Guardians of Holme review

Decks, Demons, and an Impermeable Defense

It’s been nearly ten years since Defense Grid 2 became the pinnacle of tower defense. The past decade has spawned plenty of contenders, with franchises such as Bloons and Kingdom Rush attempting to end DG2’s reign. But mirroring the dominance of the game’s meteor turrets, developer Hidden Path Entertainment’s creation repelled every attempt at conquest. While some might find fault in Defense Grid 2’s weapon balancing, its trifecta of impressive visuals, inclusion of controller support, and delightfully campy voiceover performances has yet to be topped.

Although MossTech Studio’s Guardians of Holme still has a few blemishes following a six-month stretch in Steam’s Early Access program, it’s probably one of DG2’s most capable challengers. This competence is rooted in the skillful incorporation of two influences. Beyond a roguelike deck management system for your defensive arsenal, fending off invaders channels the spirited mayhem of Orcs Must Die!

Dish out the Demon Abuse

Guardians of Holme understands that gratification can come from dishing out immense amount of torture. You’ll begin a run by selecting one of three characters, from the trap-setting Seth, the magic-using Nicole, to Horus the alchemist. All have their own specific starting decks, partialities, and base stats, providing Holme with a robust playtime if you appreciate variation.

Regardless of your selection, Holme lets you dish out a lot of digital sadism, as you funnel enemies through corridors where they’ll be scorched, spiked, and beaten, all before potentially being flung by one of Seth’s launchers into a bottomless abyss.

A Mostly Fair Fight

Unlike most titles where you’re barely given enough resources to build a few towers at the start of the round, Holme is refreshingly generous. There’s none of that annoying in-game inflation when building duplicate turrets and it’s quite possible to acquire a card that increases your starting salary while providing a charitable discount.

Intriguingly, some stages have pre-existing defenses, which you can sell for additional funds. And sometimes you’ll have to. At present, Holme doesn’t always outspoken about upcoming challenges. So, it’s easy to get caught off-guard if a new enemy spawn point materializes or when ground-based foes are accommodated by flying ones. Another small issue: health regenerating enemies can be a frustration, as they repeatedly shake off all the damage you can dish out. Sporadically, the linger like an unyielding pest, caught in a Sisyphean cycle of healing and punishment once all their associates have been killed off.

No Place like Holme

That said, one of the game’s best qualities is a satisfying sense of autonomy. Instead of linear routes across static stages, Holme’s environments are randomized, allowing you to alter enemy walking routes by dropping down barriers and observing the potential new route that adversaries will take. And once you have devised a proper death-path, you have the freedom to position towers almost anywhere you’d like. The sole limitation is that wall and floor-based defenses must be placed on the respective parts of the environment, which isn’t a concern given the size of stages.

Unsurprisingly, tower synergy remains a key strategy for success. Once monsters step out from the main gate, you’ll probably want to hit them hard, reducing their resistance and thinning out dense processions into more manageable numbers. But beyond than that essential tactic, Holme lets you toy with enemies, devising your own ways to maximize damage while slowing their speed. Creating your own homicidal assembly line has always been one of the lures of a respectable tower defense game, and Holme handles this fundamental quite well.

Hope for the Beginner

The title is also quite skillful when it comes to its deck management component, as you’ll rarely encounter a situation where you feel cheated. Some of that sentiment stems from shuffles that aren’t completely randomized. For instance, before the first wave starts, you’ll almost always find at least a few blockades in your hand, ready to deploy. Each character begins with low-priced defenses that can be remarkably effective. Thankfully, you don’t start with a deck full of high-priced cards that are ineffective with an introductory budget.

Expectedly, the long game lets you augment your deck. As you make your way through a run, branching route lets you purchase new cards or perks with earned currency, select new defenses, or upgrade your existing defenses. Additionally, you’ll encounter the occasional opportunity to replenish your health or confront some “Choose Your Own Adventure’ style dilemmas. These events help make Holme feel less like a succession of trials, which often cause tedium for the tower defense genre.

Three Against the Demon King

Beyond a few balancing issues, Guardians of Holme has a few rough edges. While controller support makes Steam Deck play feasible, mapping zoom to the right analog stick instead of the directional pad might be a better default.  And while the game doesn’t look bad on portable screens, the cell-shaded cartoonish art style doesn’t look as polished on larger screens. When it comes to weapon balance, at present some of the defensive boosters improve a small area, making it difficult to justify their cost. Finally, if you’re expecting exposition, you might want to look elsewhere. Holme’s chronicle of an uprising by displaced disciples of a lapsed Demon King feels like high-fantasy formula.

Fortunately, most of these transgressions are forgivable- especially when you factor in the game’s reasonable pricing. For tower defense enthusiasts there’s potential for more than 30-40 hours of entertainment. Genre fanatics could probably stretch that out even further as they advance the abilities of the three characters. While Holme might not topple Defense Grid 2, it’s definitely one of the best tower defense titles to arrive across the last few year years.

Guardians of Holme was played on PC with review code provided by the publisher.