Welcome to follow, get more game review information, start or not no longer hesitate ~ If you like it, you may wish to like it (๑•̀ᄇ•́)و✧
Text: Ink dye | Editor: Rin
When Alchemy Fortress first enters the game, players will mistake it for an action/shooter game with a top-down perspective, but halfway through the tutorial, you will find that the game is actually a tower defense game at its core. Of course, "Alchemy Fortress", a tower defense as the core, top-down perspective action/shooter as a supplementary output, the combination of the two types of gameplay, does have its own unique features, but this mechanism is not the first time to see, "Fantasy Country Monster Tower Defense", a tower defense game released in 21 years, is also a similar mechanism.
Tower defense defense arranged on the battlefield
As in most tower defense games, players need to build and arrange various types of fortifications on the enemy's attack route, including various types of traps, defense towers, and blocking interference types of buildings, kill enemies on the march route from entrance to exit, and let the people trapped in the alchemy fortress in the story safely retreat. The player spends only a fixed amount of resources to build these fortifications, similar to currency, and the number of these resources will be determined by the player's performance against each wave of enemy defenses. These fortifications don't start out, and players need to get new blueprints after completing levels to unlock new fortification buildings.
Among them, the same type of trap in trap fortifications also includes different attribute extension advanced versions (need to be unlocked), and the defense tower as a super large destruction fortification building must be built at the statue in the map (also need to be unlocked), especially the defense tower This large destructive building is not cheap, but it must be prioritized as the basic plate of the defense tower. In addition, a wide variety of traps and defense towers, in the game involves ice, fire, corrosion and other element attributes, two or more element attributes, together with each other can also play element combination attacks, according to the enemy element attribute weakness and resistance in different levels, choose different types of traps, is also a part of the victory.
Proactive character output
In addition to the traps and tower outputs of the fortifications, the characters controlled by the player are also able to deal output and damage well, which is a good supplement to the lack of unformed output of the previous fortifications. There are two types of character attack modes: ranged and melee, and the effect of both types of attacks changes depending on the weapon the player holds. In the initial stage of the player, the long-range heavy artillery attack has a high output damage, but only one shell can be fired at a time, and after the fight, you need to wait for a period of reload time to fill the shell; Melee is a heavy hammer attack, the output damage is slightly lower than the heavy artillery heavy hammer attack can continue to attack but it needs to consume stamina points, quickly recover stamina after stopping the attack, the character's full stamina at the beginning can probably be ten consecutive general attacks, but the heavy hammer attack has a strengthened heavy hit skill, and the attack damage after strengthening is greatly increased.
In addition to the main weapon attack, players can also carry boosters with skill CDs that can be refreshed (throwing explosives, traps, time bombs, etc.) and power-ups that can be used a limited number of times per wave of enemies (shoulder cannon - output explosion, healing needle - blood return). Players can be killed, can be revived after being killed, the game does not end, but will affect the evaluation of the level, the only condition for the end of the game is how many enemies are spared. The player's character can also attract hatred from enemies in front of him, and it is also possible to attract some enemies to certain untriggered traps to spread some fire coverage.
Preparedness measures outside the battlefield
Alchemy fortress This fortress, a concentration of all kinds of socially excluded scholars, engineers, philosophers and scientists, from the protagonist of the game is an alchemical transformation person who can constantly mutate and become stronger, this fortress has some extreme, anti-human but very practical black technology, now this fortress is captured by the enemy, the player controls the protagonist to rescue these top talents from the alchemy fortress.
After clearing some levels, the plot will inform the player to rescue the professional master so-and-so from the fortress, and the rescue of these masters also indicates that the player is unlocked and turned on in a non-wartime readiness state. This includes the opening of the equipment room (weapon crafting, body mutation, armory rectification, etc.), the opening of the workshop (trap book, defense tower guide, etc.), the opening of the training ground, and the opening of the library (enemy book, status guide, enemy buff effect book, etc.). It is precisely these measures taken outside the battlefield that will continue to win battles in the increasingly strong and more enemies.
Some questions that I personally feel
(1) In this tower defense game, some levels are too abrasive, and even some levels go down forty or fifty minutes a game, and it is very tedious to repeat the brushing of monsters in the later stage.
(2) The terrain is not well used, there are a large number of blank areas on the map without the enemy passing, and the enemy does not know to detour, but will only march from the existing designed route.
(3) Whether it is a player or an enemy, in fact, you can climb the wall, climb the fence and other action mechanisms, this point if the player seduces the enemy to reach a certain wall, the enemy will avoid the chance of climbing the wall and climbing the fence in order to avoid detours, but the game also does not make reasonable use of this mechanism, the enemy's forward route is still only a fixed one, the player uses these operations is only convenient to move quickly to resist another battlefield area.
(4) As a game with a forged weapon prop mechanism, and each time a new weapon prop is forged, the additional entry effect appears randomly, but the game cannot brush materials (the level after clearing the level is cleared again without giving materials), this obviously fits the design of the brush brush mechanism, and it is not used well.
(5) Melee combat is not ideal in actual combat, and enemies who can attack from a distance teach melee weapon players to be human in minutes, which is far less useful than various long-range weapons blocking doors.
(6) Lack of detail design, for example, there will be a lag on each settlement page, there is no remaining enemy number when starting to guard the tower, mutation points cannot be reset, the map cannot be zoomed, etc.
At last
"Alchemy Fortress" this pixel style independent game, does have its own characteristics, the overall quality of the game is still good, but in many details, balance problems and tower defense mechanism issues, there are indeed flaws that are not big but not small, the game is not fully excavated in the design of the combined output between tower defense and characters, I hope that the production team can continue to polish in the EA version, and finally give players a refined independent game.