Review: Final Horizon

Described as “2 minute tower defence”, Final Horizon is a new take on the popular strategy genre: a fast paced action packed strategic tower defence game like you’ve never seen before. Build and upgrade your defences to fight off the Swarm invaders. Chain enough kills to unleash one of the powerful killstreak attacks.

Pros:

• Big chunky graphics with some great sxplosions,land detail.
• Opening tutorial section.
• Cross save with the PlayStation Vita version.
• Full Platinum trophy.
• PlayStation TV support.
• Tower defence with a huge emphasis on speed.
• Levels have primary and secondary objectives.
• Build and upgrade your defenses, Ranging from guns to solar farms.
• Easy simple to use UI. In game its just a case of clicking on a unit and a wheel will pop up with options like upgrade and repair. Qucik clean and simple.
• Everything is done in real time including build times.
• Bite sized levels which is perfect for Vita players. Levels do get longer but in all honesty it only takes about 15 mins to finish each level max.
• Control scheme is simple and quick to learn and best of all feels natural.
• Killstreaks, Get a load of kills in a quick fire assault and unlock big powerful strikes.
• Game is split across 3 solar systems, 15 planets which equal to over 50 levels.
• Replay levels from the level select screen.
• Earn solar/energy from killing enemies and solar farms. Use this to upgrade and buy new units.
• Levels are varied as they get split between your tower defense scenarios and overhead bring the rain scenarios.
• Excellent pacing in game with difficulty slowly building and introducing new mechanics.
• Can give temporary boosts to units for those hectic moments.
• Unlock new abilities and units through playing the story.
• And it feels weird writing this but…Unlock new enemies as you play the game.
• Online leader boards with friends filter, level filter.
• Score challenge levels can be unlocked. Here you go for high scores, You can adjust the difficulty, speed of respawns,enemy types etc.
• Really playable and has that whole pick up an play vibe going on.
• You have an overall percentage bar for campaign progression.
• Full game stats screen.
• Log containing details on all enemy types encountered.
• Invert controls option.
• Left handed players option.
• Loads of replay levels.

Cons:

• Music is not that great and is kind of uninspiring and doesn’t fit the game.
• Slow starter especially in terms of laying the story out, Learning the beginner mechanics.
• The whole do a VR mission showing your new abilities then playing the level gets old fast and could easily be sped up with a few choice text boxes and pop up.
• UI or the text in particular is really basic, So basic you think you have accidentally turned on your Nimbus 486 and are reading an word document.
• Game pace is erratic and can so often feel slow.

In Summary, The game surprised me. It doesnt look much and the few videos I saw made the whole thing look a bit low budget  and basic. I soon ate my own words as the strategy involved coupled with excellent controls made the game a huge deal in my gaming time. I found myself dipping in and out every night and loving every minute. A fine example of never judge a book by its cover. The game is so playable and welcomes new players yet still has that hardcore edge that keeps those tower defence pros happy. Well worth a purchase unless you have PS Plus in which case you already own it as its FREE!