Otherwar from Untold Tales and Kantal Collective brings us a mashup between the tower defense and bullet hell genres. Learn more in our Otherwar review!

 

Otherwar from Untold Tales and Kantal Collective brings us a mashup between the tower defense and bullet hell genres. You’ll be taking on the role of the defender angel who has been called to protect the gates of heaven from the forces of evil who are ready to destroy everything on their path. You’re the one in charge of planning all of heaven’s defenses, but must also work on attacking enemies… since they will definitely be targeting you and launching a ton of projectiles your way! You’ll always need to be on high alert as you move through each level while making sure that towers target the right enemies to keep them from damaging the gate on the other side. Choose wisely when picking the towers you’ll use and the skills you’ll bring into battle. And if you fail, be sure to learn from your mistakes and maybe switch up your loadout so that you can have a better chance of surviving each battle.

You can take on each level by choosing one of three difficulty settings: Easy, Medium, and Hard. If you go with the Easy difficulty setting, then you’ll get 100 XP per completed quest, a starting coin total set to x1.00, enemy bullet speed at x1.00, and enemy attack set at x1.00. For the Medium difficulty setting, you’ll get 200 XP per completed quest, a starting coin total set to x0.90, enemy bullet speed at x1.15, and enemy attack set at x1.15. As for the Hard difficulty setting, you’ll get 300 XP per completed quest, a starting coin total set to x0.80, enemy bullet speed at x1.50, and enemy attack set at x1.50.

 

Once your mission begins, you’ll move around each level by using the left analog stick as you shoot at enemies – large and small – by using the right analog stick. Use a skill by pressing the Square button. Change the overall speed of the game by pressing the R2 button as needed. You can enter Build Mode by pressing the L2 button, so that you can place towers around each of the paths. You can upgrade a tower by pressing the Triangle button, and you can sell a tower by pressing the Circle button if you need some extra money. If you’re feeling confident, then you can start the next wave by pressing the R1 button. Press the L1 button to check the quest panel, which features some objectives for you to keep in mind.

While taking on each level, you can work on getting up to a three-star rating for your performance. For a three-star rating in The Dreary Forest will require that you complete the level, your angel never loses any health, and no enemies pass through the gate. This is what you’ll need to do for all levels on your journey. On top of that, you can also work on completing quests for that level. Going back to the Dreary Forest, the quests to complete include fully upgrading at least four towers, completing the level with 250 coins saved, and calling up all waves in the level before the timer ends. That last one is important, since doing this will reward you with some extra coins for each wave that is called into action before its timer runs out.

As mentioned before, you can bring some skills into battle as part of your loadout. These are unlocked – and upgraded – at the skill tree, where you’ll be able to spend the experience points that you collect in combat based on your overall performance. You’ll start with the single shot skill, and from there will be able to unlock and upgrade additional skills such as a boost to movement speed, make it so that more hearts and money drops when defeating some enemis, a special holy wave that will destroy most enemy bullets in a short range, a double shot with two bullets that will deal 5% less damage, or a freezer skill that will allow you to freeze enemies for a short period of time.

This game has a full trophy list with a Platinum trophy for you to try to add to your collection. The list is split into 25 Bronze trophies, 6 Silver trophies, and 5 Gold trophies for you to work on. What will you need to do for that shiny Platinum trophy? You’ll get trophies for completing objectives such as finishing the tutorial, spending money on 1,000 towers across all playthroughs, selling 100 towers, completing each area, gathering 500 unspent money at the end of a level, calling early all waves in a level, completing a level without using any towers, completing the game on the Easy, Normal, and Hard difficulty settings, defeating 100 vampires, defeating 10,000 enemies across all playthroughs, and maxing out all skill trees, to name some examples.

Otherwar brings us a mashup between the tower defense and bullet hell genres. You’ll be taking on the role of the defender angel who has been called to protect the gates of heaven from the forces of evil who are ready to destroy everything on their path. You’re the one in charge of planning all of heaven’s defenses, but must also work on attacking enemies… since they will definitely be targeting you and launching a ton of projectiles your way! You’ll always need to be on high alert as you move through each level while making sure that towers target the right enemies to keep them from damaging the gate on the other side. Choose wisely when picking the towers you’ll use and the skills you’ll bring into battle. And if you fail, be sure to learn from your mistakes and maybe switch up your loadout so that you can have a better chance of surviving each battle. Otherwar is out on PlayStation 5 with a $5.99 price tag.

Disclaimer
This Otherwar review is based on a PlayStation 5 copy provided by Untold Tales.