Who said it wasn't good to be bad? With one sweet hoard of gems, being a Dark Lord seems like a pretty swank deal to me. Of course, the downside is that the good guys won't leave you alone, and in IriySoft's tower-defense time-stealer Cursed Treasure 2, they've got a few new tricks up their sleeves. Unfortunately for them, so do you. With a sleek new look and all the strategic gameplay that dominated your free time of the original, it's time to kiss your productivity goodbye and embrace the dark side. Don't worry. You didn't need all those friends, family, and reliable income anyway.
As before, the object of each stage is to keep all the gems located in your inconspicuous skull fortress of doom safe by eliminating the heroes that appear in waves before they can cart the gems away. To do this, you build towers... Orcs, Undead, and Demon towers all have their own unique abilities and need to be built on specific terrain. Provided you have the cash, of course. As they take down foes, they can eventually be levelled up, and after a few levels, you can even choose a specific route for that tower to follow, each of which brings its own new strengths to the table. As the Dark Lord, you can use Mana, which regenerates automatically, to cast various spells to turn the tide of battle in your favour or even alter the terrain. The level ends when you wipe out all heroes or they steal all your fabulous jewels, and between stages you can spend any infernal tokens you earned on upgrades to make your life easier.
This time around, however, you'll notice there are also enemy buildings to consider. Some, like mines and mana wells, can be captured at your liesure by casting the Cut Out spell on them three times, and will grant you gold or mana bonuses periodically. Others, however, are more... pesky. Towns, for instance, will generate additional heroes that can attack you, so you'll want to take them out sooner rather than later so as not to get overwhelmed. Fortunately, slain enemies have a chance to drop not only extra coin and mana bottles, but powerful magical scrolls that, when clicked on, will deploy a variety of helpful magical spells to negatively impact any enemy soldiers in the vicinity. Not that it's going to be a walk in the corpse-strewn park, since the various foes of each region will also bring you impressive boss battles, where the leaders will be able to walk off with your entire cache at once if you can't stop them in time.
Cursed Treasure 2 is, in almost every conceivably way, a massive improvement over the original that keeps all the elements you loved and polishes them up to a mirror sheen. The new visual design is great, colourful and animatedly quirky, and the impressive variety of enemies to go up against, each with their own new abilities, will keep you on your toes. The levels tend to be both long and challenging, though while you'll probably do a bit of grinding to earn upgrades, you'll typically find that an impossible battle can be made much easier simply by rethinking tower placement. The addition of buildings on the battlefield do add an additional layer of strategy, but more often than not wind up forcing you to just spam the Cut Out spell as quickly as possible. It's appropriate that the whole point of the game is protecting gems since Cursed Treasure is one of the brightest gems in the genre's crown. It's both clever and challenging, but immediately engaging and open to players of an experience level, and more often than not, will keep you coming back for more.
Walkthrough Guide
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Some differences in gameplay between the original and the sequel that I have noticed:
The damage caused by an attack is no longer shown. You can however watch the health of an individual enemy by hovering or clicking.
Dens and Sniper's Dens no longer shoot instantaneously. This can help when fighting ninjas as several towers can take aim at the same time.
Crypts have three charges without requiring a skill upgrade.
Crypt charges don't seek a new target if their original target dies. Also they don't always hit immediately; sometimes they circle around first. This means that you can lose several charges if another tower ends up killing the enemy. However they do still track enemies that become invisible after the charge was fired, so several charges can home in on one ninja before he becomes invisible.
Temple of Overseer and Temple of Ifrit towers take some time to "lock on" to their targets. Temple of Beholder towers have to fire their weapon (like a crypt) which is even slower, although once it "hits" the victim then gets "continuous" damage.
When you upgrade Dens and Temples, the new tower takes time to become operational. (Previously the new tower became operational instantly even if the old tower was waiting to recharge.)
You can't tell what the experience of a tower is if it's due for an upgrade.
Posted by: neil.rashbrook
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March 17, 2013 9:47 AM
So, which is the best tower?
Against a single opponent, the Crypts win out if they are charged. If they are not, the Rocket Den seems to win out. It fires a 15 damage rocket with 15% critical hit every second, and has a range of 7 tiles. Even reducing its average damage to 9 due to armour and inaccuracy, that's still going to get an impressive number of hits in.
Even uncharged the Lightning Crypt is no slouch, as the 12 damage bolt it fires every second suffers no inaccuracy, and it also has a useful range of 6 tiles. The other two Crypts don't fare so well for long term damage although they of course have the Icy Orb or Frightening which can be really helpful, and their initial onslaught is also slightly higher.
For the Temples, I think the Temple of Ifrit just edges it past the Temple of Beholder. It has a shorter range but it does more damage per hit, which is important against armoured opponents.
Against a single unarmoured opponent, the Bunker Den has to be seen to be believed. As it can fire 5 shots per second and also get a 15% critical hit chance, it quickly wears down an opponent, although the Rocket Den is still going strong ahead of the uncharged Lightning Crypt.
Again bringing up the rear are the Temple of Beholder and Temple of Ifrit; the Temple of Beholder having the range advantage while the Temple of Ifrit has the damage advantage.
