Not “pay to win” but gives false hope without
Fri Jul 25 2025 Rfay108Let me first say that this an awesome game! Would be 5 stars, BUT…
The tower strategy really adds to the game and I appreciate how hard it is. However that being said, the game is not “pay to win” and very challenging, but it’s very odiously “exploit the players love for a great game in the first week”by making the weekly boot camp event impossible to obtain without paying. Weekly events in games should be hard, and it’s okay to incentivize players to pay for a leg up, but this games boot camp that promises the starting livery tower as an award basically locks the desirable rewards behind daily goal tokens that can not be obtained by casual play. I strongly doubt it is even possible to reach level 20 and elite level 15 in a week with in game purchases . I have been playing too much in the past week and have only been able to obtain 60% of the points needed to complete the event.
In addition to that, the costs for the micro-transactions are exorbitant, to say the least. $50 dollars for the VIP ad removal permanently is insane when a console game charges $60-80 dollars.
All that said the game is not, I would say pay to win, but it’s certainly “pay to fully enjoy without false hopes”. You have great game, don’t take advantage of that to exploit players.
Wouldn’t recommend
Fri Aug 08 2025 BanDeeFanThe game is hard for a beginner to pick up and start playing just in lvl 1 I only had about 5% of my hp left and it didn’t really help that every thing I did upgrade didn’t help since the moment I got it I would get swarmed by 100 more things to destroy so it made it hard to play with out almost being killed and the 2x speed says it’s unlocks at lvl 2 but no it’s just a way so you buy it even if you get all the best upgrades it makes it insanely hard to survive sure some people like games like that but for a mobile game it doesn’t really work if all your doing is standing still not even having needing to do anything at most you put this on your phone while you do something like playing a different game on pc or console just look over at it once a hour just to see that your dead in about 1 minute from then and even then I just looked and it says the age rating is 4+ who do you expect 4 year olds to even get pass lvl 1 your probably thinking the kid will spend money off of their mom’s card so you get free money even the starter pack from another review says they got stuck back at lvl 5 after buying it and it would take way to long to grind for to get pass the next lvl so good job you made one of the least fun free to play games known to man kind
Stay away from this game
Wed Aug 13 2025 Stay Away from these gamesObjectively it’s a decent game BUT like all these games from China they are “Pay to Win”. You have to keep spending and spending and spending to advance. A game is supposed to be fun. Where is the fun in that ??? To literally have to spend many thousands of $ or in some of these games literally Millions of $ to get to top levels. Insanity!! And if that is not bad enough there is Randomness with the game and what you get!! Also like all these other games from China. So then there is an addiction factor! Trust me when I tell you this. I got bait and switched and started playing TopWar 4 years ago, a different game from Rivergames which is another Chinese company and similar where its pay to win. I wound up spending over $450,000 over the 4 years and still not even close to a top player. Literally those top players spend at least 2-3 Million $. So I have to find another game and found this one and been playing it for 1 month and same exact thing. Although doest seem you have to spend that much to advance but still way too much. As many will write u will get stuck on levels and have to spend to get passed them. You have been WARNED!!
Hard cap pay to win
Tue Mar 25 2025 Dark23knightThe game starts off fun, for new players. The initial leveling and towers are great, but the RNG for tower selection is a major drawback. As you level up and unlock more towers, it becomes harder to get the ones you need, making it feel like the game punishes you for progressing. It’s frustrating because you can’t pick the four towers you want to use; instead, you’re at the mercy of RNG, which often leads to not getting the towers you need to beat a level. This makes it impossible to get a perfect run, and the more you level up, the more towers you have, reducing the chances of getting what you need. It feels like the game is purposefully making it harder as you progress.
Also, the repetitive ads and expensive pay-to-win model don’t help. Paying $30 for small upgrades or an ad-free experience is crazy, especially when other games offer similar benefits for much less. It’s annoying that leveling up doesn’t make the game easier but instead creates a plateau, making it feel impossible to progress without spending money.
Game could be great but fundamental mechanic is frustrating
Wed Jun 18 2025 FriikazoidThe game has great visuals and is generally fun to play, but the fundamental mechanic reverses what players usually enjoy.
When you play a level, after specific numbers of kills, you get presented with a selection of towers to place or upgrades for placed towers. The problem is that this selection is highly random. You might be getting completely unsuitable towers or upgrades that are undesirable. Frequently, you can get a tower to 3 stars, and then the highly beneficial 4 star upgrade never comes. This makes success completely dependent on RNG. IF I get the right set of towers and upgrades, I can clear elite levels at 100% health easily. If I don’t, I die.
