Castle Defender Saga Game Review

Castle Defender Saga Game Background

Catle Defender Saga is a fun tower defense game where you face waves of enemies and must protect the castle. You select forces to send them into battle, though they automatically fight enemies based on their skill sets, level, and class promotion. Each attack you manually initiate costs mana.

MarketJS developed this game.

How to Play Castle Defender Saga

Press the red and white PLAY button in the lower center of the welcome screen to start the game. At the bottom of the screen you will be offered a chance to play the tutorial, or tap no if you already know how to play the game.

Press the button in the lower right corner to initiate a new wave.

This game is played entirely with your mouse. Tap on menu items to enter the various menus in the game, and tap on your forces to activate them.

Basic Gameplay Advice

The goal of the game is to keep surviving waves of enemy attacks, using the income earned from each wave to upgrade your tower and forces to make them strong enough to survive the next wave.

The top center of the screen has 3 bars showing your castle health, remaining mana, and how far along you are in the current wave. If the wave number ends in a 0 or 5 there is a boss battle at the end of the wave.

Tap on heroes to send them into battle and stagger your approach to make the most of your mana and keep your enemies occupied until they have been defeated.

Heroes

There are 8 basic classes of heroes, which can then be further subdivided into tracks via class promotion. The 8 basic hero types are:

• Swordsman – free
• Lancer – 200 unlock cost
• Lightning Mage – free
• Fire Mage – 1,000 unlock cost
• Ice Mage – 200 unlock cost
• Archer – 200 unlock cost
• Bomber Man – 500 unlock cost
• Summoner – 1,000 unlock cost

You start off with the swordsman and lighting mage activate on the tower. All other hero types must be purchased. After purchasing forces you can place them onto the tower, and can level them up one at a time. You can eventually level the castle and any type of force beyond level 100, though the cost of upgrading any aspect grows geometrically each additional level.

Hero Class Promotion

The class promotion feature allows you to specialize the forces in exchange for diamonds. Each hero type can be upgraded when it reaches level 10 or higher, and upgraded again when it reaches level 20 or higher. The first promotion costs 10 diamonds and the second promotion of a class costs 20 diamonds.

Each hero type has 2 different paths they can go down (like wizard or sorcerer). You can undo the class promotion to go down the other path, though changing the promotion type costs you diamonds.

Swordsman

The swordsman initially summons 3 swordsmen, and can become a knight at or paladin at level 10, and a knight 2 or paladin 2 at level 20. Knights boost summoned units damage 5% and 10%, whereas paladins increase summoned unit health 5% and 10%. After the first promotion there are 4 units, and 5 units after the second promotion. The initial cooldown is 15 seconds, which is reduced to 14 seconds after the first promotion and 12 seconds after the second promotion. You consume 40, 50, or 60 units of mana depending on how far promoted the swordsman is.

Lancer

The lancer summons 3 lancers, and can become a hasted lancer or armored lancer at level 10, and a hasted lancer 2 or armored lancer 2 at level 20. Hasted lancers boost attack speed 5% and 10%, whereas armored lancers boost unit defense 5% and 10%. After the first promotion there are 4 units, and 5 units after the second promotion. The lancer’s cooldown period goes from 16 seconds to 15 seconds after the first promotion and 14 seconds after the second promotion. Lancers consume 50, 60, or 70 units of mana depending on class promotion.

Lightning Mage

Lightning mages summons thunderstorms, and can become a lightning wizard or lightning sorcerer at level 10, and a lightning wizard 2 or lightning sorcerer 2 at level 20. Leveling up means summonsing 2 then 3 thunderstorms. The wizard track increases hero attack speed 10% then 20%, whereas the sorcerer track increases mana 10% then 20%. The lightning mage’s cooldown is 12 seconds, which is reduced to 10 then 8 seconds after promotions. Lightning mages use 40, 60, or 80 units of mana depending on class promotion.

Fire Mage

Fire mages summons a meteor, and can become a fire wizard or fire sorcerer at level 10, and a fire wizard 2 or fire sorcerer 2 at level 20. Leveling up means summonsing 2 then 3 meteors. The wizard track increases hero auto attack damage 10% then 20%, whereas the sorcerer track increases hero active skill damage 10% then 20%. The fire mage’s cooldown is 14 seconds, which is increased to 15 then 16 seconds after promotions. Fire mages use 60, 80, or 100 units of mana depending on class promotion.

Ice Mage

Ice mages cast a frost blast, and can become an ice wizard or ice sorcerer at level 10, and an ice wizard 2 or ice sorcerer 2 at level 20. Leveling up means casting 2 then 3 frost blasts. The wizard track decreases enemy soldier attack speeds 10% then 20%, whereas the sorcerer track decreases boss attack speeds 10% then 20%. The ice mage’s cooldown is 14 seconds, which decreases to 12 then 10 seconds after promotions. Ice mages use 40, 50, or 60 units of mana depending on class promotion.

