Review: Castle Frenzy
by Staff Writer
December 1, 2009
Overview
Castle Frenzy continues the great gameplay of the original Defend Your Castle, and adds 3D. Castle defense has now become a genre for the iPhone, and Castle frenzy is the first to use 3D.
Use your finger to flick, and slam various magical enemies that are coming to destroy your castle. Also buy upgrades to use magical abilities including hydras, fireballs, and lightning bolts.
Features
Two gameplay modes are included: survival and campaign. Survival mode is just trying to defend your castle for as long as possible. Campaign mode gives you ten challenges with increasingly difficult enemies introduced. Each challenge includes a certain number of days/rounds you need to defend your castle for to unlock the next one.
Seven magical powers are included. You can upgrade each of the following three times: door, hydra, fireball, ice ball, griffin statues. Also you can buy lightning power (daw zig zag), boulder (draw a circle), and tornado (draw V).
Ten enemy types are included, and are presented one at a time through campaign mode, or all at once in survival mode. Gameloft live is included for achievement, and chatting.
The Good
Castle Frenzy maintains the fun gameplay of castle defense that makes it a ever growing genre. It’s always great to tap on an enemy, and toss it into the sky or grab it and smash it into the ground. It’s not just defending your castle, but also gives you the ability to go on the offensive.
What makes this game stand near the top next to Knights Onrush is the magical powers you can purchase. It’s great to feed the enemies to a hydra, drop a fireball, freezing ball, or smash them with a griffon statue.
Even better is that you can draw a lightning bolt to electrocute the enemies, or a V to call a tornado, or even a circle to bring a boulder. It adds a dimension so it is more than just flicking, and its what sets these games apart.
Also included to keep it right there with Knights Onrush is the campaign mode. It’s not just simply survive as long as you can. Instead there are challenges where waves of newly introduced more difficult enemies come at you. It's great to have goals to complete, giving you a purpose rather than endlessness.
Castle Frenzy is rendered in 3D so the castle landscape as well as the enemies are all in 3D providing an added “dimension” to the visuals for the genre. The castle, enemies, and magical powers are nicely detailed as you would expect from gameloft.
Also great to see are the blood squirts from the enemies as you kill them. When enemies land from a toss it’s a squirt of blood, but when you smash them into the ground it’s an outright explosion of blood.
The entire game has a magical theme as most of these games have. Therefore you're presented with goblins, warlocks, trolls, and more. When you destroy an enemy they go into a puff of green smoke, and you’ll have to use magic to dispatch them.
The Bad
The main problem is that despite the 3D rendered castle defense it doesn’t change the gameplay. It’s still the exact same thing we’ve seen in Defend Your Castle, Stick Wars, and Knights Onrush. The enemies are still limited to movement in 2D space, just with a 3D perspective.
That means that you’re still flicking enemies as they move along a straight line. It’s not as though the enemies are coming towards your castle in all directions (which sounds amazing by the way).
Also the game just doesn’t seem to have the polish, and smooth flow of Knights Onrush. Sometimes the screen jitters when you use one of the magical powers. Despite being in 3D it seems the 2D cartoon artwork of Knights Onrush is way beyond in terms of pleasing the eyes.
Gameloft live is included, but just like Skater Nation it only includes achievements, and really is lackluster in comparison to Open Feint and Plus+. Only achievements are included, and no online high scores.
The Verdict
Castle Frenzy is another outstanding Castle Defense game that brings a 3D flair to the genre. Magical abilities are given to provide more than just flicking, and a campaign mode for more than just survival.
The 3D engine looks good, but doesn’t change the gameplay. It still isn’t as nice looking as Knights Onrush beautiful 2D cartoon artwork. Also the campaign mode has less levels, less days, and overall simpler than Knights Onrush.
Castle Frenzy is a top notch game in the genre, and overall. It does come up short in comparison to the current king in castle defense Knights Onrush, but is still a must buy for $1.99.