X-Morph: Defense Review (Switch)

Introduction

Destroy the world in X-Morph: Defense. This mix between a tower defense game and a real-time strategy game was released by EXOR Studios on February 21, 2019 for the Nintendo Switch. X-Morph: Defense has been on other platforms like steam since August 30, 2017. The X-Morph invasion may have been late to coming to the Switch, but it won’t stop these aliens from trying to conquer every console. It’s a hostile take over that’s been here for a couple of years.

Story

X-morph doesn’t usually seem to take years conquering its foes though. The aliens called X-Morph are an efficient mechanical race. The X-Morph land on Earth ready to colonize it but somehow didn’t know about all the humans running around on the planet. They expected little resistance. Then they were met with the human race using everything that they can to stop the X-Morph from taking over the planet. The X-Morph essentially are winging a hostile takeover of Earth yet there still seems to be no stopping them. It’s a good thing that in this game you aren’t playing as the humans. You are the powerful X-Morph

GamePlay

For once you aren’t humans trying to overcome an enemy that is far more technologically advanced than them. Instead you are the X-Morph taking the humans’ forces down and defending your core. You are the one with the advanced technology. That’s not to say that the humans in this game are just ants you get to trample repeatedly. They have tanks, planes, and more. Some of these enemies have so much prowess that they can only be harmed directly by the X-Morph ship you control. The humans are so advanced that they even have giant robots called titans. They are powerful bosses that have powerful weapons. These powerful machines don’t appear in every level, but they do appear in some and when they do you and your towers better be ready for a fight.

You control a small X-Morph spaceship that has many weapons and abilities that can be unlocked and upgraded. Your weapons range from a normal rapid-fire energy weapon that can be charged to fire a penetrating laser that can target both ground forces like tanks and air forces like planes to weapons that can only target ground forces like bombs that can be upgraded to powerful dark matter bombs. A few abilities can be unlocked that help protect your ship from projectiles and make your ship stronger. The ship also has a mode called ghost mode. In ghost mode you travel faster and can move through solid objects. Going into this mode can also help your ship regenerate health faster because in ghost mode you don’t take damage. Mobility isn’t the only advantage of ghost mode. It also lets you build towers to help fend off humans from your core and conquer them.

Being the only ship on the battlefield can be lonely and difficult so you can build a bunch of towers when your X-Morph ship is in ghost mode. Towers are your best defense there is quite a variety of different types, but no new tower type has been created in this game. There are your simple medium fire rate, damage, and range and then as you progress in the game you can unlock towers like towers that fire a powerful laser. There are also towers that can only attack ground enemies or only flying enemies.

Not only can towers attack enemies they can also block the paths of enemies. The longer is takes for the humans to get to your core to damage it the more time you have to destroy them with your towers and ship. If you end up not liking were you placed your towers your X-Morph ship can move them. The towers can also be sold. If you sell or move a tower don’t worry you won’t lose any of the resources that the tower cost. You will never lose any resources to build towers only gain. As the battle changes so will your tower placement and types that you want to use, so it’s nice not to be losing resources just because of a change in the battle or finally noticing a building that can be used to block an enemy path.

Buildings can be destroyed and used to block the humans’ path. Use the X-Morph ship to destroy the buildings. It’s best to use dark matter bombs on the very bottom of a building to destroy the buildings that you want to use to block paths. The buildings do have realistic physics so shooting holes in the middle of a building will just result in it collapsing on top of itself. It can give you an important tactical advantage and if you are looking for the fun of just blowing up a building and watching it collapse that can be done too.

Graphics and Audio

This games graphics are as polished as polished can get when it comes to a tower defense, RTS mix. The details on every plane and tank can be seen and no enemy is so small that it can’t be seen on battle field. In a game like this with so many enemies on the screen it is impressive. If you have ever seen a transformers movie it not only almost looks like one it also sounds like one. It is filled with electronic music and sounds and buildings crashing to the ground as you take over the Earth. Even your commander sounds like Soundwave which took some getting used to. There are no annoying sounds
or bad graphics.

Conclusion

X-Morph: Defense is a tower defense with some RTS elements. You get to try to take over the human race as the alien X-Morph. However, on the Switch it will always just be only you trying to take over the Earth. On other consoles X-Morph: Defense had a split screen multiplayer. On the Switch this game is only single player. There isn’t much to do in the game other than to play story mode or survival mode which is just story mode without the story and just fighting wave after wave of enemy until your core is destroyed. It makes the game a little lonely knowing that I could have been playing with someone else if it were on a different console.

However, despite dropping the multiplayer and having repetitive gameplay X-Morph is still a solid tower defense, RTS mix. I never felt like I was being so overwhelmed by the humans that there would be no way I could ever beat them. The story missions didn’t feel impossible. Being able to take part in the fight with the X-Morph ship and being able to change the tide of battle with your own attack felt natural and unique. X-Morph: Defense has been slowly taking over consoles but with so little to do and dropping multiplayer the Switch might be where the X-Morph’s invasion ends.