Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9 out of 10

CastleStorm is a 2D physics based tower defence game available for download from the PlayStation Store for the PS4. CastleStorm: Definitive Edition is an enhanced port of 2013’s PlayStation Vita and PS3 versions of the game and provides a twist to tower defence games by introducing the ability of offence as players are given the power to fight and attack an enemy just as much as the enemy is able to assail back; resulting in the old adgage that the best form of defence is offence.

CastleStorm: Definitive Edition introduces a plethora of new content in comparison to the Vita and PS3 versions to strengthen the core of the entire game with an additional twenty single player battles, four extreme survival battles, ten magic spells as well as bundling previous downloadable content and much more besides.

There are four game modes including: campaign, skirmish, survival and hero survival. The campaign game mode involves a story spanning many levels with the majority of the levels being locked and gradually becoming available as players unlock them by progressing through the campaign. There are story cutscenes between each battle that help to tell the story of the rivalry between the two battling sides.

The skirmish game mode is a single battle from a choice of seven, although almost all of the skirmish levels have to be unlocked. Players also have the choice of selecting a nation, a castle position to the left or right of the environment and the enemy nation from Norse or Kingdom. players also have the choices between which of the three difficulty levels they want to play in and the equipment required for battle, which will be set at the levels that players have upgraded them to from any of the other game modes, although they can still be upgraded from the equipment screen before players set off into battle in the skirmish game mode too.

The survival game mode sees the player attempting to overcome waves of enemy troops as they descend upon the castle with the only goal in mind to break the front gate down and steal the flag to return to their own castle. Players have the choice of eight battles to choose from, although almost all of the survival levels have to be unlocked, whilst there is the choice of selecting a nation, alongside the choices between which of the three difficulty levels to play in and the equipment needed to select for battle, which will be set at the levels that have been upgraded to from any of the other game modes, although as already mentioned, players can still upgrade them from the equipment screen before sending their characters off into battle in the survival game mode too.

The hero survival game mode is similar to the premise of the survival mode, but players are taking the guise of a hero, rather than looking after the entire castle. The similarities between the premise of the survival and hero survival game modes are in regards to the purpose of the enemy as they set out to steal the flag from the base and leave the arena with it and if they succeed, then it is game over and are automatically defeated. The hero survival game mode can be rather difficult as players cannot choose their own difficulty level and are going up against enemies of various shapes, sizes and levels that progressively become harder as players endure as many waves of enemies as they can in order to stop them from stealing the flag. Players have the choice of six battles to choose from, although almost all of the hero survival levels have to be unlocked, whilst players also have the choice of selecting a hero.

Throughout all four of the game modes there are various ways to win a battle.  Players can succeed in battle by destroying the enemy castle, completing a particular objective set for that level or capturing the enemy flag and returning it victoriously home. However, if the enemy captures your flag and returns it to their castle, then defeat is automatic; regardless of how much the enemy on the ropes or how close their castle is close to being destroyed.

Players can build their own castle by defining the unique properties within, such as being able to totally customise the look and feel of each room in the castle to make it standout from any other stronghold anyone else has created in the game, alongside being able to upgrade the level of various types of rooms in order to provide the fortress with certain improved attributes and abilities. Players can even test the structural strength and design of their castle by entering the test mode, which is a brilliant design choice and is rather fun as the players own weapons can be fired weapons at their own castle in an attempt to see where it needs to receive further improvements and refinements.

There is a wide variation in enemy, environment and weapon design that really keeps the game feeling alive and fresh from level to level as new unlockable weapons are introduced to fire at new enemies when placed in battle between two warring factions in new environments. The evolution in design coupled with unlockable content is a really wise design choice as it is allowing the game to have breathing space to progress further without feeling repetitive and keeping the customisation of a particular castle and weaponry as different as required to be from battle to battle.

