Regardless of many people rising up on the style via flash video games and titles like Dungeon Defenders, you don’t see many tower defence video games today. So, when Moonton, the developer of Cellular Legends: Bang Bang, requested if we wished to preview Watcher of Realms, an thrilling RPG-infused tower defence sport, we couldn’t say no. Who doesn’t love defending some towers?
For context, Watcher of Realms is an upcoming title set in a fantasy world with a wealth of characters to attract on in your quest. I imply a wealth, with over 100 characters pre-launch, there may be loads of alternative to get artistic along with your playstyle, using completely different lessons for various duties as your progress via the linear construction. It’s extra tower defence than RPG, however the depth of lore and storytelling creates a way of immersion all the identical.
Let’s begin with an important component, the gameplay. Watcher of Realms appears like what you may think a Diablo tower defence sport to really feel like. It’s gothic and action-packed, and there’s loads of lore to dive into, however for those who’d favor, you’ll be able to simply maintain tackling ranges and dealing out harm to bugs, skeletons, and different traditional fantasy fare enemies that assault in droves.
Every degree contains a location (or places) you will need to defend, referred to as the Soul Core, with enemy spawn factors on the opposite facet of the map. It’s essential to use your workforce of heroes to maintain the enemy at bay, defeating all of the spawns and ensuring the Soul Core goes undamaged. Whereas it’s a fairly commonplace idea, Watcher of Realms does add to the expertise with various maps that spotlight the powers of sure lessons, pushing you to grasp the lay of the land earlier than you decide your heroes for every particular person degree.
I’m a few chapters deep into the core marketing campaign, and, I’ll be trustworthy, I’m having a fairly nice time. Watcher of Realms’ gameplay doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but it surely does sculpt it with the precision to maintain you rolling via ranges of engrossing gameplay for longer than you may count on. The ‘one-more-level-then-bed’ issue right here is powerful, pulling you in for prolonged classes of tower defending.
However, I personally don’t discover the lore as enthralling as others may, and it’s actually the gameplay preserving me going right here. As is usually the case with fantasy video games, there’s a bigger story below the hood, all relating again to you, the participant character, washing up ashore originally of the sport with no reminiscence of who you’re or the place you’re from. The primary marketing campaign is the important thing to answering the query surrounding your identification, along with your position for the remainder of the story because the commander of the models prepared to help in your quest. It’s not a revolutionary narrative idea, but it surely actually does the job.
As I discussed earlier than, the hunt arc in Watcher of Realms is pretty linear, with an outlined path from degree to degree as you comply with the primary marketing campaign, although a number of choices for side-quests and seasonal missions do arrive as you plough via the primary couple of chapters. Issues may be a bit straightforward for tower defence veterans within the early phases, however the problem curve kicks in finally, providing some difficult ranges that take a look at your tower defence orientation expertise.
Whether or not you’re new to the style or not, Watcher of Realms goes an extended technique to introduce all of the mechanics and ideas inside, although this tutorial component does really feel prefer it goes on for a number of too many ranges. I used to be fairly assured in what I used to be doing when it comes to core gameplay, summoning, and extra challenges after a number of ranges, however at factors, this sport forces you to do what it needs as a method of instructing you one thing, and it may be good to have the choice to skip this characteristic for individuals who are completely satisfied to learn the way all of it works on their very own phrases.
After all, you’ll be able to’t tackle ranges with out characters, and as we’ve already talked about, there are greater than sufficient right here. A few of these playable choices match completely into the world of Watcher of Realms, like Borut the dwarf together with his fists of metal and Voltus the electrified mage, however they’re not all winners. Morene the pirate stands proud like a sore thumb amongst fantasy heroes, for my part. I perceive that what’s important in a gacha title like that is that you just want as many characters as potential, however Morene and a few others barely detract from the in any other case clever fantasy worldbuilding.
So, now we’ve talked about it, we higher discuss it. Watcher of Realms is certainly a gacha title. You’re going to spend the majority of your time gathering sources to summon and improve your characters, with the problem curve pushing you to degree up your models and unlock extra highly effective choices as your progress via the primary quests. Thankfully, the sport is fairly forthcoming with sources early on, however I do have my doubts about how far these can carry you and simply how a lot it may cost a little to maintain on enjoying as soon as the properly dries up.
I perceive the need for gacha mechanics in a free-to-play title, I actually do, but it surely does border on pervasive in Watcher of Realms. Pop-ups for in-game transactions are pretty frequent, and the costs are pretty excessive. I suppose it’s particularly disappointing as so many different parts on this sport are inviting, partaking, and immersive, it simply takes away from the expertise if you’re going nice weapons along with your workforce of heroes just for the sport to remind you that extra highly effective choices are there, they’re simply locked behind a paywall.
Whereas I’m not fully bought on the gacha mechanics, I can not less than say that the characters you unlock are visually spectacular, even those who don’t fairly match the darkish fantasy temporary. The extent maps may be a bit unimaginative in contrast, although there’s not plenty of scope in a tower defence title, in any other case, Watcher of Realms is graphically spectacular, with its summoning scenes and character animations as top quality as loads of 2023’s console choices.
All-in-all, Watcher of Realms is gearing as much as be an actual deal with for followers of the tower defence style, with a world of vivid characters able to roll out via a well-designed RPG marketing campaign. Whereas the gacha mechanics may be too pervasive for my liking, and never all of the characters match seamlessly into the fantasy world, there’s loads of scope for Watcher of Realms to be one of many shock cell hits of 2023.
To pre-register for Watcher of Realms, hit this hyperlink. Or, for those who’re searching for extra of our ideas on titles from 2023, take a look at our Bayonetta Origins assessment, Advance Wars 1+2 Reboot Camp assessment, and The Mageseeker Change assessment.
