Originally released on mobile, Broken Universe is a colorful and ever-growing tower defense title now available on Switch thanks to RedDeer.Games.
Playing as a space racoon trying to save his girlfriend from waves of fruit, cute critters, and even water animals (that can somehow traverse on land), it is Roco’s job to protect the home base which is actually a placeable spaceship. The cute visual aesthetic and surprisingly pleasant soundtrack can easily suggest this is a game geared towards a younger crowd. Also, especially for a tower defense title, there is a lot of story here. However, the multiple difficulties and requirement for thoughtful strategy firmly places this in the “not for babies” category.
Despite the cartoony visuals and helpful tutorial, Broken Universe is a complex strategy game. Not to be confused with poor quality, it just definitely requires patience, thought, and the will to learn. Fans of tower defense titles will also have plenty to explore as the game grows and gets more complex in time by including screen’s worth of upgrades, enhancements, and special abilities to unlock. Unfortunately, the user interface and control scheme takes a stumble as it is easy to see its mobile touch-based origins. Instead, players need to use every button on the controller, sometimes in combinations, often quickly in the heat of battle, to have the best chance of survival. The control scheme does the best that it can, but I feel like the game’s complexity as a whole could have been toned down. Even the main gameplay UI is littered with numbers and indicators which is rather intimidating.
Unlike other tower defense titles, Broken Universe doesn’t hold your hand, giving the player almost complete freedom on each stage. For example, instead of the game determining the position of the home base, the player can choose where to drop it from dozens of locations. Further, towers can be told to destroy parts of the environment to open new paths or close others, and there are even environmental hazards that can release additional damage and effects. Add in special abilities, dozens of upgrades, boss battles, numerous enemy types, and a ton of ways to spend different types of experience points, and you have yourself a receipt for a deep, tower defense title, for better and worse.
Fans new to the genre will most likely get overwhelmed with the amount of thought and input required but dedicated tower defense fanatics might wallow in its complexity. Personally, I think the tower defense genre is a little underappreciated, especial on console, but I am hesitant recommending this one. It isn’t bad, just overwhelmingly complicated and daunting.
SCORE: 6.5/10
Not As Good As: having a full touch screen interface, Pro Controller users (like me) be warned
Also Play: Cake Invaders
Don’t Forget About: Plunderer’s Adventure
By: Zachary Gasiorowski, Editor in Chief myGamer.com
Twitter: @ZackGaz
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