Rating: 4.5/5 Stars 

“Bloons TD 6,” released mid-2018, is the latest edition of the well-known Bloons Tower Defense series by video game developer Ninja Kiwi. The first installation in the series was released as a flash game in the middle of 2007. 

“Bloons TD 6” (Bloons stands for Balloons) falls into the category of games called Tower Defense games, where a player places down towers to defend against oncoming enemies. Another well-known game in this genre is Plants vs. Zombies. 

Whether you’re a new player or you’ve played for a collective 500 hours like us, the game, packed with challenges and gamemodes like its C.H.I.M.P.S. (no Continues, no Lives Lost, no Income, no Monkey Knowledge, no Powers and no Selling), is still challenging and infinitely replayable. The difficulty of C.H.I.M.P.S. in particular highlights one of the game’s best aspects: It’s a strategy game. This means that winning depends on how well your strategy works and that you can never get bored, since there are so many ways to play the game. 

Unlike other Tower Defense games with extremely limited selections of how to play, Bloons TD 6 has a near infinite selection of choices, with millions of unique monkey combinations available to defend your base from the evil bloons. 

Bloons TD 6 has two main tower types: heroes and monkeys. There are 13 heroes in the game, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. Each hero levels up automatically, gaining XP (experience) based on the difficulty of the map. One essential part of the game is choosing which hero would go best with one of 62 maps you can choose to play.

There are 22 normal monkeys in the game, and players must carefully consider how to upgrade their monkeys — tradeoffs between range, attack speed and special effects must be made because players cannot buy every single upgrade. 

Each monkey has three different upgrade paths, and players can only choose two of these paths to upgrade. One of these two paths can be fully maxed out, while the other path is locked at two upgrades. Players are also limited by the amount of cash they have, and complex strategies revolve around making more cash through monkey abilities and banana farms, a cash generating monkey. 

“Bloons TD 6” also suits a multitude of playstyles, whether you want a real challenge or want to relax in a slow-paced game. There are 14 different game modes, including an easy game of standard Bloons to C.H.I.M.P.S., challenging even the most experienced veterans.

One of the best aspects that can make or break a game is its community, and “Bloons TD 6” has both a supportive and active player base. YouTubers like ISAB further community engagement by posting tutorials of gameplay and testing out fan made mods. Community members can also make custom challenges that greatly expand on the preset gameplay, and seemingly simple challenges can take hours to beat after searching for the correct strategy. 

We also love how “Bloons TD 6” is one of the few games where non-paying players are not at a noticeable disadvantage. Initially, monkey upgrades are locked, and instead of paying, you can naturally unlock these upgrades by using the monkey to defend against Bloons. Additionally, no game modes, monkeys or maps are locked behind paywalls, unlike some games by major publishing companies with multitudes of expensive expansion packs. 

Although the graphics may be slightly outdated, it helps the game run on slower computer models and mobile devices. 

  Constant updates with buffs and nerfs keep the game balanced, making sure that there is never an unfair way to play the game. This is nothing new, but ”Bloons TD6” is unusual in that its updates always contain new content, from new Bosses to unique challenges, testing even the most wrinkly of brains.

Overall, “Bloons TD 6” has great value, especially because you can easily get hundreds of hours of play-time for a mere $10 (sometimes one dollar when on sale). If you are ever looking for a new game to add to your Steam library, you can’t go wrong with “Bloons TD 6.”