PixelJunk Monsters Ultimate (PC) Review

Right away, the unique visual style of PixelJunk is readily noticeable. Characters in the game are cartoonish, but in more of an adult way. The stoic facial expression of the player character may not be warm and welcoming, but it sets the mood as well as the rest of the art does. Unfortunately, the enemies don't seem to have the same level of care as the protagonist. Some of the enemies look pretty good, but, in general, it seems as though they very quickly drawn and aren't very imaginative.

PixelJunk Monsters Ultimate follows the rules of tower defence titles, but only for a short while. There is one lane or more that foes follow, uniformly, to a destination that must be protected. In this case, it's a little hut filled with some sort of small, orb-shaped creatures. The job is to build a defence along the path that will satisfactorily protect all of these critters. At this point, the standard tower defence formula is thrown out the window. Well, sort of.

The small protagonist isn't a stationary dictator, summoning protection with the boom of his mighty voice. Instead, he must run around the play field, unconstrained, and collect money from the environment. It's an interesting touch, forcing gamers to work for their money, and, thus, their defence. When enemies die, they also drop currency and gems. The cash buys more protection, while gems allow upgrades to existing forces. Coins can only be collected by running out to pick them up, but be wary, as if a hit is taken by another monster, a portion of the coins falls all over the ground.

It's an interesting concept, but execution is what makes a great concept work, and it wanes here. Most of the incoming waves of danger are the same, but with a different number of foes in each one, or, perhaps, they will take an alternate path. It's carbon copy tower defence, and doesn't hold up to how creative the game seems at first. Even with the inclusion of air-only and ground-only variations, this quickly becomes just what is to be expected of the genre.

It is made all the worse by the unruly expectations required. There is a finite amount of the small orb creatures, and losing just one results in the level not being a 'perfect.' This is fine, except the only way to progress on the islands PixelJunk Monsters takes place on is to get a certain amount of perfects. The things that will throw people off are plentiful, like a swarm of air-based enemies showing up in wave eight or ten when there hadn't previously been any at all. Perhaps a level contains monsters that don't drop money, which would be fine, except it's one of the first levels. It's not hard, just annoying.

The soundtrack is minimalist, and, frankly, doesn't impress too often. This seems to be a pretty constant theme in PixelJunk Monsters. Everything looks up, and then falters just when it needs to be at its best. It's not that it's a bad game, it's just that it tries to be things for a minute, and then stops trying. The art work is fantastic, and then it appears that some things just got overlooked. The mechanic of walking the level like a prison guard is fascinating, but it only exists on the most surface of levels. Eventually, it's just another tower defence, except it wants to be harder than it needs to be. PixelJunk Monster is overflowing with potential, but the heat was turned down too soon, and it just feels too chewy.