Castle Formers from INK EYE Games and Ratalaika Games is a tower-defense game that throws an army building sim and some action elements into the mix. Check our Castle Formers review!
Castle Formers cleverly combines platform action with castle defense to create original and dynamic gameplay. Choose to control a king or queen and defend your beloved castle from invading hordes.
Castle Formers from INK EYE Games and Ratalaika Games is a tower-defense game that throws an army building sim and some action elements into the mix. You’ll have to protect your castle from enemies. You can build your army to help strengthen your castle and can enhance your own character with better arms, as well as improve your weapon strength. As you begin your new adventure, you’ll be directly put into the action on the game’s field without an explanation. Luckily the developer decided to avoid the classical heavy tutorial first and will instead give you some extra info when you unlock something new.
One thing that disappointed me is that the whole game scale is small, as you’ll only have a single (scrolling) screen in which everything will happen. On the left is your castle that must be protected and enhanced, and as soon as you’re out of the castle, you’ll delve into the plains to the right, leading up to a forest. Walking from one end to the other takes only a few seconds.
The controls took a moment for me to get used to since they felt a bit off. For example, when attacking, there will be a minuscule hitbox, which means that most of the time, your attacks will miss. Walking also felt slow, and you’ll be constantly stopped to collect gold coins hidden in the scenery. Speaking of collecting gold, there are treasure chests that have a minigame in which you have to precisely hit the X button a few times in order to open it. This added some challenge because you most likely won’t be able to do it when there are monsters around.
I personally thought that the gameplay loop was not that fun. When the sun rises, you’ll go into the field to collect money by slashing bushes. Then you will go into your castle to recover some health and strength for your army (which is done by simply paying the upgrade fee). Then you’ll take on a wave of enemies at night. After that, the sun will rise again, and the next day will be slightly harder than the previous one, and so on. A few days will pass before you begin to see enemy diversity.
Since this one is from Ratalaika Games, you can work on adding two Platinum trophies to your collection, thanks to it being a Cross-Buy title. This means that you will get both the PlayStation 4 and the PlayStation 5 versions of the game with your purchase. The trophies are mainly tied to surviving up to day 7, training one of each of the three different types of soldiers, and defeating 10 enemies, which will happen way before reaching day 7. The list is very straightforward, and you should have every trophy in less than an hour.
Castle Formers is a tower defense x action game that has some fun gameplay mechanics. I thought that the controls felt a bit off, and I was also disappointed by the game’s scale. Castle Formers is out as a Cross-Buy title with a budget price of $4.99.
Disclaimer
This Castle Formers review is based on a PlayStation copy provided by Ratalaika Games.
