Paladog

Paladog

Paladog is a side view real time defense style strategy game where you summon units to defend Critterland against the forces of evil. You control Paladog as he supports his army with magic as well as using the spoils of war to upgrade his troops as well as unlock new soldiers.

After choosing the difficulty level desired and viewing the story behind the game your dropped into a stage select screen. From here you can go to the upgrade section or start a stage to play the game.

Combat

Choosing to start a stage will drop you into the combat screen. From here you can summon critter units which will come on to screen from the left and move right towards the enemy base. Enemy units will exit the enemy base in an attempt to put an end to your crusade against evil.

Stages come in five different variants. Normal stages are simple, they end when either Paladog or the evil base falls in battle. There are four challenge stages which play differently from the regular stages however.

Critter units require meat to be summoned and magic requires mana to be used, both of which steadily increase over time. Both regeneration rates and max capacity can be enhanced through the use of rings and level up bonuses.

With every enemy unit destroyed Paladog gains both gold which is shown in the upper right and experience which is represented by the green bar in the upper left of the screen. When the bar fills up Paladog levels up and you get to choose from one of three randomly determined bonuses.

 

Bonuses range from an increase in the production of food or mana, to the increase in the drop rate of loot from enemies.

Bonus that have been leveled to their maximum level are removed from the pool of potential random bonuses

The first challenge stage is a kind of lottery draw where random units and spells scroll onto the screen out of the mouth of some creature.

In this challenge all you have to do is survive through a number of waves of enemies. Critter units and spells can be summoned or activated as soon as they appear on screen.

The second challenge stage plays much like the regular combat stages with the exception that you must protect a covered wagon as it makes it's way across the stage.

The stage ends when either the covered wagon is destroyed or it makes it safely across the stage.

The third challenge stage is a lane based defense game where the objective is to get enough of your units through to the other side of the battle field.

Units are summoned normally but magic has been replaced by the ability to either summon one random unit on each lane or five units into a single lane.

Every unit gotten to the opposing side damages the enemy leader, the stage ends when either Paladog or the enemy falls.

The last variant of the combat stages is the boss battle stage. This stage plays out much like a regular combat stage with one major difference. Once the evil base is destroyed the boss appears and must be defeated to win the stage. This is easier said than done as bosses tend to be stronger and more resilient than normal enemies as well as having unique abilities of their own.

Upon completion of a stage your results are graded as one through three stars based on how quickly you finished the stage, you are then given an amount of bonus gold based on the grade which you received.

Upgrades

There are two ways you can use gold to upgrade your capacity to destroy evil. The first is by upgrading your units directly. Each unit can be upgraded a maximum of twenty times counting their initial unlock. Upgrading increases a units ATTACK and HP (with the exception of the turtle which has no offensive capabilities) thus allowing them to do more damage and last longer in a fight.

The Shop

 

The shop is where you can buy a limited variety of maces (magic wand things) and rings (which grant passive boosts to certain aspects of gameplay). This is also where you can sell unwanted items from your inventory. Aside from the item shop equipment can be gained randomly from defeated monsters and there are some maces and rings that can only be gotten from monster drops.

Equipment Screen 

Equipment whether it be purchased or gathered from loot drops must first be equipped before it can be used or have any kind of effect on gameplay. up to three wands and two rings can be equipped at any given time so choose your equipment carefully.

Overview

Paladog is a well executed side view RTS game with unique and original artwork. Though it's translation could have been done better I suppose it's passable. This appears to be the initial offering of FazeCat,  a company based out of Korea (which is mostly why I can give the translation a bit of a pass, English probably isn't their first language). One can only hope their next stab into the world of flash games will be even better.

Paladog