There is a five star performance rating for each level with a total of 190 stars to collect. Collecting as many stars as possible from producing a higher level of performance is of real importance as the more stars you collect, the more levels you will have access to. The five star performance rating consists of two stars for the accuracy of attacks; two stars for the difficulty level completed, with a lower difficulty level potentially not receiving any stars, whilst a higher difficulty level will receive both stars and a bonus for successfully accomplishing all objectives.

Players can earn gold by defeating enemy troops and castles, alongside claiming victory in the battle and successfully achieving objectives. Gold represents the in-game currency, which can be spent in the upgrades shop to purchase improvements to the level of the players projectiles, spells, troops and the strength and size of the castle, although some of the items in the upgrades shop will remain locked and unavailable until players have unlocked them by going through the campaign.

The statistics screen is quite a helpful feature as it allows analysis of the performance with such statistics as: total kills; the amount of ballista kills; the amount of headshot kills; how many kill streaks achieved; the longest kill streaks; the amount of kills made by the hero; the number of multikills; the highest amount of kills during a multikill and projectile of the day based upon how much damage it has caused.

The two downloadable content packs from the PlayStation Vita and PS3 versions of CastleStorm, respectively named From Outcast to Saviour and The Warrior Queen are bundled into the PS4’s Definitive Edition with both continuing the same great gameplay of the main game. From Outcast to Saviour gives players the opportunity to lead their army into battle in a quest to capture the evil Chief Ramhorn across a new campaign spanning twenty levels with a new hero, a new class of Royal Guard troops and new weapons. The Warrior Queen sees players leading an army into battle once again against the villainous Chief Ramhorn across a new campaign spanning twenty levels with a new hero, a new class of Viking Elite warriors, new survival missions and new weapons.

CastleStorm supported cross-buy between the Vita and PS3, although unfortunately the same functionality has not been extended to the PS4 version and it still does not support cross-save, so players will not be able to continue from their previous progression on the Vita or PS3 versions and vice versa. This means that if players already own the Vita and PS3 versions but want to play the PS4 version, they would have to purchase it again, although if they had not purchased the two downloadable content packs yet, then at least they would be gaining a lot of new features on top of a variety of new content and improvements developed specifically for the PS4 version. As for the lack of cross-save resulting in having to start the game from the beginning, a clear solution is to start from the beginning on PS4, but to continue the progression on the Vita as the PS4’s version later. CastleStorm: Definitive Edition supports remote play; so can technically be continued on playing the PS4 version anywhere required to with the same save file during remote play at a superior level of performance in comparison to the Vita and PS3 versions.

CastleStorm: Definitive Edition supports the share feature that allows players to upload a video or a screen shot to Facebook or Twitter and broadcast live gameplay footage via Twitch or Ustream as being experienced with a simple tap of the share button and selecting the option of choice. The PS4’s hard-drive continuously stores the most recent fifteen minutes of gameplay footage, so players still have the chance to decide if they would like to share something astounding a few minutes after it has taken place. The share feature is a next-gen revolution that has only improved with the further customisation provided by the Share Factory app that allows commentary, music, themes, stickers, effects, text, picture-in-picture video between your game footage and your reaction from the PlayStation Camera and much more besides, which will only continue to prosper and flourish as it matures with additional features and further experimentation in the future.

The controls are well mapped to the DualShock 4 controller, which is split into two separate control schemes for when players are firing the ballista from the castle and for when they are controlling the hero. The castle control scheme consists of pressing X to shoot the ballista; pressing square to spawn a troop; pressing triangle to cast a spell; pressing O to warn troops of any incoming projectiles; pressing L1 to cycle to the previous projectile; pressing R1 to cycle to the next projectile; holding L2 to view the castle; holding R2 to view the enemy fortress; changing the direction of the left analogue stick to aim the ballista; changing the direction of the right analogue stick to pan and zoom your view of the battle; pressing the d-pad buttons to fine tune the aiming of the ballista; pressing the share button takes players to the share feature menu; and pressing the options button to display the pause menu. The hero control scheme consists of pressing X to jump or shoot a crossbow; pressing square to perform a melee attack; holding triangle to return to the castle from hero mode; pressing O to perform a super attack; holding O to charge a super attack; holding L1 to handle the shield to block incoming projectiles and enemy weapons; holding R1 to draw the bow and aim the crossbow; and changing the direction of the left analogue stick to move the hero. There is no touch pad or light bar implementation, which is surprising as the touch pad could have provided an alternative to many actions, such as selecting the projectiles and shooting the ballista or crossbow and the light bar could have produced various tones of colour to represent the strength of the castle, while the DualShock 4 controller vibrates when being attacked by a member or ballista of the opposing army.

