One of the few WiiWare titles released, Defend Your Castles is by XGen Studios and was formerly a Flash game. With a budget price of 500 Wii points, how is the little sucker and is it worth half the price of LostWinds?

The menu is super basic. Start, continue (only if you played the game before), and credits. Obviously I had to start afresh and it starts off incredibly simple and easy. So much that I was wondering what the heck I was doing and what the point of it all was. But since I ponied up the money, I thought I'd try some more, especially after seeing epic videos of action.

Not sure which level it was, but things started to get intense. With each kill you get points which can be used to fortify your castle and build additions. There is a pit of conversion to turn enemies into friendly soldiers and four towers with their own specialty. The pillars break down like this: Archery, Magic, Rebuilding, and Demolitions. Of the four, only two are user controlled. Archery and Rebuilding do their own thing. But with all of them, you used captured soldiers from the conversion pit to upgrade your towers.

Magic and Demolitions is a different story. When you click on the Demolitions tower with a new recruit, he runs out into crowd with an explosive (cap gun round) that you can use to make everyone go Ka-Boom! This can't be upgraded but used as long as you got soldiers. Magic towers are a whole different beast that uses the control pad. You start off with the Eraser tool (down direction). It erases ANY enemy you point at. It takes a little while to recharge but with more upgrades, the faster it recoups.



And this is only single player!

When you add 35 units to that particular tower, a new ability is unlocked. Transfer (right direction) is the best way to describe it. It immediately turns any opposing member onto your team. And when you throw 100 troops up there to work, you get the bomb power. It is basically what it sounds like. A Bomb (left direction) at your disposal. Now I don't know If there is an ability for up direction but I am at 200+ soldiers and yet to get it. But I will tell you this, definitely make sure you have enough troups in your rebuild tower.

The controls are basic and simple. The gameplay are basic and simple. Regardless, it is so darn fun! Addicting fun game is addicting and fun. Part of this love does come from the art direction they took. Clouds float by that are held up by strings. Line figures are animated and react to be hit, picked up, dropped, and thrown. Take a look at the differences they made from the original Flash version to the new version:



I think there could be a marginal difference if you haven't noticed by now.

With the art the "characters" even come complete with their own sound effects which includes death. Is it so bad that I enjoyed the screams and little squish sounds emitting from their lined bodies? Of course there is man-made explosion sound effects that take you back to days of young and makes you smile.

The game plays great, sounds great, looks great, and just is great. It is so nicely done, no jaggies or anything. It looks marvelous in 480p on a Widesceen HDTV. If all the WiiWare games are set to look and play like this, I have a feeling I will be buying more.

Now with all this fapping and goodness, there are some flaws. Two to be exact. The first one is something that is probably prevelant in most WiiWare titles. There is no proper instructions. There is a brief description but to view something more detailed, it will take you out of the game and to the Shop Channel where you must connect to the internet. That is pretty fail. Luckily the game is pretty simple and doesn't cause to much harm.

The other problem is the controls. It works, nothing is broken but your wrist might be. After awhile your wrist will get a little sore from flicking all of the sticks into the air. It can be annoying. Of course you can either take this as a way to tell you not to play as much and only in short bursts or try throwing them around in new ways (ie: use your whole arm).

But so far, it has been $5 well spent. I can't wait to try out the multiplayer at the MD/DC/VA NARP this weekend at Hitogoroshi's place. It says friends can jump in at anytime and the game auto-adjusts the difficulty immediately depending on how many people are playing. Now that is just sweet.