Defend The Rook Review by Last Save Loaded’s Colm

Written by Colm Sheridan

Introduction

Four words that I try to avoid when playing video games – Strategy, Turn-Based, Roguelike and Tactics. I’m more an RPG person than strategy, so I was a little bit apprehensive when I received this game code, thanks Dave.

I do like to think I am open minded, so I am going to do my best to give you my honest review/impressions of this game. I think it’s best to use a timeline and my impressions of the game as I progress through the story.

What is Defend the Rook.

The game Defend The Rook is a board game roguelike with elements of tower defense. The player has to stop enemies coming in 5 waves from different angles with the goal to destroy the main building – the Rook. The player uses Heroes, Towers, Traps, Barricades, and Spells to stop them.

Tutorial

I played the tutorial just to get myself acquainted with the controls and how the game plays. It gives you step by step instructions, which are clear and straight forward. Defend the Rook, hence the name of the game!

You are given three characters plus the Rook:

• Rogue
• Warrior
• Sorcerer

Controls

You select your character by moving the curser over them, press A to highlight the character, then a blue highlight will appear to show you how many squares you can move. The next job is to move the cursor over to where you want them to move, then press A to move them. Press RB to select your next character. Press Y to select your Towers etc. Fairly simple really, nothing overly complicated.

Gameplay

Each battle is broken up into 5 waves which you need to survive to progress, something I only managed to do after six attempts. I have managed to die on the last wave every time. The good news is, you do get a gem to spend on your attributes even if you are defeated. So, it feels like I’m making progress of sorts even when die.

After each wave you also get an option to regain some attributes for one of your characters, like small health, improve the strength of you weapon etc. If one of your characters dies or in my case two died in one battle, you can only choose one to revive.

Each character has their own strengths and weaknesses. You must play to each characters strengths to win a battle.

Battle 1: The Mountains

This battlefield took me several attempts to beat the final boss, as I had no upgrades to my heroes or my towers it took about six attempts to beat the final boss, but when I did it was a fist pump moment.

I had a brain wave and tried to see if I could get a gem for being beaten in the first battle, but hey who knew you had to win your first battle before you receive a gem, I gave up after 170 rounds of not dying in the first battle even if I refused to hit the enemy.

Battle 2: The Iceland’s

Each map has a different environment and a variety of enemies. But it’s a rinse and repeat exercise. I managed to get through this battle relatively easy, it only took me three attempts, as each gem was used from the previous battle allowing me to upgrade my characters. Playing Defend The Rook, you’ll often see the Defeat screen, so you just need to get used to it and keep upgrading.

Battle 3:

Even though I’ve managed to level up my heroes to level 6, I’m still nowhere near to killing the boss on the third battle, funny thing is I’m starting to enjoy the game in a sadistic kind of way. Playing Elden Ring has thought me it’s OK to die repeatedly, so I’m not bothered about dying in this game if I get my precious gems at the end of each Battle.

I will keep persisting and maybe I’ll get lucky. I’m certainly enjoying this game more than I would have ever thought. As I said in my introduction I’m just not strategically minded and maybe someone with a more strategically minded brain would have succeeded and beaten the game by now. But what I bring to this review is from a perspective of a noob gamer, well in this genre anyway.

I’ve managed to unlock some more heroes, once I levelled up my heroes to level six you get the option to unlock additional heroes in the main menu, go.

You can also surrender if you wish after the first battle to pick up you precious gem. As you level up your Heroes, Contraptions and spells, you will need to have two gems once you reach a certain level to do so. For Heroes it’s level 6, for contraptions it’s level 5 and for spells it’s level 5 also.  The Maximum level for all three is level 10.

The Main screens

Below is your main screen.

• New Game

Brings you to the screen below

• Unit Loadout

Allows you to select your loadout. What spells and towers you want to equip.

• Ascension

Allows you to set the difficulty level.

• Spell Loadout

Allows you to set a group of spells for the particular game you are starting.

• Upgrades

Shows your current upgrade list.

Overview of the map

Once you press start you will be greeted with an overview of the map. There are five battlefields in total. You start at 1. If you die you start again simple.

Once you select the first battlefield you are greeted with the following screen. This allows you to level up if you have any spare gems or credits in your inventory.

Board overview

As is with most strategy games you take turns to move each character. They can only move so many squares on the board. You get to move first and attack each enemy if you are close enough to them after you make your move. If you are powerful enough and a skull appears over you enemy then it’s a one hit kill.

The stone block allows you to place you towers on to them. The traps can be placed anywhere on the map. I tend to leave these until the final boss.

Before the next waves appear there will be placeholders to show where they will appear once the next wave starts this allows you to place your heroes strategically before the enemies appear.

Graphics & Sound

While they are pleasing on the eye the graphics wouldn’t look out of place on a Xbox 360 game, however, it doesn’t take away from the enjoyment. Character animations are minimal, with grunts from the characters as they get hit, mix in a little unforgettable background music all whilst you move and hit, nothing to taxing for my Xbox Series X.

Conclusion:

Defend the Rook is a game that combines several genres such as roguelites, tower defense games, and board games. However, it has some control and difficulty issues that may affect the overall experience. If you like these genres, you may enjoy this game.

Defend the Rook

Publisher: Klabater

Developer: One Up Plus Entertainment

File size: 3.0GB

Achievements: 18.

How long to beat: 1.5 hours [If you have all your characters and Towers levelled up.]

Code supplied for review purposes by Klabater.

Playing on Xbox Series X