The graphics look pretty good from their 2D side scrolling perspective with enemy and ally troops, weapons, spells, castles and surrounding environments all looking great and maintaining a high level of performance in both animation and frame rate, regardless of how many enemy and ally troops are spawned onto the battlefield with projectiles flying over the battlefield producing destruction to each castle. The PS4 version provides some extra grunt in the graphical department over the Vita and PS3 versions as the PS4 version possesses enhanced shadows and advanced particle effects in 1080P resolution performing at 60FPS with Stereoscopic 3D support which adds real depth to the castles and soldiers in the foreground and surrounding environments in the background, while there is even 4x Multi Sample Anti-Aliasing to make the game look better than ever before by providing smoother edges to the graphical textures.

The presentation of the game is solid with a great user interface across various menus such as the main, single player, multiplayer, trophies, leaderboards, help and options and gameplay menus with support for navigation via the left analogue stick, directional pad and face buttons, although it does not include support for navigation via the right analogue stick and touch pad. The background of the menu screens consists of a still camera looking upon warriors that are set for battle as the sun shines upon them and the clouds move across the sky, while supporting stereoscopic 3D to provide depth to various elements of the menus.

The audio consists of voice-overs, sound effects and music. The voice-overs only properly occur on an occasional basis and are otherwise reduced to mumbling as players read speech bubbles of text, rather than hearing full conversations between ally and enemy troops; the voice-overs usually only tend to include the cries of fallen enemies and allies, such as “Ready to fight!” and “I shall be avenged!” along with narration from the story cutscenes, while the sound effects are essential as they include the firing of crossbows and the swinging of swords, alongside the inspirational classical music that captures the mood of the game perfectly. The DualShock 4 speaker implementation has been put to great use as it produces a voice-over analysing the performance with a variety of phrases such as, “Great shot”, “Keep on shooting”, informing players when the enemy has captured or dropped the flag and much more besides.

The trophy list includes 15 trophies with 13 bronze, 1 silver and 1 gold trophy, which comprises of the original trophy list combined with the From Outcast to Savior and The Warrior Queen downloadable content. There are a number that are not necessarily easy, but that players will naturally achieve as progression is made through the campaign, such as the Crowd Control bronze trophy for scoring an x5 or higher multikill; the Dropping Like Flies bronze trophy for scoring an x10 or higher killing streak; and the Angry Demolition bronze trophy for destroying three rooms in the enemies’ castle with only one shot. The hardest trophies in the game are certainly the All-Star gold trophy for reaching 100% completion of the campaign mode by obtaining all of the stars; the Superstar bronze trophy for earning all of the stars in the Royal Guard campaign; and the Megastar bronze trophy for earning all of the stars in the Viking Elites campaign. It is estimated that depending upon skill and a good trophy guide to provide some helpful tips that it would take between ten to fifteen hours to 100% the trophy list.

There are three difficulty levels including: casual, normal and hard. The major differences between the easiest and hardest difficulty levels involve there being more enemies that appear to move at a faster pace and destroy the defences significantly quicker resulting in potentially having the home flag stolen and being on the way to defeat before the game has really got underway.

