izigame.me

Pros

Disclaimer: I spent most of my playtime in the newly updated single-player campaign/waves mode.
- Map Design is astounding.
Each map is fun to explore for collectibles, with plenty of jokes and easter-eggs to find. You can spend hours exploring a single map, free roam mode lets you do just that.
- The combat tech is very engaging.
There's a lot to learn using weapons, from the current gun build you're making to reload swapping.
(Swapping weapons/Melee does not cancel previous reload.)
- Lots of cosmetic customization.
Tons of things to unlock to make your character feel unique.
- Versus and other modes are great.
No complaints aside from semi-empty lobbies. If you got friends (I don't) it's super fun (I'd think).
- The game has incredible charm
It's one of the most imaginative and fun games to run around in. Reminds me of the old 3DO Army men games in the best ways possible. They really captured the aesthetic they were aiming for here.
- Optimization is insanely great
Load times are near instant and framedrops are non-existent. It's amazing how smooth the game runs even with so many toy corpses near the end of a mission.
- The devs are devoted and compassionate for their work.
Doing free content updates and listening to their fans for so long earns some mad respect from me, no matter what. Excited to see how the game evolves further.


Cons

Disclaimer: Again this is from my personal experience in single-player campaign/waves mode that was released literal days before I installed.
- The actual Tower Defense feels limited.
The tower-defense part of this game is a bit restricting. Very few placement tiles on early maps and easier difficulties. The turrets are very expensive and feel too situational to rely on. On single-player expect being overrun often, as bots abandon posts frequently, meaning the 1,500 credit defenses gets shredded by 2 meanbots and a spinner cause you were busy with the other 98% of the wave.
Trying to juggle defending every hypercore personally makes getting Platinum/Diamond rank (no core damage) a pain on big maps.
Batteries drain incredibly fast and sometimes the map spawns too few to sustain a good defense, there's a battery charger you can unlock for build phase to help with this, but it unlocks from Platinum clears, making it obsolete on Casual/Regular.
- Some enemy encounters are VERY annoying.
There are a few "player hunter" enemies that are too strong, usually killing you before you realize they're there, Brobots and mini-bosses in particular.
Drones aren't very tanky but their raw numbers in some maps will demolish you, and they usually kill you in just a few hits. Anti Air is basically required to help mitigate this.
Jets are the epitome of annoying. Fast flying, hard to hit enemies that send homing rockets to hit you and your defense. Not terribly lethal to you but it will knock you around (and off high ground) and shred defenses. In my experience, antiair usually miss shots on them because they're just too fast.
Dead Army Men sometimes land upright, making you think they're still alive.
- Movement feels a bit jank
Platforming is a bit floaty and vaulting is inconsistent. It helps if you have a grenade launcher or jetpack, but I've lost about a half-dozen Platinum games because I couldn't get up to the core from missing a vault and falling down at critical moments.


Final thoughts

I know I just criticized the game for the past few paragraphs but I had actual, genuine fun while playing. I'd still recommend it even if you'll only ever do the single-player stuff.
I know the developers read and respond to reviews so hopefully they use my feedback/complaining however they need. It was a lot of fun to do the campaign and I'll keep trying to solo Diamond rank every level.
p.s. flamethrower turrets would be pretty neat, just sayin :^)