Developed by IriySoft and published by Surefire.Games, Cursed Treasure 2: Ultimate Edition is a re-release of the classic flash tower defense game that you might have played when it was released earlier. Dubbed the Ultimate Edition, Cursed Treasure 2 is the latest release of this game that combines the base game as well as all updates and content released for the game. It is also the most ‘re-balanced’ version of the game which brings different changes in the meta of the game. This is our review of Cursed Treasure 2: Ultimate Edition on PC in which we kill some humans and protect our gems from their hands.
Cursed Treasure 2 was originally a flash game, and the Ultimate Edition is a new release for the franchise which included all content of the base game and further improves upon different aspects of the game. While I agree that it includes all content of the game, I cannot agree with the fact that this edition improves upon the base game in any way. Taking a unique turn on the franchise, in Cursed Treasure 2, you step into the shoes of an evil mastermind who is trying his best to defend his precious gems from falling into the hands of humans. The King wants to forge three rings for the Queen and now he wants your gems. Now, it is up to you to defend your gems at every stage and prevent the humans from setting foot in your lands.
The game gives you a top-down perspective of each mission where you can build towers along the paths of incoming waves and prevent the enemies from reaching your gems. The humans have to first reach the gems, pick one up and then use the closes exit to escape from the area to make it count. If an enemy picks up a gem, you can still kill it and the enemy will drop the gem. Later down the road, you can purchase an upgrade which will make the gems creep back into the cave. If you do not purchase this skill, the gem remains wherever it is dropped making it easier for new enemies to simply grab it from there and make it to the nearest exit. There are three gems in every level however as you progress in the game, the enemy waves become tougher, and you have to work twice as hard to keep them at bay even with tower upgrades and skill upgrades.
There are different tower placements all around the paths where you can purchase and place the defending towers. There are three types of towers in Cursed Treasure 2: Ultimate Edition. The green ones are orc towers, and they are the archers of the game. The blue ones are the Undead towers, and they use magic for their attacks while the final ones are the red ones which are the demon ones and they use fire for their attacks. Each of these towers has some basic upgrades and after reaching a particular level, you can purchase major upgrades for these towers which convert them completely into a brand-new tower. For purchasing these upgrades, your tower must defeat enough enemies to level up first and only then you can spend gold to upgrade them. This makes the level grindy and the fact that you cannot upgrade the towers right at the start of a level.
While you can place the towers anywhere around the paths by clearing up trees and anything else that comes in your way, you have to watch out for the color of the land before placing the towers. The elevated spots allow you to build any type of tower on them but for constructing towers on the normal areas, you can only build a tower where the land matches its color. This not only limits where you can place these towers but also you cannot make any sort of choke points for the enemies. Depending on their types, the towers excel against certain types of enemies and hence you will need to place them properly in order to utilize their full potential. There is a comprehensive skill tree specific to all three tower types where you can purchase useful upgrades for all three tower types.
Apart from using your towers, you have two support powers at your will as well, Meteor which drops a meteor with massive splash damage on the area of your choice, and Terror which can frighten your enemies massively. Both of them require Mana and you can use them in the game to gain an edge over your enemies. Each level has a normal mode and a Night Mode which offers less visibility and thus adds a new level to the challenge. On different levels, there are different support buildings as well which give you a chance to get some bonus items. These range from Mana Towers to Gold mines that give you bonus resources. Similarly, the enemies get support structures as well which send additional armies toward your gems however you can spend your resources to gain control over them. Depending on the structure, you will either gain resources or a one-time bonus and also eliminate enemy reinforcements if it was sent before you captured them.
There is an in-game store as well where you can spend Skulls, a premiere form of currency to purchase some emergency resources or powers. Different enemies drop different items such as Skulls, mana potions, gold, and even powerful scrolls that you can use in the game for your own benefit. All of these mechanics surely add up to a lot to soak when you start playing the game, but the learning curve of the game is not that hard. The mechanics are pretty basic and are more based on the fact that how many skills you have unlocked and what level you currently are. Having a higher level will make levels much easier for you and for this, you have to grind the currently available levels. One good thing that comes from it is that the game gives you XP even if you lose so that serves as compensation.
There is a decent variety of enemies that you will encounter in the game ranging from normal peasants to fully armored knights. Each enemy in the game is unique and you will need to deal with them accordingly. Some enemies will go down easily while some will really take a beating. Certain enemies are really speedy as well and will quickly aim for the gems and try to grab them as soon as possible and run away with them. Some enemies will support other enemies by making them strong. Apart from the regular enemies, each stage ends when a champion of the king enters the stage to steal your gems. These champions are the toughest enemies that you will face in the game, and you will need to use everything at your disposal to take care of them. At the end of each area, there is a final boss battle where you must defeat the boss to gain access to the next area.
Cursed Treasure 2: Ultimate Edition can be enjoyable at times and during my initial few levels, I was really having fun in the game until the game just started to get harder and harder. It just baffles me how the towers start to feel completely useless as even the most basic of the enemy types just casually waltz through the area, stealing your gem, and taking it away. This makes absolutely zero sense because the game gives you freedom to build as many towers as you want by clearing out the trees but the amount of gold you receive, and the useless mana is always minimum for you to even use the spell powers. Even then, you feel helpless, and the enemies will just overpower you really easily. The amount of grind that you have to put into the game right from the start really puts you off. The Ultimate Edition was supposed to be the best bit of the game but somehow, it manages to be even worse than the original release. Even after a year of its release, there have been no balancing updates for the game so I will just suggest skipping it entirely and spending your time elsewhere.
Final Verdict:
Cursed Treasure 2: Ultimate Edition is a mediocre tower defense at best. It features good visual design, and the overall art style of the game is really good, and it actually feels like you are actually playing in a fantasy world. Some of the levels in the game look great as well but the tower design, the enemy design, and the gameplay overall feel mediocre at best. The game is really grindy with you unable to complete certain levels until you grind the already available levels. This is just a bad game design and for a tower-defense game, this just feels wrong. Considering the fact that was a flash game but releasing on PC as an ‘Ultimate Edition’ while retaining the same gameplay mechanics makes it feel like a dated tower-defense game since we now have tons of others that are much better than Cursed Treasure 2: Ultimate Edition. If you like playing tower defense games, I will suggest that you look at alternatives such as Kingdom Rush which are much better in every way. If you really want to play Cursed Treasure 2: Ultimate Edition, make sure you go in prepared for some grinding.
Final Score: 5.0/10
