-the-go tower defense hit. A year ago, I was introduced to the original Kingdom Rush, a simple game in which you built towers in select positions on a top-down map, endeavoring to stop a multi-wave invasion at your gate. It was instantly charming, with its cartoony visuals and overdone medieval catchphrases from your troops.

And the sequel is even better. Kingdom Rush Frontiers doesn't seek to change much. The soul of last year's game remains, so you'll pick up the mechanics easily. Improved variety, however, is what makes this game stand out. There are more tower types and more heroes to choose from this time, and you'll face more enemy types in more diverse locales. Heck, even heroes have more room to grow, with a bevy of different abilities this time around.

Frontiers also dials back the difficulty a little bit, although it will cost you. In the original Kingdom Rush, you simply couldn't make a mistake in a level; every building had to be carefully and strategically placed, because one wrong step could ruin your chances of surviving the multistep attack.

This time around, however, there's a bit more margin for error courtesy of a store filled with helpful item goodies. These items help by freezing all the enemies on the screen, or even giving you more money to build bigger towers faster. It's a double-edged sword of course, aiding those who can't handle Kingdom Rush's brutal difficulty while annoying purists determined to take the challenge with little assistance. But, overall, it adds to the game's lure, and it opens a challenging game to a broader audience.

Those items come in handy, too, especially in the final level, which features a disappointing boss who thwarts you less with skill and more with parlor tricks. It's a shame Kingdom Hearts Rush ends in such fashion, diluting an otherwise brilliant experience, but it can't be avoided.

If there is a downside to this $3.99 app, it is that it does end, too. Many tower defense titles, such as the excellent Plants vs. Zombies, include some brand of replay, and it's often done with some sort of mode that lets you face wave after wave of baddies until your defenses simply fail. It's a smart and simple way to test your limits, and it leaves you something to do once the story's done. Frontiers, however, lacks any brand of endless mode. You have two other modes for each level in addition to the story mode, and of course you can pay more cash for more heroes, and go through the entire experience again. But there's no sustainable mode past all these modes that you "beat".

Still, the overall experience is splendid, and this game should definitely be at the top of your iOS gaming list. There's a new frontier to conquer in Kingdom Rush.

And boy, is it fun.