I think the game could have MUCH MORE long term potential, if the mechanics were flipped. Instead of controlled progression to the types of towers and upgrades for towers you can get, and having total randomness during play, the devs could introduce randomness in which upgrades you have enabled (i.e. by drawing cards, etc), but then giving you control over your upgrade selection in battle. This could be done by pricing the upgrades inside a battle differently, so that there is a restriction but you can still make your own choice.
I really enjoy the game but hate crossing my fingers and hoping I either get the right upgrades or I’m screwed
Great but riddled with micro transactions
Mon Jul 21 2025 The_Tim58Gameplay is fun and challenging. The progression is a bit grindy but not too bad especially if you’re just killing time. Got to normal stage 15 and Elite stage 10 pretty quick. The enemies are well designed and keeps each level fresh. My only addition would be to have another aiming axis to shoot other than straight up (when manually aiming). The micro transactions are split up in a handful of passes. I’d consider getting one of they were consolidated into one. There is a permanent pass that leaves out a ton of other stuff you’d have to still buy monthly.
The devs drop free codes to get resources and equipment in the discord which is really cool.
It’s ok
Sat Aug 23 2025 Late AdventurerGame concept and art are great. Gameplay was really fun in the beginning. But it feels like the card chance manipulation (to force players to keep spending gems?) is super real in this game. Chance manipulation shouldn’t be done just to make a game seem (more) difficult. Like the chance to get a Guardian card is noticeably really low (especially as you keep upgrading your Guardian, which is then why bother upgrading it, if it’s going to be cardblocked during gameplay) even when it’s what you’ll always have and have at the start too. Game difficulty/challenge should come from the game modes and/or enemies and their different nature -as the game is already doing, yes-but not through some control system. Some turrets also fire aimlessly with their first shot. Still fun to play. Just don’t get baited and don’t spend gems unwisely, especially in Trial of Valor.
$50 no ads $25 extra stamina pack!!!
Sat Aug 02 2025 CannibalBunniesThis game is fun, good mechanics and a nice visual style but asking $75 for beginner package stuff is an insult and the idea that this is acceptable should be widely criticized to prevent future greed. Paying the same price as AAA games for an unknown amount of gameplay, unknown shelf-life (servers could be shut down tomorrow for all we know), unknown plans for new content and still offers plenty of micro-transactions after such an investment is making it very hard for me to talk about the positives of this game.
Targeting mechanics need improvements as aoe weapons can miss 90%+ of the enemies on screen due to bad deployment and it happens more than is comfortable.
Gear, chips and upgrades can be focused on one tower and still struggle to place 1st or even 2nd on DPS results as RNG upgrades with limited choices are the defining factor on how well you do. Don’t get the multiple rare upgrades for your build is practically a guaranteed lose in most cases and of course targeting issues can play a big role as well.
7 day starter quest has multiple top up quests and day3 requires watching patrol ads of previous days to complete on day 3. 2 signs you might not be even able to complete the starter rewards if not a spender or watching ads that may or may not pay off in the future.
Good game except
Fri Jul 25 2025 dawna joThe game is fun and it looks good. The one big problem is that the game has a lot of luck involved and is meant to be a grind, both of which are fine, BUT then it also has stamina/energy that takes a while to replenish. To have a game that relies on some luck (which power up cards you draw each run) + requires grinding to pass levels to them also had such limited stamina/energy makes no sense. I like playing the game but with the stamina/energy not letting me grind like the gameplay seems to intend, I don’t see myself continuing. Even if you buy one of the packages, there’s no unlimited stamina I can see. So no point in paying.
Great game with some poor qualities.
Mon Apr 21 2025 JacobNgoSo first off, this game is great at killing some time. There are tons of cool towers and upgrades, however the game struggles in allowing you to access those cool abilities.
The game seems to actively inhibit you from selecting abilities sometimes, as you could be one selection off something that could save your game and not get it for ten levels.
It would be great if the developers would adjust the weighting of selections so that you can actually get to have fun with the crazy upgrades. For instance, once a turret is level 10 there is a “super mode”. I’ll tell you, in thirty games trying to level up that turret I still can’t get it maxed out because the game wants to give me everything but that.
