PixelJunk Monsters 2 – A unique tower defence experience
Tower defence games have become a stable genre in the gaming world, and nowadays they come in many different shapes and forms. PixelJunk Monsters 2 is a bit strange, almost obscure game. The first...
Basics of PixelJunk Monsters 2
In this game, you control Tikiman, a little figure with a tribal mask on his head. He looks somehow cute and serious at the same time with his special cartoon style. Tikiman runs and acts like a looney tunes character, in a colourful yet dangerous environment, to protect the forest and his village from monsters. There are many different maps to choose from snowy plains, deserts, and lava fields. The game area is usually huge, with nice and spacious greenery with different roads or let’s call it paths, where the monsters will spawn and walk towards their goal.
You can play from two different perspectives: Bird perspective and third-person view. The TPS mode is interesting, but you can’t see the whole map so it makes it a harder challenge to defend yourself. The monsters also look cute and innocent but don’t expect much mercy from them.
Mechanics of PixelJunk Monsters
You run around with Tikiman and you can change the trees into different towers: Air-defence or ground-defence. He chops down the tree and the tower begins to build itself immediately. You have a little menu to come up with what you want to build.
Sometimes, you have to be quick, when a mixed bunch of waves attacks you. You build the towers from gold you harvest from the killed monsters, however, you can dismantle towers if you need some more money. For example, if you notice that no more air attackers are present, you can tear down an arrow tower to get some coins. You can also upgrade towers from gems to make them stronger against the critters. Another interesting way of upgrading towers is the Tikiman dance – Leave your Tikiman next to a tower and he’ll groove to his favourite bongo music.
The monsters won’t hurt you or the towers, they are rather aiming for the children called Chibis who are in your headquarters building. If you lose too many of them, you can’t proceed to the next level. This is not an easy game – You kind of need to multitask and you have to learn how to control Tikiman in different landscapes to be a good defender. Tikiman also has some hidden special attacks, which you need to discover yourself.
There is a cooperative mode in the game – you can play up to 4 players and then, all of you are Tikimen. You play in the same stage and you can support each other to complete the level. PixelJunk Monsters 2 has 15 levels total spread across five different biomes, with some extra paid DLC stages.
Summary
PixelJunk Monsters 2 is fairly challenging, highly replayable, funny, and outstanding in its genre. The game has decent background music, which perfectly gets you in the mood of playing in PixelJunk Monsters’ world, and the sound effects are cheerful and enjoyable, they sound like they were coming straight from a cartoon. If you would like to try a unique experience in tower defence games, then PixelJunk Monsters 2 is the right choice! You can find the game on Steam, Nintendo Switch, and PlayStation 4.
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