Cataclismo

Cataclismo is an excellent tower defense title, providing some classic horde-defense gameplay with an incredibly unique building mechanic as a twist. Cataclismo’s 1.0 launch was a straight improvement over everything I criticized in its Early Access version, living up to my expectations and managing to impress me a second time around.

Cataclismo isn’t very deep when it comes to mechanics or narrative. But the freedom of taking chunks of wood and blocks of stone to create defenses and a variety of other structures is very engaging and enhances everything else about the title. It helps that a player can choose between the more directed experience of the campaign and the extra freedom associated with endless mode and skirmishes. Using limited resources to plan sturdy fortifications is made easy by the copy-paste features and the fact that the entire Steam Workshop serves as a reserve of blueprints. Cataclismo’s core idea is good and extra focus on city management would make it even better.

A unique strategy that pleasantly breaks the conventional tower defense genre, where instead of pre-built structures, you create a wall against the fog with your own creativity. The surprisingly well-executed campaign keeps up the pace until the very end. It's a pity, however, that the same attention given to the wall-building mechanics wasn't extended to the construction of other buildings or the variety of units. Exploring the map is also fun, as you must build platforms, stairs, and bridges to reach harder-to-access areas.

Exceptional building mechanics support a game that sometimes feels like a chore.

Hard to resist Cataclismo: build ever higher, more imperious and resistant fortresses with bricks that are very reminiscent of Lego, and to see how they resist enemy assaults. Sure, sometimes it hurts to witness our arrogance, to watch the collapse, but that is also the beauty. By day the optimization of resources, the joy of exploration; by night the continuous challenge between the human being and death. Between the solid stone walls and the claws, teeth and tentacles of monsters. Not everything is as fluid and smooth as we would have liked, due to an interface that is sometimes unnecessarily complex, a map readability that is not always exceptional and a basic repetitiveness of the idea, but it is hard not to get excited in front of some of the skirmishes we fought against thousands of enemies.