Reviewer: Chad M.
Developer: SMG Studio
Publisher: SMG Studio
Category: Action, Arcade, Role-Playing, Strategy
Release Date: 5.6.2019
Price (at time of review): $7.99
Buy OTTTD: Over the Top Tower Defense from the Nintendo Switch eShop here.
What Genre Towers Over You?
My Switch is filled with games from every genre, and the eShop is overflowing with all these different games as well. So, every time I go to play or review a new game, I check the list to see have I played anything similar lately. That’s when I came across my newest game, OTTTD: Over the Top Tower Defense—which is a tower defense game, if you couldn’t guess—and I realized I’d never played a tower defense game on the Nintendo Switch before. I used to play them quite often on my iPhone or iPad several years back, but they had seemed to kind of fizzle out.
Over the last year, I’d seen a couple in that genre come to the Switch that I was very curious to try out, but I never did. Luckily, OTTTD is from the Aussie developers SMG Studio, who brought us Death Squared, a game on the Switch that I love, who’s puzzle mechanics and witty humor won me over. So, let’s see if SMG Studio can strike gold twice—and also make my first tower defense experience on the Switch a fun one!
Hero’s Gotta Get Paid In The Future
In OTTTD, the game puts you in charge of commanding forces for the HEROCORP™ on the front lines of defending Earth from some of the craziest—as well as weirdest-looking—minions and huge boss fights. You take on evil crabs with guns strapped to their backs, giant tank-like turtles, zombies, and giant killer teddy bears; and as for the boss fights, how about taking on a giant blimp-like cyborg shark with missiles blasting from the sides trying to kill your troops and wreck everything? As the HEROCORP™, you are tasked with stopping waves of enemies coming from all sides of the game board from reaching your headquarters. You’ll keep ripping through your enemies until Earth is safe from the evil hordes, even if we’re portal-traveling all over and taking the fight to them.
Two Towers Are Fighting Over It All
The controls are done the best they can be, as tower defense games are usually best experienced on PC or tablet, in my opinion. I played them quite often on the iPad, as mentioned before, so the developers leaving off the ability to use the touchscreen in the Switch is puzzling, as I feel that combining the touchscreen and normal controls could’ve taken the handheld mode to another level. So, instead, I played mostly docked with a pro-controller, and after getting into the groove and learning the controls, it played well.
You start each stage with the headquarters smashing to the ground, and one by one, new towers being introduced. The towers range from standard gunner turrets, electric Tesla, to slow troops, pulse rifle turrets, and missile launchers. Each tower can be upgraded three times, usually bulking them up and making them more powerful, and they can also be converted into other tower structures; for example, the missile launcher can be upgraded from shooting two missiles, all the way up to six missiles, but then it can be converted to an anti-aircraft missile launcher that can again be upgraded.
The enemies come in waves; the early levels start with simple paths, but then, before you know it, you’ll have to manage multiple paths and tons of enemies, from fast to slow, big to small, and they’ll even fly in to get to that headquarters. The 7 different troop classes really allowed the game to take on another form, adding an RPG element where you can spend skill points you’ve obtained; and when you defeat levels, you get money and red gems that you can spend to upgrade your troops further with better guns and armor.
The epic boss fights were a pleasant surprise. I mean, who doesn’t want to battle a giant mech shark?! There are 25 story mode levels and several endless mode levels. As I said, you’ll battle steampunk crustaceans and nightmare-infused zombie hordes, and as you level up your troops, the enemies level up as well, keeping things interesting and loads of fun.
Audio & Visuals
The soundtrack is an upbeat affair, with plenty of catchy tunes by Sydney-based Batterie, but what I enjoyed even more was the hilarious voice acting, which is top-notch. All the towers sound as they should, with the missiles ripping through the wind before smashing into the enemies, Gatling guns rattling out bullets, and you can even hear the sound of my favorite trooper, the sniper’s large-caliber rifle, as it discharges, cracking loudly.
The visuals are here in a cartoony fashion, with blood, guts, and bullet shells all over the battle field. All the hero troopers look very different and stereotypical, like the skinny sniper and big brute gunner. The enemies are diverse, as there are quite a lot of them, with varied levels over three different types of terrain.
It’s A Wrap!!!!
OTTTD is a top-notch tower defense game with a lot of humor and heart. The controls keep it from being a perfect experience, but with everything else falling into place, and SMG Studio’s patented witty take on yet another genre, it should be a welcome addition to any gamers collection. So, HERO up, grab your guns, and prepare to build to kill these monsters one by one.
Score: 8.5/10
Buy OTTTD: Over the Top Tower Defense from the Nintendo Switch eShop here.
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*Review Code Provided by SMG Studio
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