Let me just say that I've always loved Kingdom Rush. I played the first game when it was free on the developer's site and even donated to them via Paypal. I bought the full release of the first and second games. I absolutely adored the first one, and the second was also very cool. But this one, not so much. Partly the problem is my aesthetic preference. I loved the simple but effective art style of the first game. It was all woodlands, snowy tundras and hellish landscapes. There were bandits and knights and orcs and all the usual things. I just felt so comforted even looking at that game. The music and sound effects were also exceptional. The heroes were also awesome. There were one or two really tiny balance issues (e.g the Tesla upgrade for the artillery tower was way overpowered and they never fixed that). The second game slightly strayed away from that art style that I loved, but I still enjoyed it a lot. I still liked the heroes. I liked most of the new towers, the new heroes, and there were some positive balance changes. And finally we come to Origins. Ironhide have taken the game in a direction that I'm not keen on, and I feel like they've jumped the shark a bit. I sympathise with the fact that people would complain if they just kept making the same game. But now we have a really ramped up art style, it's not to my taste and it's often difficult to make out what's going on. There are way too many mechanics, too many things happening and too many things to juggle. Stages are confusing and therefore less satisfying. I personally don't like the new style, the new world, new heroes. I don't like the music, the sound effects, really anything. The only reason why I've even given it 3 stars is because fundamentally it's still Kingdom Rush underneath and that's a great game. But whenever I play the original, I feel so at peace, it's like coming home. I really hope that Ironhide will give us more of that original Kingdom Rush feeling again.