Archer

The archer shoots arrows at incoming enemies. At level 10 you can promote to either hunter or ranger, and at level 20 you can class promote to either hunter 2 or ranger 2. The archer increases the attack speed of village archers by 100% for 5 seconds. Hunter increases attack speed of town archers by 150% for 6 seconds, while Hunter 2 increases town archer attack speed by 200% for 8 seconds. The ranger increases hero attack speed 150% for 6 seconds, and ranger 2 increases hero attack speed 200% for 8 seconds. The archer timeout is reduced from 16 seconds to 14 seconds or 12 seconds based on your promotion level. The archer uses 50, 60, or 70 units of mana depending on class promotion.

Bomber Man

The bomber man drops a bomb from the sky. You can upgrade the bomber man to a rocket man or bazooka man at level 10, and upgrade again to rocket man 2 or bazooka man 2 at level 20. As you level up you go from dropping 1 bomb to 2 bombs, and then 3 bombs. The rocket man track lowers enemy soldier defense 10% then 20%. The bazooka man track lowers enemy boss defense 10% then 20%. Bomber man has a cooldown of 18 seconds, which reduces to 16 seconds, and then 14 seconds. Bomber man uses 60, 80, or 100 units of mana depending on class promotion level.

Summoner

The summoner summons a golem every 20 seconds, and can become an Earth druid or elemental druid at level 10, and an Earth druid 2 or elemental druid 2 at level 20. Cooldown time does not change as you upgrade the summoner, and since the attack is automated every 20 seconds it also does not use mana. The Earth track increases castle health 10% then 20%, while the elemental track increases castle defenses 10% then 20%.

The Earth track summons 2 then 3 relatively weak golems, whereas the elemental track summons a single strong elemental golem.

Town Archers

The town archers are not technically a hero class, but they can be upgraded in quantity and strength just like with heroes. The town archers work in conjunction with the main archer, especially if you use the hunter class promotion.

Tower

The tower itself can be upgraded just like any of the hero types. When you upgrade the tower it increases the tower hit points along with your total mana. Upgrading the tower is essential as every type of hero other than the summoner uses mana on each attack.

Each hero on the tower has a status bar above them. If the status bar is black and red that shows how charged up the cooldown is. If the status bar is gray that means the cooldown has completed but you do not have enough mana to attack. If the status bar is blue that means you can initiate another attack with that unit type.

Skill Points

The lower left corner of the screen shows when you have skill points available to allocate. You can use them to get bonus coins, get bonus experience, make cooldown shorter, boost hero damage, boost hero attack speed, increase summons health, increase mana, and increase castle health.

You typically earn around a skill point for each stage beat, with the stages ending in 5 or 0 having a boss battle that can drive additional earnings and give you 4 bonus diamonds.

Each skill can be upgraded a maximum of 20 times.

You can sell skill points for coins, though it doesn’t make much sense to do so as the skill points are harder to come by than coins are.

Advanced Playing Tips & Strategy

Since you can only have 6 hero types on the tower it makes sense to choose the 6 you want and focus on upgrading those.

• Making the archer one of the 6 hero types and going down the hunter track helps you get the most out of your town archers.
• Making a summoner one of the 6 heroes is important because it is the only type of hero which does significant damage without requiring mana. Going the Earth druid class promotion route allows you to summons 3 golems at a time. If you combine that with using skill points to shorten cool down and increase summons health you can always have some golems in play at all times.
• Keeping the lightening mage and going down the sorcerer promotion track allows you to boost your total mana by 20%, which enables you to keep casting other heroes more frequently without running out of mana.
• Organize heroes on the tower in a way that makes them easy to remember. For instance, it can make sense to have the knight and lancer infantry along the bottom row, have the archer and another sky attack force in the middle row, and have the fully automated summoner to the left side of the top row.
• As a general rule of thumb if there are 2 parallel promotion tracks which either impact ordinary enemies or bosses it is better to impact ordinary enemies as you spend most of your time fighting them, and if you have them all cleared out when the boss arrives then the boss is typically quite easy to beat.

If you lose a wave you keep gaining coins from the fight. The coins can be used to level up, so don’t worry if you have to replay a wave many times to get past it.

Early on in the game it can make sense to spend skill points on bonus experience and bonus cash. As you advance it can make sense to shift across to upgrading your cooldown and other aspects to round out your attack.

You can play through hundreds of waves. Eventually you get to where you can play through the game with little thought after your castle and heroes are powerful enough. In fact, there is a double speed button in the upper right corner for making the game play faster.

Educational Aspects

This game can help players improve strategy as they time attacks and decide which forces to send into battle.

Player Age Recommendations

This game is fun for players of all ages.