Bloons TD 5

Every once in a while I think back to the era of Flash games and go… “wow, I played a lot of tower defense games back then”. They were definitely one of my favorite genres at the time, though I preferred the games that put a twist on the formula. Gemcraft, which I already discussed (and will discuss again), and Cursed Treasure, which I haven’t (yet), are two examples. The weirder one, though, might be the Bloons franchise.

Bloons is about the never-ending struggle between monkeys and balloons, all with different skill sets and power levels. At the core of the conflict, the Monkeys try to stop Bloons from traveling all the way across a path on the screen. Why? Who the Hell cares! Do we even need a reason? The Monkeys specialize in various types of weaponry, some of which toy with every possible facet of tower defense gameplay. The Bloons, meanwhile, just get stronger and stronger, occasionally gaining resistances to certain forms of attack or just taking more hits to go down.

I was planning to cover Bloons TD6 this year, but I felt the need to cover TD5 first, seeing as I had already played it before. I don’t plan to go over the entire history of the franchise, not that there’s a ton to be said about Bloons TD 1 to 4. The most notable difference between Bloons TD 5, released by Ninja Kiwi on November 19th, 2014, and previous installments, is the inclusion of classic free-to-play and return bonus elements.

The arsenal

Red Bloons? That's a start.

Per the rules of tower defense, the enemies (Bloons) come in waves through the path, and your job is to set up towers, using the money at the start of the game, earned by killing enemies, and also gained at the end of each successfully-beaten wave, to defeat them. You can upgrade towers to improve their rate of fire, range, and perhaps also give them extra skills. Since our enemies here are balloons, the starting weapons tend to be of the piercing variety – darts, tacks, shuriken, etc.

The game includes an EXP system; when you first begin playing, the only tower you have is the Dart Monkey, but a new tower is unlocked at each level-up. Past the unlocking of the final tower, the following levels unlock additional stages on higher difficulties.

The towers also have their own EXP bars, which fill up as you use them; as an example, the more Dart Monkeys you use, the more EXP you get to unlock upgrades for them. All towers here can be improved up to a fourth stage, across two upgrade paths that exist concurrently. You can upgrade both paths at the same time for the first two stages; however, past that point you must choose a path for the third and fourth upgrade, preventing you from using the upgrades from the alternate path.

Here shown, an example
with the Monkey Sub.

Burn, burn, burn... A ring of fire...

There’s a reason for that: At the end of both paths rests a very powerful, final upgrade. The upgrade on the left path is the tower at its best, massively improving its firepower, but the upgrade on the right path, while also good on its own, comes with a Skill that you can use whenever you’re in trouble, though it has a cooldown.

As an example, the Tack Shooter, an early weapon with very short range that shoots in all directions at once, can be improved to shoot faster and further. Its two final upgrades allow it to either shoot a ring of fire constantly (which can destroy pretty much anything), or gives the player a skill that will make it shoot a spiraling stream of saw blades all over the screen, popping any Bloon the blades hit. Other towers’ final upgrades gives a massive boost in destructive power, especially towards the stronger Bloons coming down the path.

The baddies

Careful letting them through...
Too many could spell doom.

As for the Bloons? Well, they’re the same as they ever were, functioning in layers. The first you’ll meet are red Bloons. Then you’ll have blue Bloons, which contain red ones. Then green Bloons contain blue ones. Yellows contain greens, pinks contain yellows. Past that point, things can be a little different; you can have either black Bloons, immune to explosives, or white Bloons, immune to being frozen, both of which contain two pinks. A step above and immune to both, the zebra-striped Bloon will spawn a white and a black when popped. Two zebras Bloons are contained within a rainbow Bloon. Last but not least, Ceramic Bloons take 10 hits to be fully popped, after which they release two Rainbows. And, separate from all those, Lead Bloons, containing two black Bloons, are impervious to sharp projectiles, lasers and wind knockback. Geez!

