Totem Topple (Wii U) Review

Few genres have such a defined and simplistic school of design as the tower defence genre. Despite being pretty old, it's still very basic and with few titles daring to stand out from the classical well-tried formula. Totem Topple does, however, try to put its own touch upon this form of rear-time strategy!

The new design choices and elements added in Totem Topple are interesting. Instead of building on a lane with different stage setups and enemy types to pay respect to, it has taken the form of a totem tower to build on, meaning that, instead of building new buildings, the entire point is to protect the one building that is being upgraded.

Besides that, there is a system with dynamic difficulty added to the game. What this means is that the better the player performs, the more difficult the whole thing becomes to reflect that, effectively making this title enjoyable for everyone. However, when trying to invent something new mistakes are bound to be made, and this is very clear here.

By far the biggest problem is the limitation on the tower. It can only be built around 10 stores high before everything turns into a kill-screen, where it becomes bombed by an infinite number of almost invincible enemies. This damages the gameplay by giving highly limited options in how to build the tower. The most appealing aspect should be "how high can I go?" but it is almost entirely removed from this game by this mechanic.

The second big issue is how the points are counted by how many stores are built on the totem. This mixed with the aforementioned problem, means that to build new stores, earlier ones have to be destroyed. This can take a long time of doing nothing, making Totem Topple a game where the player will soon end up waiting for several minutes before building a new store on the tower, after an earlier one got destroyed. It is boring and mind-numbing and shows signs of extremely problematic game design choices.

Totem Topple could have been a fun experience, but the limitations it puts on the gameplay means that it is a title which will get really boring after a really short period of time. In other words: It is an interesting concept executed badly which makes it difficult to recommend.