REVIEW: ‘Over The Top Tower Defense’ Offers Up Humorous and Fast Gameplay (Switch)

What happens when there are no more battles to fight? When you are so good at your job, to the point that there are no more battles to fight, what do you do when your purpose in life is to fight? In the world of Over The Top Tower Defense  (OTTTD), humans tamper with the complexities of mad science to enter parallel dimensions and find battles to fight. OTTTD, from Australia-based SMG Studio, makes its way from mobile devices to the Nintendo Switch, bringing with it a truly distinct and fast-paced action tower defense game that keeps players greatly entertained on the go.

The Earth is at peace, and everyone can enjoy themselves in tranquility and calm. For the warriors of the Earth, they are out of luck and out of a job. Fortunately, science is a wild solution to these problems. By opening tears in the fabric of space and time, these soldiers can fight on other worlds. By winning these battles, soldiers have a purpose again, and for the military that hires them to fight, the profits are astounding. As members of HEROCORPS and the Preemptive Defense Campaign, players are tasked with jumping headfirst into the action for fortune and glory.

OTTTD is a tower defense game with some real-time strategy elements. Players are sent to various worlds to partake in battle against vicious aliens. The aliens come in all shapes and sizes across various terrain. The goal is to visit the world, defend your home base, and conquer the incoming waves of enemies with an arsenal of defense towers. HEROCORPS soldiers and engineers accompany you in each battle, offering the ability to repair and defend towers, as well as to attack them. The towers come in a variety of weapon formats, including piercing laser cannons, missiles, and the traditional machine gun. Each tower can be upgraded as enemies are felled.

The first string attribute to OTTTD is its sharp, cartoon-like presentation, with sharp dimensional visuals and depth. OTTTD sports a special and specific flow and animation that feels like an animated comic book or graphic novel. It’s color tones and illustrations sport a retro cosmic look and feel.

The characters, animations, and effects are sharp and polished, and OTTTD runs at a silky smooth 60 frames per second. This is a profound work, especially as the game’s mechanics are dependent on speed, accuracy, and using the physical joy-con controllers. The only setback I can make for the presentation of OTTTD is the music. It does its job but it could have been much more boisterous and triumphant. After all, players are going to various dimensions just to pick a fight with other alien races.

Additionally, OTTTD has a self-aware, fourth-wall-breaking degree of humor. OTTTD portrays itself in a 9-5 workday manner, complete with entire mission briefings instructing players to not work themselves out and to pass along notes to other employees. One mission briefing even mentioned sending an employee to HR because they wrote “poop” on the side of a vehicle. It’s humorous and will have players chuckle, a welcome and refreshing, as most tower-defense games feature the typical no-nonsense seriousness.

The presentation can only get so far as your eyes and ears, as it is the gameplay that allows players to truly enjoy the game. OTTTD features strong gameplay mechanics, especially while on-the-go.  As expected, the enemies go along a particular path, attacking the towers and the players’ base. The objective is to stop all incoming waves with the towers.

Compared to other tower defense games, OTTTD features fixed tower positions, encouraging players to think fast and choose wisely with the towers. One additional feature is the usage of a HEROCORPS employee. Whether it is a sniper, engineer, soldier, or other occupation, these soldiers roam the battlefield at the player’s command. Each employee has a specific role. Snipers and soldiers, when correctly positioned, will engage the enemy with a variety of firepower.

Engineers can defend themselves, but their primary purpose is to repair towers that are knocked out by oncoming enemy forces.  At the end of each mission, players will be ranked between one and three stars. The higher the score, the higher the rank. Players can also level up their employees, increasing their skills and combat capabilities.

OTTTD is sharp, fast-paced, and incredibly fun!  The gameplay constantly encourages the player to fight fast and dangerously. Fighting overwhelming waves and repelling them is thrilling, and daring to skip the wait time between the waves yields more rewards at the exchange of more chances of defeat. The weapons are a joy to use and the action is frenzied as well as enjoyable.

The game’s sense of humor is woven into the gameplay as well, as players fight giant turtles with tank cannons on their heads, and their characters shout cheesy one-liners during combat. It’s quick but enjoyable. It’s fast but strategic. It’s a strong tower-defense game, and certainly one of the sharpest and fastest tower-defense games I have played since Final Horizon. Though, I can’t help but feel like they could have further realized the self-aware humor for the Nintendo Switch. Perhaps adding a few more mechanics, levels, cutscenes or ideas to the overall game would have been ideal for the Switch release of OTTTD.

While OTTTD doesn’t do anything revolutionary or tremendously innovative, it’s strong, lean mechanics, as well as its strong sense of humor, make it incredibly enjoyable on the Nintendo Switch. The variety of levels and the constant sense of competition keeps players coming back for more. It’s a strong and refreshingly sound game on the Nintendo eShop, and for those looking for a solid, humorous tower-defense game, I cannot recommend Over The Top Tower Defense enough.