Variables 2

A hardcore TD made by the hardcore for the hardcore but expect some seriously annoying issues going in. If you are not hardcore ist krieg (ist ****ing krieg if I'm being dishonest-ish) then STAY AWAY. If you love TD but are bad at them STAY FAR AWAY as this is basically a Nightmare Simulator.

But it's hardhore, weird, and very special, and there's no way I could possibly give it a negative review.

Even with all the bugs.

Even translated poorly from Chinese.

...

Especially translated poorly from Chinese.

Really all they had to do with this game was incrementally improve on the original (in the spirit of dungeon warfare II vs I) and they would have had a beautiful thing on their hands; instead, it seems to try to reinvent the original with 'updated' graphics and UI which end up unnecessarily complicating things. The hud tries to hide too many pieces of essential information inside of menu selections which ironically creates a bigger logistical mess than the original game's UI where just about everything (equipment, turrets, tiles, tickets, recipes, etc) can be displayed all at the same time. The multi-elevation thing is a heinous, poorly implemented PITA that nobody asked for and nobody wanted. The graphics are more smoothed over and soulless than the original and, astonishingly, the soundtrack pales in comparison to the original as well (yes - the ONE SONG that drills itself into your head hour after hour in Variables 1 - is actually better than any of the soulless crap on offer here).

Just play the original and skip this sorry mess.

so good, the balance between rng and being able to choose your own pathing, towers, mods, etc. gives you a lot of variety while stopping you from doing the same thing over and over again. I like that while sometimes you can get crazy gear+tower+mod combos which is always nice, it doesn't feel like you need to be lucky to win

the artistic details such as the flavor text on gears or the amazing art that shows up for each boss are great and show how much effort was put into this (as does everything else)

definitely pretty complex though, and not a fan of the lottery system between games -- thinking about how best to arrange the gear sequence is a little overwhelming, especially when you get a new set each game and don't have full control over ordering.

But still, this game is very good, highly recommend

English language is playable, but rough. Some things take a few reads through and a bit of experimentation.

Game looks very complicated and has a lot of rules / recipes, reminds me of dota or tft fishing for combinations of items.

Although there are a lot of higher elevations most of the towers can shoot through walls / floors etc. so you can maze as complicated as you want without impacting your ability to kill the waves.

Game balance seems very off, you can 1-2 shot enemies with waves only being a 1-5 mobs. You very quickly get the recipe towers which do at least 5x as much damage as the regular towers.

The building the map i started to dislike very quickly as the game forces you to do it before you start the next level and I was attempting to speed through the waves to get to a reasonable difficulty, but you cant even do that without being interrupted to place down more tiles.

The game is superb, but the translation could be improved

I've had a blast trying to understand and beat this game. The English translation needs some play testing and bugfixes. There are some missing translations and more critically, truncated english text.

I think the boss fights mechanics and health bar graphics are really cool and innovative. It is quite fun to try to get the longest maze possible while getting the most coverage of the towers.

I haven't unlocked many of the extra towers, but the higher level ones seem like they are needed and start to do 90%+ of your damage.

Keep going. You have some fun ideas here.

I usually only write reviews for truly discerning patrician games as Cuckold Simulator or Takedown: Red Sabre, but I felt I should make one of the rare exceptions for Variables 2. I love tower defense games, and this one has a lot of high level, important ideas. An improvement over the (still very good) original in every way. My brain is still in recovery mode from taking all of them in.

There are some rogue-lite elements mixed throughout with unlockables, gacha games (using in-game currency), as well being able to choose mod packs that you can earn in a match (which you'll acquire through the gacha game.) And you may not always have access to every turret, so there are some elements of RNG that mix up every run.

The translation can be a bit rough in places, but nothing so bad that it proved to be an obstacle to understanding how things worked. Mainly just some odd wording here & there.

I'm sure there are much more detailed reviews, but put simply, if you like tower defense games, you'll like this one. If not, rethink the life choices that lead you to read reviews for tower defense games. Praying for you. 🙏🙏🙏

The dev also gave this to owners of the original for free. That's a sigma move.

V2 is a top tier tower defense game. The flow is that you start with a couple of 3x3 grids and elevator and a random raised 5 piece block. Arrange those and put your core at one end and the creep gate at the other. Place your choice of tower and then after each round you get more basic tower options. After a set number of waves you must place an additional creep gate. The gates are movable, but the core and towers are not. On advanced levels you can trade in 2 or 3 specific base towers for an advanced tower that should help you progress. Mods are random and can transform the right tower into a beast.

This really is a good innovative tower defence game. The mechanisms of being able to create the attackers route using tiles you lay down and being able to combine turrets into more powerful ones make it challenging and very replayable. The random events and bosses work well too.

Some of the English translations need a bit of work but it's easy to figure out what to do after a game or two.

Also the turrets do a dance during the battles when they do a lot of damage, so overall it's totally worth buying.

当初买了变量1，最近发现库里免费送了变量2，才玩了玩。非常棒的塔防游戏，比1代各方面都精致！