Developer / Publisher – voidAlpha
Price – US $4.99
Release Date – December 18, 2015
Input – Touchpad, Gamepad
Store – Oculus
Reviewed on – Galaxy S7/Gear VR
If you couldn’t guess by the title, this is an archery game, or more specifically a 1st person tower defense shooter. You are the titular hero and your job is to defend your castle from the evils that assail your precious walls. Armed with a bow and different types of arrows, it’s up to you, and only you to defeat these baddies.
A typical day in the life of a lone archer tasked with defending a wall from never ending baddies….ahhh the good life.
The headset controls are serviceable enough but get uncomfortable quick and the in game actions just feel better with a controller. All you need to do is look and shoot, but it’s not quite as easy as that. Your arrows travel through the air with a natural curve, so you’ll be making more than few missed shots as you figure out exactly how your arrows travel. You also have the ability to travel the castle wall you are on which adds to the gameplay as you can line yourself up for a better vantage point, or back up a bit if the enemies get a little to close, giving you an extra few shots and maybe save your life.
Graphically this game relies upon simple cartoony graphics, where charchter models, upon very close inspection, look like JPEG images mapped to geometric shapes. Don’t get me wrong, it doesn’t look terrible, but it doesn’t look great either, although I did find the everything to just look very ‘clean’. This fantasy world is brightly colored and some of the scenery does look really good. I did have issues with the far away enemies looking more like pixels than enemies until they walked closer to you making long shots near impossible, but they walk toward you so give it a few seconds and that’s a non issue. The sound is great with the grunts and groans of the enemy as they appear and than fall to a well placed arrow.
As each wave gets more difficult, the simple point and shoot mechanics to become easier with a time and practice. It’s a simple mechanic for sure, but still fun, especially when the hordes of monsters start to become overwhelming and putting your skills to the test. After wave 1 though, you’ve essentially experienced the core of what this game has to offer with enemies changing up slightly and few unlockable arrow types add to the gameplay, but don’t really change things up too much. More enemy differentiation would’ve been nice as would a level change up or 2 as well.
If the enemy gets this close…your in big trouble!
With all that said, I still had fun with the game although I do think this game may be a buck or 2 on the pricey side. It’s worth your time and is very solid experience, especially if you do like the “horde” mode style of game.
What would I pay? $3 makes more sense to me. It’s a solid wave shooter, but the content does get repetitious pretty fast and I found myself losing interest after only a half hour or so of game time. Best played in small doses
