Nordhold

In its core, I think Nordhold is a competent TD game. But I severely dislike the early game (which you play a lot because it's a rogue-lite), especially the base management part and slow tower upgrade progression. It is always the same the first few waves, you always reroll until you get one certain buff in the start (if you allow free rerolls, you should just remove that choice altogether). And then you upgrade the same buildings the same way every time. And you place the same basic towers aswell, until your economy allows otherwise. It's just a chore (especially with Steam Deck controls) with no real strategic decisions. That changes in Midgame though, so if you can tolerate the repeating early part, the base management adds some strategic depth later on. And for sure there a some nice tower synergies, if you survive long enough to build them. I can't judge difficulty - i didn't get that far, but i also didn't unlock everything yet. But i also don't have interest in doing so anymore. If you're a genre fan, i would still recommend to at least try this game. But for me it's too tedious to play for any longer.

挺好玩的，内容也很多，我到现在也才解锁41%。本质经营游戏，肉鸽元素较少，每局的地图会改变，但是影响不大。局外成长很多，对新手很重要的大学和前哨站系统我打到三十多波才解锁，这个设计有点费解。防御塔种类很多，可以只玩一种塔，也可以玩多种，会有单个的增益buff，也有融合增益buff。难点在第十波怎么度过第一个boss，建议攒点资源造个渡鸦塔楼进行针对，开局拿小麦，前期优先搞黄金和工人，大概十五波雪球就滚得差不多了，一直到三十波结束都很爽。三十波之后的无尽模式难度大大增加，怪的属性几乎呈指数级上升，我方的增益还是相对线性且生产力被锁死，难度曲线不太合理。

Another garbage "rogue light" game that has nothing to do with skills or choice and everything to do with random drops or retardly OP skills. Nothing original, nothing interesting, just grind grind grind for the hope of the right combination of random drops.

You know ... this game would really work well if it weren't a rogue-lite. That single fact takes it from a game in which you could expand continuously with an economy behind you to a very uninspired low-economy snooze fest in the first 20 or so waves ... What I mean by that is that even with some upgrades to get more starting resources, the game is just SOOOOO slow to get started, but then ramps up the difficulty immensely fast, which somehow means I can now often not even get past the first boss for some reason, whereas I had already reached the 3rd or 4th one, even with better upgrades, which leaves only one real conclusion: the game is entirely dependant on RNG. And the base management is just tedious. A simple QoL change alone would move your cursor to your base when a defensive round is over ... instead of having to slowly scroll there. Placing towers is where the RNG is the most egregious. Since you never know HOW a map gets expanded (in which direction), a tower can either be placed in a really good or a really bad spot, and you need the really good spots, since towers get exponentially more expensive the more you place, so if they don't have overlapping fields to soften the enemy up beforehand, then you're ♥♥♥♥ out of luck ... and I've been ♥♥♥♥ out of luck for a long time now, meaning the enemies just walk down a very long path until they get to my last line of defense, which they quickly overwhelm then. Upgrading your towers either feels impactful (like doubling the range) or meaningless (like increasing the attack rate from 0.1 to 0.11 lol, wtf?). So some upgrades are just useless. I don't know how the tower fusions really work, either, but I'm only missing 2 more towers to unlock, and man this is a grind I'm not sure I can stomach anymore. Either you're wasting resources on towers you actually don't even need, like arrow towers for the most part seem entirely pointless after the first few waves, unless I'm missing something and they turn into high powered gatling cannons later on, while Lightning Towers seem absolutely essential to even make a dent in the enemy waves. They're the only reliable source of AOE damage it seems, whereas the beam towers are the only reliable source of ramping up single target damage somehow. The music and presentation is also not very good. It's the same basic "ohdhodhod" track that's playing constantly. It's kinda grating. Visually the game isn't much to look at. Like I said, the game could have been great as a sort of campaign ... get stronger to keep up with the enemies from "map" to "map", instead of resetting your progress to 0 with every start ... here I am, waiting for my ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ wheat and wood to come in to get more workers to increase my income yet again, while being steamrolled by the enemy. Edit: After some testing my opinion is unchanged. After level 20 at the latest (if the game has been "nice" to you up to that point), enemy scaling just goes through the roof, and you go from "hey, I can do this" to "oh god, 100 enemies just rammed into my castle gate". Likewise, the micro management just gets increasingly annoying. Wheat basically becomes useless, because the passive generation seems to be enough to keep the beer flowing for the production bonus. Towers, however, get so expensive that you will never keep up, no matter how many resources you produce. Not to mention that some towers become worse later in the game when you build new ones, like the Lightning Tower that can get stronger the longer it exists (through additive crit rate). You basically have to invest a lot of gold to increase their crit chance from 10% to like at least 75%, so gold becomes the most important factor, but then you're micro managing all your towers again, having almost no overview what level they are. You have so many towers later on, it's just ... tedious.

