One genre that I always enjoy playing is a good Tower Defense game, but sadly I never know where to look for interesting ones that doOne genre that I always enjoy playing is a good Tower Defense game, but sadly I never know where to look for interesting ones that do something different. There is something that I find relaxing and addictive about the games that I don’t know how to explain the feeling. That’s why whenever I hear about a new one, I jump at the opportunity to play it, and if l am lucky, I have a great experience as well. The latest Tower Defense game to land into my Switch is JARS, a game ripe for the Halloween season that just bypassed us.
When Victor drops the last jar of Pickles, he is sent to the basement by his mother to retrieve a new jar. When Victor enters the basement, he finds several jars. Jars aren’t the only thing he finds in the basement as it also contains a sarcophagus and not any sarcophagus, but the one and only Dracula’s. Now Victor has a new job, and that is to protect Dracula from all the creepy crawlers that intend to harm him with the power of jars.
JARS is a 2D based Tower defense game where players are tasked with protecting Dracula’s sarcophagus from the creepy crawlers in the basement. To protect the sarcophagus, players need to open a series of jars. The jars on each level come in three different varieties: Allies, which can be items or insects the player uses to protect Dracula; Enemies, which like the name says, are the attackers trying to destroy Dracula; and Random Jars, these are usually the last ones that should be opened as they can contain either allies or enemies, which changes every time the level is restarted. I loved how the game incorporated random generation in the levels, as it always kept me on my toes. Like any game with randomly generated levels, it came with the whole difficulty problem as well, meaning sometimes players would get a good lot of jars or some bad jars that you just want to throw out and wish you never opened as that stench is now stuck in the air.
The levels in JARS are short and bite-sized, with most of the levels taking under five minutes or less to complete. During each level, players need to open all jars and protect the sarcophagus from any enemies emerging from the jars. As well as the essential protection of the sarcophagus, players may also have to protect batteries with magnets which will give them extra money to either upgrade or buy new weapons or insects to protect Dracula. I liked that the levels didn’t take long as it allowed me to pick up and play whenever I had a bit of time; it made it perfect for handheld mode in short sessions.
Even though the levels are short, it didn’t mean the game was easy, but it did make it easier to restart levels. As I said prior, the random generation did help when redoing levels as levels I had trouble on were made more accessible as half the random jars were used to my advantage. This didn’t always work out that way, but it was such a good feeling when it worked in my favour; it made me feel powerful. On the other hand, when it went the other way, frustration ensured. This is neither a good thing nor a bad thing when I think about it; it is just part of the random-generation genre, and at least it kept me on my toes, even if it got frustrating when it didn’t go my way.
With all that said, JARS is best played in bite-sized increments, but that isn’t to say that long sessions won’t work, but if you are like me, you may want to savour the game and play it over many days. If you can’t and need to play it all at once, players can always repeat levels and try improving their scores.
JARS is an excellent tower defense that mixes 2D art and randomly generated levels to give players a game that can be enjoyed in bite-sized and long sessions with players going through all types of emotions. You will have a love-hate relationship with the game in a good way. You would have thought protecting Dracula in a Basement would be so fun.
JARS is available on Switch and Steam.
A review code for JARS was provided by publisher Daedalic Entertainment.… Expand