It's against multiple opponents that the Temples come in to their own. Like the Rocket Den, the Temple of Ifrit has the advantage of splash damage to increase its effectiveness against crowds, but the Temple of Beholder can target three separate opponents and the Temple of Hellfire comes into its own when you have four or more, there really is nothing to compare with it. Build it on high ground and be amazed! However the Rocket Den is still a force to be reckoned with against multiple armoured opponents.
Posted by: neil.rashbrook
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March 17, 2013 7:02 PM
A deeper assessment of the towers.
Against a single opponent the Crypt works best because it has three charges that it can let loose. Otherwise its poor recharge time lets it down.
The Den beats the Temple due to its higher range and damage, which is useful against armoured opponents.
The second level makes little difference to the towers, just increasing their damage by 50%. (The Temple loses out very slightly because the Den and Crypt get their damage rounded up.)
At the third level, things begin to get interesting. The temples are designed to target multiple enemies. The Temple of Overseer can take on two at once, but its damage is poor against against armoured opponents, while the Temple of Inferno is impressive if you can arrange to catch several enemies in one blast.
The Ballista Den is a bit slow so can miss opponents especially those at the edge of its otherwise usefully large range but its splash damage helps and can also affect nearby opponents. The Snipers' Den's chance of critical hit keeps it in contention and its fast recharge rate helps it gain experience.
Just considering damage, the Crypt is the worst, but that doesn't take the Frost or Fear into account. Frost is useful against speedy or fearless opponents but Fear is more generally useful, although (unlike the spell) there is only 20% chance per hit.
At the fourth level, the tower's damage typically goes up by a third. The Snipers' Den also benefits from an increased chance of critical hit.
Interestingly the Dreadful Crypt's damage goes up by a half, which makes it look more useful against a single opponent.
Meanwhile the Temple of Inferno's damage only increases slightly, but this is more than compensated by its decreased recharge time.
At the fifth level you really are spoiled for choice. The Bunker Den does have an impressive recharge time but its performance against armoured opponents is poor.
The Icy Crypt gets an impressive range, and the Icy Orb is useful against fearless and speedy enemies as each Orb is roughly equivalent to a scroll of stasis (the ice can freeze nearby opponents but not as many as the scroll).
Interestingly the Shattering Crypt's chance of Fear goes down to 15% but its chaining means that its damage and Fear can apply to multiple enemies.
The Catapult Den is also more useful against multiple enemies as not only does it have splash damage but also three shrapnel fragments.
Unlike those of lower levels, the Temple of Ifrit can only attack one nearby opponent at a time but it makes up for that with an impressive continuous fire damage plus splash damage.
The Lightning Crypt has an impressive recharge time and a useful range and damage with the advantage of an instant hit. It is probably the best tower against a single fearless opponent.
The Rocket Den has better range and damage than the Lightning Crypt and also splash damage and even a chance of critical hit.
The Temple of Hellfire has an impressive continuous area attack but its range is bad as the Temple of Ifrit.
Finally the Temple of Beholder has a useful range and multiple attack.
Posted by: neil.rashbrook
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March 26, 2013 6:28 PM
Enemy abilities and (where known) how you can deal with them and what to avoid:
Fast: Rogue, Knight (as Final Rush) Ninja, Adventurer, Thunder Elemental
Sprint: Rogue, Bard, Adventurer, Wizard (Bard and Wizard can also affect other enemies)
Frosty Crypt and Icy Crypt work well as they slow down enemies.
Ballista Den and Catapult Den fare badly as these towers aim at where the enemy used to be.
Armor: Knight, Templar, General
Catapult Den and Temple of Inferno deal large amounts of damage in one blow so armor does not offer so much protection.
Other Temples and Bunker Den fare badly against armor because these towers rely on a fast hit rate rather than large damage.
Flying: Valkyrie, Kite Druid, Eagle Druid, Iron Guard
This is the only ability that a scroll of polymorph does not affect.
Heal: Monk, Water Elemental (as Regneration)
Fearless: Paladin, Templar, Iron Guard
Obviously Dreadful Crypt and Shattering Crypt fare badly because their power is fear.
Anti-magic: Paladin, Templar
Obviously Frosty Crypt, Icy Crypt, Dreadful Crypt and Shattering Crypt fare badly because their powers are magical.
Vanish: Ninja, Engineer (as Smoke Bomb), Iron Guard
Temple of Inferno and Temple of Hellfire can hit invisible enemies with their area affect as long as there is a visible enemy to trigger them.
All other Temples and Bunker Den fare badly as they need to maintain sight of the enemy. Tower of Beholder fares particularly badly because its charges take time to fire.
All Crypts fare reasonably well as charges fired before the enemy becomes invisible continue to track the enemy after they become invisible.
Ballista Den, Rocket Den and Catapult Den can hit invisible enemies with their splash damage if there is a visible enemy to aim at.
Except against Engineers, Frosty Crypt and Icy Crypt can slow down enemies giving their invisibility time to wear off.
Except against Iron Guards, Dreadful Crypt and Shattering Crypt can cause enemies to waste time giving their invisibility time to wear off.
Posted by: neil.rashbrook
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March 31, 2013 3:05 PM