Protector again, but heavily improved

02/20/2015

Well, I have already talked about Protector, now let's talk about this one. Protector: Reclaiming the Throne is pretty much Protector II since there's no "Protector II" in Kongregate but there is a "Protector III", so...Maybe the dev forgot to add it on Kongregate, but I'm not too sure myself. What I'm sure is that.

The gameplay is a lot better! Instead of 5 basic units, you only got 2 units, a Mage and a Warrior. What's the difference? Mage has 2 range, can attack air and ground but is weaker. Warrior is stronger but has less range and can only attack ground. Anything else? Well, they both can have Elements now. You ever wanted a Fire Dexer in the good ol' Protector? You got it!

Unit upgrades are now very different. The very first thing you'll upgrade is the element. With the Mage, you can get Fire, Ice, Poison or Lightning. With the Warrior, the same but also just keep going with Physical. Afterwards, you'll get to choose a specialty, which is similar to the first Protector, such as; Poisoning, Debuff (Electric), Slow and Cripple. That's right, you can have a Fire Mage that poisons enemies, no need for a Poison Mage to Poison enemies, hah! After those upgrades, you'll get the good ol' Specialist or Generalist upgrade path, then it kind of repeats.

By the way, remember that tedious enemy wave format? In this game, it's even better! Each wave is numbered and you will know exactly who goes next, what's his HP, what is it weak and strong against, etc. That's great! Besides, you even get to see how many enemies are left over. And, the bosses got more unique, you now know when a boss appears by the stats on the top-right and the cyan overlay on it.

So many great additions and fixes! That's not even all, the skills tree has been heavily improved. There's now more skill trees and you got three choices, one for the Mage, one for the Warrior, and one for General.

The Mage skill tree will, of course, improve the mages' capabilities by increasing his damage, his elemental damage as well as unlock other classes, which in this case are two, Quickspell and Destructor. The Quickspell is pretty much a mage that can shoot faster than anybody else, which is perfect for a large group of enemies. The Destructor is similar to the Necromancer in the good ol' Protector, he's slow but deals an extreme amount of damage, so he's perfect for HP hogs and bosses.

The Warrior skill tree as well improves the Warriors' damage as well as unlock other classes. The Warrior's classes are more unique, since you get an Archer and a Rogue. An Archer is what it is, similar to the one from good ol' Protector. He's a strong anti-air unit but still good as a regular troop, even better than in the first Protector! The Rogue is pretty much a Warrior that hits faster and has better chance for a critical hit.

The General skill tree is what it says it is. In this tree, you can get more life, you can make enemies have less health, make pavements cost less, make units cost less, make units get more XP and holy damn you can even make enemies get less regeneration power! That's great!

So, as you can see, the skill tree in this Protector sure as hell got heavily improved and that's great!

By the way, graphics? Well, the enemies are all still mostly the same, sound the same, animate the same...But not for your troops they now get some visual changes every time you upgrade. For example, if you give a Warrior an element, his colour changes. After some upgrades, the warrior will get shoulderpads and a helmet, then a breastplate, then a plate armour and so on. Same for mage but not armour, his colour will change, then his hood, then a part of his skirt, etc. It's not much but it's kinda cool to see some different troops instead of the same chainmail-hood fellow and pure-red mage.

But that's pretty much it, the rest is the same. We still get a rather hideous background with a cut-earth-like thing.

As for the sound and music, well nothing to say at all, it's exactly the same and you still get to hear ADG3's music. There's NOTHING NEW at all, which is disappointing. Would be great to hear some new stuff from ADG3 I suppose, but nope.

All in all, this is not really the best TD I know but it is a very nice one and I'd recommend everyone to try it, especially those that like Tower Defense, of course!

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