When comparing Gemcraft: Chasing Shadows vs Tower Kingdom Online, the Slant community recommends Gemcraft: Chasing Shadows for most people. In the question“What are the best PC Tower Defense games?” Gemcraft: Chasing Shadows is ranked 6th while Tower Kingdom Online is ranked 22nd. The most important reason people chose Gemcraft: Chasing Shadows is:
The main mechanic of the game is using gems that provide properties like splash damage, poison, chain lightning, etc to your towers in different combinations. Add to that the fact that there are 7 levels for each gem, you have to manage your mana, there are multiple difficulty levels that change the amount of experience you gain, there are multiple kinds of spells, 25 passive skills and talisman fragments among other variables that you have to balance and you end up with an impressive amount of choice and depth.
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Addictive, in-depth gameplay based on combining gems that provide different traits to your towers
The main mechanic of the game is using gems that provide properties like splash damage, poison, chain lightning, etc to your towers in different combinations. Add to that the fact that there are 7 levels for each gem, you have to manage your mana, there are multiple difficulty levels that change the amount of experience you gain, there are multiple kinds of spells, 25 passive skills and talisman fragments among other variables that you have to balance and you end up with an impressive amount of choice and depth.
Pro More than 140 levels
With so many levels to play in the game will last a good while. Each map is varied and with that makes for an experience that does not get tiring either.
Pro The Power System
By making use of a power system tactical decisions becomes all the more important. Should upgrade an existing attack tower or rather build a new power tower. The more tower you have the more power it uses to fire. You can tweak the power settings when in trouble to reduce power needs. All making your decisions all the more important.
Pro Online Leaderboard
In survival mode you can compete with other players around the world for the top Ranking positions. When playing a lower level map in survival mode, your character de-levels to the map level and only equipment of that level and lower are taken into account. This ensures a fair playing base for all character even if they are on a higher level.
Pro Beautiful graphics and effects
The game makes use of beautiful graphics and each tower is fully animated. You can see the towers tracking the creates and this includes sound combined with graphical effects in a 3D environment.
Pro Equipment and Crafting System
Your character use equipment (as loot drops) to improve its strength. The higher you level, the better equipment needed. What to do with that unwanted piece of equipment you picked up as loot. Deconstruct it to give you gems and in turn use those gems to improve your existing equipment.
Pro Over 100 fully simulated towers on a single map.
You can have over 100 fully simulated towers with special effects on a single map. Its thus not a handful of towers that makes your decisions important but rather a solid game-plan for the particular map. Should one build that long range tower with lower damage or rather that shorter range high damage tower. Is fast or slow firing the way to go. All these, and more, come together to play an important role in forming a game-play strategy.
Pro The Dome
The dome is the most powerful feature in Tower Kingdom. Where you place your dome and how you make use of it can often by the deciding factor between success and defeat. Towers built inside the dome area gets boosted by the dome and thus becomes more powerful.
Cons
Con Can seem too heavily luck based
Hit damage is luck based meaning that it is up to the game at points as to how much damage is given making for a bit of an imbalance when winning in just a few strikes in one game and then having to do many hits in another.
Con Co-op and PvP multiplayer modes are under development
At the moment players can only compete against others vie the survival leader board. They are currently busy with a co-op and PvP multiplayer expansion. I list this as a con, only due to it not being completed yet.