Joystiq [Nintendo]

First of all, we should explain what exactly the deal with this game is. If you haven't been paying attention, the object of the game is to defend your castle from the ridiculously large onslaught on invading armies that try to take it down day after day. While defending your castle during the daylight hours, you'll gather points, which can then be used at night to strengthen your castle or expand its plethora of assets. These assets include things from just strengthening walls (the castle's overall health), down to building a Pit of Conversion, which allows you to take enemy soldiers and convert them into followers that will do their best to protect your castle.

It isn't as easy as just building the Pit of Conversion and calling it a day, however. Once you have a pit set up, it isn't going to help you until you fortify towers for different abilities, so that the converted units may be placed there for use. These different towers allow for you to place archers, which will kill enemies periodically, to a tower for stone masons who will repair your castle. There's also a tower that you can use to instantly pull out a unit that will destroy everyone around him, as well as the coveted Mage's Tower.

The Mage's Tower is the coolest ability in the game, because you can call on a variety of spells to dispatch the enemy troops. You can call on the pink eraser to automatically eradicate one foe, as well as a nice Instant Conversion technique that provides you with a new troop, yet isn't affected by the annoying wait time that comes from using the Pit of Conversion. And, once you get into the thick of it later on in the game, you're going to be depending on the Mage's Tower to get you out of a tough spot.

Visually, the game looks great. Small touches like the changing weather, as well as the unit variations, come together to make a very visually appealing package. The game has a lot of charm here and looks like the imagination of a 4-year-old child. If there's any landscape we wanted to pay home to our exploits of defending a castle from countless hordes of enemies, it's here.


For a 500 Wii Point game, you'd be insane not to give Defend Your Castle a download. The game is fun, very accessible and has almost no learning curve. We can't comment on the mutliplayer, but if the single-player is any indication, it will deliver there, too. XGen Studios have created a great WiiWare offering and we're sure your life will be better for having downloaded Defend Your Castle.

Final Score: 9/10