I‘ve really started to have a fascination with Tower Defense games lately.  And I’m definitely into collectible card games (like Magic the Gathering).  So when I heard that Elemental Monsters TD for the iPhone combined elements of both, I had to check it out.  And it does have a four-star average rating in the App Store.  It’s a fine game…but it really didn’t do it for me.

I’m not going to explain the concept behind Tower Defense games in detail, because I’m sure you are familiar with it.  Elemental Monsters is primarily a TD game.  You set up towers along a path to prevent wave after wave of monsters from breaking through to your base.  In this case the “towers” are actually monsters themselves, which is kind of cool.  So your monsters will attack within a range, sometimes actually heading out to meet the incoming foes and attacking them.  But the concept of range is still the same as most tower games…each tower has a certain range highlighted by a green circle.  You place new towers as you gain mana (or whatever it’s called in this game) to purchase them by killing monsters or clearing waves (you get more of a clear bonus for flawless waves).  You can also upgrade your monsters to higher levels.  When you do upgrade certain monsters, you unlock their SP, or special power (like reducing the speed of an enemy).  Also, monsters are grouped under certain elements (thus the name of the game).  So certain elements work better against others…like water does well against fire.  As you progress through the game you reach new locations and fight new types of monsters.

[click to continue…]