The return of Tikiman.

Given that the original PixelJunk Monsters is my favorite tower defense game of all time, I had always hoped for a sequel.

However, as the years passed, it felt less and less likely to happen, and I had all but given up hope when Spike Chunsoft of all publishers revealed that they were working together with Q-Games to put out a sequel after all these years. It was exciting news to say the least, and it immediately became one of my most anticipated games of the year.

Each stage has 3 difficulties you can play. Fun is between easy and normal, Tricky is between normal and hard, and Maniac is just plain hard. Each area consists of 3 stages, and you need to beat the stage without letting any monster's through to eat your Chibis in order to get a perfect score.

Now that I’ve had my time with it both in single player and in co-op, I feel conflicted, as while the core gameplay elements that made Monsters great in the first place is intact, it felt lacking in new good ideas.

The new third person view is a neat addition but it doesn’t add anything to the gameplay.

MSRP: $14.99
Platforms: PS4, PC, Switch
Played: 12~ hours

For those unfamiliar with PixelJunk Monsters, it is a rather straightforward tower defense game where the only objective is to stop enemies from getting to the home of Tikiman.

Players are building a variety of defenses like the all-around arrow tower, which can hit enemies flying in the air or walking on the ground but is not particularly great at either, or more elaborate towers like the Beehive, which spawns an army of bees that have infinite range and attack anything that’s in their range.

It’s all about picking the right towers for the right situations and just like in real estate, there are three rules to follow.

Location, location, and of course, perhaps most important- location.

Each tower has a specific range of effectiveness and anything that passes just outside that range is not going to be attacked in the slightest. Towers like the cannon are devastating when placed properly around small corners, but are useless built even a slight bit away from the lanes.
Every tower can also be upgraded through the use of gems or by simply standing in it, which will prompt the Tikiman to do a little dance which gradually fills up an experience meter that will level up the tower after a certain time. As some defenses are only truly useful after being upgraded a few times (I’m looking at you, level 4 air tower), it’s important to plan ahead for what needs to be leveled up first.

Unlike most other games in the genre, resources like gold and gems are not allotted at the end or beginning of each round, and it’s up to the player to go around grabbing the resources that the fallen enemies drop.

It takes a delicate balance of building, leveling and gathering in order to be successful in defending Tikiman’s home, and it’s this balancing act that makes PixelJunk Monsters stand out from its contemporaries.

There are also a variety of enemies, which fall into the categories of land and air as well as some bosses who can be classified as both. The mobs also often have special modifiers that made them have strong defenses against specific towers, which promoted diversifying the towers that I would build in order to stop them. I could also jump at will, which allowed me to get past certain tricky terrain as well as use shortcuts to get around the map quicker. The various fruits I could purchase worked like bombs and landmines, but I always felt that the resources were better spent on more towers so I largely ignored this mechanic.

As I previously stated, the core gameplay of Monsters remains intact here, to its benefit, but there is severe lack of playable levels as I completed my Easy/Normal mode run through of the entire game in less than 8~ hours or so without any issues, and while the added difficulty modes is a nice touch, it doesn’t detract from the fact that I’m just playing the same levels three times each.

Given my last experience with Monsters was on the Vita with its massive collection of creative levels, the amount of content available in this title felt lacking to say the least. Also, there aren’t too many new ideas, and the changes they decided to make like how multiple trees are used up to create a single tower was not a change I particularly enjoyed. Also, playing in local co-op, which is my preferred way to play, through the entire game did not record my scores or unlock the next difficulty for me to challenge with my partner, which forced me to play through the game solo to unlock all difficulties just so I can play them again in co-op.

Perhaps this was the easiest way to balance out the difficulty to some extent, but as we all know, the easiest way is oftentimes not the best way to handle things.

The online mode worked as advertised with some lag, but given I could not even earn perfect clears in this mode, I found it lacked a point outside its novelty.

The laser tower is still my favorite tower in the game as it annihilates anything in the air.

Ekoloko play. After waiting all these years, it’s absolutely wonderful to see PixelJunk Monsters back once more, but the more I played it, I couldn’t help but feel a looming sense of disappointment at the lack of content and new ideas. It’s a game I hoped to love but walked away only liking, and that’s a shame for what is a follow up to my favorite tower defense game of all time.

Fun Tidbit – While I own the DLC for Encore as Danganronpa(of course), at the time of this writing, neither content was available for me to test.

Review copy of game provided by publisher.

• Striking new art style and animation work
• Online features and 4 player modes

• Not many levels
• Lack of new towers and ideas

You can test out PixelJunk Monsters 2 on PlayStation 4 and PC right now as the demo has officially been released. The version for Nintendo Switch has been delayed.

The demo is available on the PlayStation Store and Steam. It will allow you to play through the first stage. The Switch version will be on the eShop “soon.”

The sequel promises to keep the tower defense gameplay that fans of the series know and love, while adding features like four-player co-op, customizeable new characters, and more.

PixelJunk Monsters 2 releases for real on PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, and PC on May 25. It will run you $14.99 USD.