Nordhold looks really good visually, and I genuinely liked the whole Valhalla/Norse atmosphere. The art direction gives the game a strong identity, and at first glance it has a lot of potential. The problem is that the game only really became fun for me once I had unlocked almost everything. Getting to that point felt exhausting. Any meaningful progression is very time-intensive and honestly taxing, because the enemies scale extremely fast while the game does not give you enough meaningful tools until very late, around 80% of unlocking everything was I able to breakthrough till the endgame. One of the most enjoyable mechanics is the banner system, the special upgrades for towers, especially the fusions, but banners feel far too sparse. That is disappointing because they are easily one of the most fun parts of the game and could have added a lot more variety if they appeared more often. Hero choices also feel mostly negligible. Outside of hero spells, the differences do not feel impactful enough, and even the spells themselves only become meaningful if you happen to get specific relics that work with them. The music was meh. Overall, I think Nordhold has a strong visual foundation and a fun core idea, but it needs a serious overhaul in terms of game mechanics. It is not fun reaching certain rounds already knowing that you are going to lose no matter what because of how the enemy scaling works. If the developers fixed the enemy regeneration (which is insane in this game) and made the scaling more linear instead of an aggressive upward curve, the game would become much more enjoyable.

Fun Tower Defense game, wish I would have seen it when it first came out! I like the look of the game and man the gameplay is good fun. You also have to play a good amount to get things going and I love that element. I have only played an hour and a half but I already know I love this game, good controls and awesome gameplay, check this one out. I love Tower Defense style games and this one is great so far from what I have played. I can see myself play a good amount of this game in the future. I really don't have anything negative to mention here.

TD: tedious difficulty

I want to give this game a thumbs up, but in all honesty I cannot. The game locks you out of 60% of endless mode, every single time. Without absolutely abusing a very niche specific build (that you have to land while RNG is your enemy), you are doomed. I have just done a run with 60% of a perfect build that I researched. Carefully designed things, made choices.... nope, doesn't matter. Game spikes at level 40 of endless mode so much it doesn't matter how hard you try, you will fail. I attempted level 40 on 12 different occasions, with different "meta" builds, to no avail. If you do not land on that one relic or upgrade that makes it busted, you are SOL. Sorry, but to me that is a broken game that needs addressing. There is something wonderful here, underneath the surface, but I have no desire to explore Ascenion mode cause I know I will probably be met with equally stupid design choices. I'm not alone in this, reddit is full of people who got to level 40 and quit cause they realized the developer simply doesn't want you to have fun beyond 39. Other notes. First 10-15 rounds is the same every single time. Doesn't matter what the map shape is, what happens, you have to do things in the same order or you will fall behind. After that, you get a tiny bit of choice, but the reality of the design choices made is that you better not have more than 2 towers in your run, or you will fail even earlier. A game with 9 tower choices, and apparently another one coming can't seem to realize that only way to play is by only doing 2 towers. There are so many broken design choices here it pains me, because I really wanted to like this game. I got 25 hours out of it before frustration set in, at 10 bucks sale price it's fair amount of time per dollar... but it could have been so so much better.

Very entertaining and refreshing take on tower defense games. I recommend it very much.

Early game is just such a pain in the ass, I can't be bothered