Parents' Guide to

Legends of Kingdom Rush

By Marc Saltzman, Common Sense Media Reviewer

age 8+

Challenging, engaging fantasy for all kinds of players.

Game Apple Arcade , Windows 2022
Legends of Kingdom Rush Poster Image

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this game.

  • Legends of Kingdom Rush Screen #1
  • Legends of Kingdom Rush Screen #2
  • Legends of Kingdom Rush Screen #3

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What’s It About?

Unlike the tower-defense games in the previous Kingdom Rush adventures, LEGENDS OF KINGDOM RUSH is a turn-based fantasy role-playing game (RPG) in the same universe. The adventure lets you create a traveling party of warriors -- each with their own weapons and abilities -- that venture out to stop a malevolent force from devouring the land. By selecting a core crew of melee or range fighters, as well as summoning help from several support characters, you'll traverse a map, make decisions along the way (with results dictated by a die roll), and engage in battles against foes, such as orcs, wolves, goblins, shamans, and many other threats (all pulled from previous Kingdom Rush games). While in various outdoor locations, the combat takes place on a semi-transparent hexagonal grid, which shows where each of your characters can move to (and target) on a given turn. Your goal is to deplete the health meter of your enemies by selecting whom to attack, how (often with more than one weapon or special attack), and in which order. You may also use obstacles, target an item (like TNT crate), heal your party on a given turn, and many other decisions you must make. In between battles, you'll rest to heal, enlist help from new recruits, level up, unlock new skills, and get to new areas on the map (from lush forests to frozen wastelands to farmland to rugged mountains).

Is It Any Good?

Our review:
Parents say: Not yet rated
Kids say: Not yet rated

This is a really entertaining and challenging RPG (role-playing game) that's easy to learn, but tough to master. Part of the fun in Legends of Kingdom Rush is experimenting with your heroes to see which ones are best suited for the job, and attempting to finish a block of the map before you can move on. Otherwise, you're forced to repeat that portion of the world (such as "Krum'thak's Dominion"), which has a couple of dozen areas in which to fight. You can also play out one of the 100+ randomly-generated narrative elements, such as being ambushed, finding a wishing well, opening an abandoned chest, and so on. Sure, it could be frustrating to suffer a defeat and have to replay a world you're three-quarters of the way through (and with just your core party, to start) but this challenges the player to rethink strategy and tactics. Combat is at the core of the game, which is highly enjoyable -- though sometimes a tad repetitive -- as you face off against all kinds of enemies and must assess the hexagonal area to flesh out a winning fight.

As with previous Kingdom Rush strategy games, humor is very much a part of the experience, with quirky dialog sequences and situations, and over-the-top characters borrowed from classic RPG lore. Plus, there are memorable (and zany) party members you can enlist, such as the maniacal old coot Zapper, the hot-tempered Barbarian, and the gung-ho Bombardier. The charming cartoon graphics and cute animation all add to the overall experience. Seasoned role-playing game fans and newbies alike, and those somewhere in the middle, will find countless hours of fun with Legends of Kingdom Rush. It's not a cakewalk, but losing a battle only makes you want to get back in there and give it a go again and again.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

  • Families can talk about violence in video games. Is the impact of the violence in Legends of Kingdom Rush affected by the inclusion of limited amounts of blood? Is blood necessary at all in this game, since there's so little of it? Does the blood add anything to the experience? Would the impact be intensified if there was more blood shown?

  • Is there a reason why only one of the 16 or so playable characters is a person of color? Or should we assume those who wear a helmet, mask or hooded cape, may also be BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color)? Does it not matter, since this is a fantasy game -- and some characters are green orcs?

Game Details

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