One of the subgenres that really took off when tablets hit the scene, due to their pretty casual-friendly nature and how well they paired with touch controls, was tower defense. Looking to spice things up with that style of play further, a number of titles adopted a more active approach to be paired with your set defenses, allowing you to use a hero as an additional layer of defense and stay more engaged in the experience, also opening the door to added strategies. The latest to tackle this style on Switch is Otherwar, which has a distinctively retro look, but perhaps not quite enough excitement to demand your attention.

In terms of what it does differently, I will give some credit where it is due. Outside of the pretty old-school look, another change from the norm is that you’ll periodically get a more roguelike set of upgrade options which will vary so you’ll have to adapt to what you’re offered. Unfortunately, on a general level these don’t get terribly creative, they’re more a matter of choosing which stat boosts you’d like, or perhaps some money, but they at least promise some potential for variety from run to run.

The primary issue that gets in the way though, unfortunately, is a mixture of its general pacing and relative degree of difficulty. While I suppose everything moving too quickly could get overwhelming, honestly the pace here feels like a deliberate choice. The reason you need your enemies to advance slowly is because, honestly, they generally take a ton of damage, whether from you or your defenses. In order to balance the challenge that means that the waves need to come relatively slowly, and the units need to move at a bit of a snail’s pace. Especially when including the action component this just feels aggravating, as your participation is no doubt helpful, but you do such anemic damage it doesn’t make for much excitement.

In the end this isn’t a bad game, and if you’d prefer something a bit more challenging it can deliver that, but it also lacks some polish and excitement if you prefer things to be action-oriented. Just keep in mind that there are other options out there that may not be identical, but would fall under some form of tower defense with a side of action, and are simply more engaging.