X-Morph: Defense Review - A Genre-Busting B-Movie Invasion
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X-Morph: Defense isn’t just your typical tower defense game. Polish developers Exor Studios have broken the norm with a title that merges two beloved genres and provides a rare perspective by putting you in the alien shoes of Earth’s invaders rather than its defenders. There’s dialogue readings that will most likely make you cringe, and some stages lack creativity, but the game’s fun factor holds strong throughout, making X-Morph: Defense not just a solid challenge to one’s broader sense of strategy, but a test of your skills when you need to hop into the pilot’s seat and get things done personally.
From afar, X-Morph’s art design and leading characters can make it a hard sell for some; in between a floating robot head providing battlefield updates and the head of Earth’s response to the alien threat being an old general who sounds like he’s struggling with the script, the setting might be rather uninviting unless you’re already a fan of cheesy B-movie absurdity and mayhem. The charm of it all did put a smile on my face at times, but I found more satisfaction in knowing that dialogue could be sped up by the press of a button, as if I were fast-forwarding an old VHS to get to the good parts.
The Best of Both Worlds
And oh yes, there are good parts, don’t get me wrong. The gameplay carries most of the weight here, as the tower defense aspects of X-Morph: Defense have you asking whether you should funnel out enemy threats by blocking their paths with tower walls, or spend those resources toppling a tall building with your flying X-Morph unit. This isn’t new to the tower defense genre as X-Morph doesn’t try to invent the wheel, but it reminds you why people are addicted to these types of games, and trial and error is part of the process of properly utilizing the resources available to you.
Upgrades are available, and there are a variety of towers to deal with the different enemy types, some of which break the mold and do things other than mindlessly attacking projected paths to the objective, your terraforming harvesters. You’re afforded a lot of leeway in how you want to deal with the threats, as tower placement is at your discretion, and you can either focus on creating ‘tunnels’ with fences to lead your opponents from tower to tower, or choose to build stronger and more versatile towers. What got me itching for the next mission in X-Morph is the knowledge that any wave can go wrong in an instant, and when that happens, you are given the ability to take matters into your own hands by using X-Morph aircraft to shoot down strays that break through your defense.
This is where the top-down shooter aspect comes into play, as you’ll end up frantically switching from build mode on one hand to keep bolstering your tower defense, and personally taking out key targets that could be a threat to your whole operation. The X-Morph has four distinct forms to deal with different threats, and these forms are in line with the different towers at your disposal, so you're pretty much a mobile tower, the last line of defense.
What breaks repetition in the game’s campaign is the boss battles. As its last-ditch efforts to save certain regions of the planet, humanity sends massive Mecha units that serve as champion-class versions of common unit types (tank, helicopter). These units will then attack in a variety of ways, and the battlefield can quickly turn into a bullet hell shooter, where you’ll need to also erect nearby towers to rack up additional damage to the colossal metal beast capable of single-handedly destroying your alien base once it reaches it. You can target certain parts of the enemy with your X-Morph aircraft to slow it down to make the fight easier, and before you know it, you’re thrilled you made it out alive… or died trying.
X-Morph: Defense Complete Edition comes with all post-content DLC - Survival of the Fittest, European Assault, and Last Bastion.
Humanity Go Boom
Explosions occur often, and there’s a lot going on when a wave starts. This made me realize how stable X-Morph is, as I didn’t experience any issues like frame drops or crashes, even when all you can see is destruction and bullets flying everywhere. The chaos looks great, too, as this is one of the most graphically stunning tower defense titles I’ve played in this generation. The score didn’t stand out, but certain audio cues were extremely useful during gameplay, as priority targets and existential dangers to your X-Morph aircraft were unique to the point that when I'd hear those sounds, I'd immediately know to drop everything to focus on the threat.
This back-and-forth gameplay loop of building your defense, then leaping in personally, never got old in X-Morph’s single-player campaign comprising 14 missions spanning different countries in the world. With the added DLC content like European Assault, Survival, and Last Bastion, there’s tons of content that adds challenge, but no variety in terms of look and feel, as each stage’s background elements are practically carbon-copied. I couldn’t tell if I really was supposed to be in the United States or in Russia. The enemy unit designs are all the same in every stage, as if every country in the world pooled all their resources to form Earth’s defenses under one banner. It also doesn’t help that the X-Morph ship designs reminded me of what Michael Bay did with the Transformers franchise.
Laying the Smack Down on the Human Race
X-Morph doesn’t try to revolutionize either of its sub-genres, but rather takes what works from each and specializes in delivering on bullet hell and tower defense high points particularly well and integrating them into one fluid package, making X-Morph: Defense a solid option when you need to scratch that tower defense itch. Some design choices and presentation choices could leave you on the fence with this one, as its charm will only kick in once you’ve experienced a few missions that leave you barely standing and wanting more.
7/10
Highlights
Stunning graphics that make destruction a sight to see
A great tower defense merged with bullet hell elements
Levels that look bland and overly similar to one another
Cringe-worthy B-movie dialogue that will make you either laugh or cry
What I’ve Played
Completed the campaign (roughly 9 hours to complete)
Played stages of each DLC provided in X-Morph: Defense Complete Edition
[This review is based on a PS4 review copy provided by SCRYsoft.]
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