Review: PixelJunk Monsters 2

At some point, it might seem that the studio Q-Games is going through a dark time. Over the years, she released niche, but loved in a narrow circle of arcades - and suddenly decided to devote as much as five years to the creation of the experimental  The Tomorrow Children . Even during the beta testing of the game it was clear that the team was getting something unintelligible and very strange, and the audience did not penetrate - already 10 months after the project was launched, it was announced that the servers were shut down. 

Fortunately, nothing terrible happened, and Q-Games returned to what is best - to create a variety of games series PixelJunk . Although personally I would be glad to continuePixelJunk Shooter , release  PixelJunk Monsters 2 I did not want to miss. Still, in the genre of tower defense outside of mobile platforms, now perform a few, and sometimes really want to play something like that without microtransactions and pop-up ads.

The essence of the sequel is the same as in the predecessor. Tiki's forest was attacked by evil monsters, and defenseless chibi can perish in an instant if the brave leader Tikimen does not help them. Taking control of it, you will go to several regions and complete 15 levels, in each of which you need to protect the chibi, standing pillars at the entrance to your house. If the monster flies to the building and at least touches a crowd of residents, you will lose one of the 20 "lives" and worsen the result.

What to do to protect the wards? The only option is to place defensive towers along the edge of the road along which the monsters walk. Tikimen possesses magic that allows him to turn any tree into a weapon, as he did in the first part. That's only with the transition to 3D the number of trees has increased significantly, and therefore erection of the building in place of one tree leads to the destruction of several standing next to it.

Therefore, the player not only saves gold used for the purchase of structures, but also must monitor the number of trees in potentially active zones. Not all towers are equally useful - they are divided into three categories, and if one of them is useful in dealing with any monsters, the rest are used either against flying monsters or against runaways. Buildings that are related to air defense, will stand idle, even if a dozen spiders pass by them. And the mortar will not throw bat-nuts and other winged evil spirits. It's always worth keeping at least one ballista in reserve - her arrows can fly into any opponents, and if one of them runs past all the towers and kills the chibi from the minute, the situation will still be saved.

Basically, the money falls out of the defeated opponents, and in quiet moments you can try to shake all the trees around you in the hope that a few more coins will fall from them. Some buildings also require precious stones - they must be obtained in the same ways: by destroying monsters and looking for them in the foliage. Usually the buildings for which both currencies are needed are the strongest, but if you spend gold solely on the towers, then the stones are other uses.




The most important of them is the improvement of defensive structures. All your ballistae, mortars, cannons and big hives have scales of experience that are filled when you finish off enemies. Accelerate the process with stones or standing near any of the towers, without pressing any buttons - in this case, Tikimen will begin to perform the dance and strengthen the buildings. Unfortunately, in PixelJunk Monsters 2 there is no detailed list of improvements - if the gun has been pumped to the second level, you will not always understand what it is now different from the usual one. But sometimes the changes are obvious - for example, machine guns for killing flying monsters after reaching the fourth level shoot without pauses, which makes them very dangerous.

If pumping from the first to the second level takes a few seconds, then from the fourth to the fifth (maximum) experience, it will take a lot. Especially if we take into account that by the time about this tower there will be a dozen more and all of them need improvement. And the conditions in different regions differ: already in the second of the monsters, coins will no longer drop out (the good is not forever), and at later stages monsters begin to appear, which must first be knocked down by air defense towers, then throwing mortar cores.

There is another subtlety - all levels are divided into several stages, and after each you get bonus gold depending on how much money is in the inventory. If you spent everything to a penny, then a penny and give. This forces the player to approach his finances with intelligence - not to place more towers in the first stages than required. And most of all in PixelJunk Monsters 2 surprises a perfectly balanced complexity: when you feel the lack of gold, it's only your fault - did not receive in time additional coins and unevenly distributed the towers along all the paths.





One of the main drawbacks of the sequel is the impossibility to look at the whole level at once. You can not detach the camera, but nobody can prohibit moving it with a stick, and, in my opinion, this is quite enough. If the enemies are outside the screen, this will be reported in time, and the missed coins and precious stones will also remind themselves of the disappearance. Problems can arise only at a higher level of complexity - each mission has three, and on the second and third monsters do not go the same way that the first.

A little annoying is the need to replay the mission from the very beginning in case of failure. The fact is that to access a new location you need to collect a few rainbows, and they are given out for the perfect completion of levels on any complexity. For an ideal passage, you need to save all the chibi - as soon as the monster comes up to them, you can immediately click on the pause and restart the mission. And when it happens on the 10th or 14th wave, it is fucking insulting to lose - not so much because of its sluggishness, but because of the need to repeat all previous stages of defense.

On the other hand, by trial and error with time you will begin to set up the towers even more efficiently and with a mind to approach their improvement, and at the same time remember which monsters on what paths walk or fly. There is no random generation here - what was the ninth wave last time, this will be the case when you restart. Given the various conditions, unlike maps and the lack of a large reserve of coins, I did not get tired of passing the levels, but it's unfortunate that they were not added a bit more.

Afflicts and mediocre system of progress - from time to time you will be given a special currency for the construction and improvement of a certain number of towers, hundreds and thousands of dead enemies and much more. And you can spend this money only on masks for the main character and on the shield behind him. Since the player in terms of purchases in no way limit, he can immediately choose the things he likes and forget about this store forever. As a result, the currency will continue to accumulate indefinitely, if "achivka" does not interest you in purchasing all the items.



Rate:8/10

Cheers!