There are local and online multiplayer features alongside online leaderboards. The local and online multiplayer includes three game modes featuring versus, survival and hero survival with the versus mode being a competitive match, while the survival and hero survival modes are both co-operative modes. The local multiplayer is split-screen, so players can have a full view of the action as it unfolds near the castle or the opponents’ stronghold by panning the camera around or zooming in or out, while the local multiplayer has all of the features of the online multiplayer, but is obviously more accessible due to the opponent already being ready to start the match. The split-screen and online multiplayer both have excellent levels of customisation as players have 20,000 golden coins to spend on equipment and fortifying the castle to help prevent the opponent from destroying it, whilst players can select a nation from Kingdom, Norse, Royal Guard or Viking Elites and to choose the hero from Sir Gareth, Sir Brutus, Freia, Captain Thorvard, Sir Gavin, Mystery Knight, Warrior Queen Freia or Chief Ramhorn.

The online multiplayer survival and hero survival game modes allows players to enter a quick match, create a player or create a custom match, while the versus game mode provides the same three options, but is the only game mode to feature a ranked match. The quick match puts players into a lobby as they wait for an opponent to join, while the create player match allows the choosing of a level; the ability to set the lobby to private or open by selecting whether you want to only have a player join that is have invited, alongside the custom match which allows players to search for matches based upon the nation or the hero of choice and provides a ranked match that most prominently counts towards the online leaderboards.

The performance during split-screen multiplayer and online multiplayer gameplay is excellent with no frame rate drops in split-screen and no lag to be seen anywhere in online multiplayer with a totally consistent level of performance across both that is identical to the single player. However, there is unfortunately no cross-play multiplayer resulting in there being no way of anyone being able to play against one of their friends in a Vita vs. PS4 match, although the split-screen multiplayer in the PS4 version more than makes up for that.

The online leaderboards focuses on the campaign, survival, hero survival and versus. The campaign leaderboards cover the overall statistics and the statistics of each level, while you can compare your positioning on the leaderboards with such filters as people from your friends list, your positioning on the leaderboard and those immediately above and below your score and globally with players from around the world with each leaderboard containing the overall amount of players within that particular leaderboard; each player’s rank; name (PSN ID); and the amount of stars and gold earned. Meanwhile, the survival and hero survival leaderboards cover all of the survival levels in single player and co-op with each leaderboard containing the overall amount of players within that particular leaderboard; each player’s rank; name (PSN ID); the amount of waves that were survived; and the best score. The versus leaderboards cover ranked versus matches with each leaderboard containing the overall amount of players within that particular leaderboard; each player’s rank; name (PSN ID); level; wins and losses ratio; and the overall score accumulated during ranked versus matches by each player.

The replayability of CastleStorm: Definitive Edition is excellent as it comes from many different areas as there are four single player game modes; a castle editor; a five star rating system for each level; competitive and co-operative split-screen and online multiplayer; and online leaderboards that will collectively have players coming back for a long time to come, while the new content and the bundling of the downloadable content will extend the replay value even further.

Overall, CastleStorm: Definitive Edition is an amazing improvement and is a superb spin on the tower defence genre with a destructive twist that delivers exactly what it sets out to do. The only criticism that can be levelled at CastleStorm is a lack of cross-save and cross-play multiplayer functionality, although it has more than enough features in other areas to make up for it, such as split-screen multiplayer for two players and stereoscopic 3D support, amongst a variety of new features exclusive to the PS4 version. Nevertheless, if a fan of the tower defence genre, players will want to go through CastleStorm as they will find a fun, free flowing gameplay experience that is great value at £11.99 for the Definitive Edition on PS4 which is even in line with the pricing of the earlier versions, despite containing substantially more content, which makes the Definitive Edition even more of a highly recommendable purchase.

Jason Bonnar

Analysis

• Title: CastleStorm: Definitive Edition
• Developer: Zen Studios
• Publisher: Zen Studios
• System: PS4
• Format: PSN Download
• Cross-Buy: No
• Cross-Play: No
• Players: 1-2 (Split-Screen Multiplayer and Online Multiplayer/Online Leaderboards)
• Hard Drive Space Required: 483MB