Oh, and all of these are available in Camo versions, undetectable by most towers (though many can be upgraded to see and attack them), and heart-shaped Regrowth versions, which will grow back a layer if left untouched for too long. Every single layer of a Bloon that makes it through to the exit counts as a Life lost. This really adds up after a while; a Ceramic that goes through unscathed is an insta-kill on Hard! Re-geez!

Z.O.M.G.? Zoinks, Oh My Gaaaaaaaaaaawd!

What’s above Ceramic? Well first is the Mother of All Bloons, or M.O.A.B.; it has 200 health, and spawns four Ceramics when taken down. They appear near the end of Easy Mode. Things are kicked up a notch at each of the next two difficulties, with Medium featuring B.F.B.s (Brutal Floating Behemoth, though in my mind the F stands for something else there), with 700 health and containing 4 M.O.A.B.s; and Hard ends with a Z.O.M.G. (Zeppelin of Mighty Gargantuaness), with a whopping four THOUSAND health and containing four B.F.B.s. Re-re-GEEZ!

Sometimes, it’s not so much that they’re dangerous on their own, it’s that they come in as a tight bunch to run through your defenses easily. Especially on later waves, where dozens of Ceramics can come all at once. Hence why freezing/stun/knockback effects, included with some towers, are so important in late-game.

Not mentioned anywhere else: The FastTrack option, which
has to be purchased to be available for all tracks, lets the
player skip to Wave 25 immediately, with a bonus 5,000$
to use on towers. Very good when, far into the game, the
first couple waves feel too easy and a waste of time.

Stages are available in four difficulties: Easy, Medium, Hard and the aptly-named Impoppable. The big differences are the number of waves and starting lives: 50 waves and 200 lives for Easy, 65 waves and 150 lives for Medium, 85 waves and 100 lives for Hard. Impoppable further jacks up the price of towers and upgrades, keeps the 85-wave limit of Hard, AND you have only one life. Good luck, you’ll need it. Every stage beaten for the first time on a difficulty gives an amount of Monkey Money to be spent on the main menu’s houses, and an amount of Tokens that can be used to upgrade the towers’ general skills. Also of note, when you beat a stage on a difficulty, you have the option of continuing in Free Play to keep earning EXP.

The stages

I'm far enough into the game that I have unlocked all of the
Extreme courses, and yeah - extreme is no exaggeration.

The stages, 94 of them at the time of writing, are divided in categories; Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced, Expert or Extreme. What’s the difference? Usually, the length of the path or the number of different roads the Bloons can take, since both those elements can impact greatly the positioning of your towers. They can all be played in the aforementioned four difficulties, and you can tack on two additional challenges: Play the game with the path of the Bloons in reverse, and (a new feature available since the game celebrated, on November 16th, 2022, the 10th anniversary of its original release as a mobile game) a “10” mode in which only 10 classic towers of the franchise are available to use on the field. The harder the stage, the more Monkey Money and Tokens you get per victory.

An example featuring all the most special towers.
Machine gun, mortrar cannon, heli, plane.

Your towers are all rather peculiar; most have an area in which they shoot their weapons, so you have to put them close to a track. Others are more utilitarian, like the Banana Farm that harvests cash to help you buy better upgrades, or the Monkey Village, which gives boosts to range, attack speed and frequency as well as allowing nearby towers to hit camo Bloons. Yet others shake up the tower defense formula like a machine gun shooting where your mouse cursor is, or a helicopter that follows your cursor, a mortar cannon that shoots in one precise place, or a plane that flies in  an 8 shape and shoots in all directions. Lastly, you can also use road spikes to tear through 10 Bloons at the cost of 25 coins, or set a pineapple bomb to explode three seconds later.

Stages may have areas where you can’t place towers. They can also contain water sections, on which most towers can’t be placed (though two of them, the Buccaneer and the Sub, can; those two instead cannot be placed on land).

Little land? No problem!

So I did all this just so I could do it again, harder?
Re-re-re-Geez!!!!!

The waves don’t actually change in normal play; however, after getting all medals on 17 Beginner fields and beating Easy on at least 39 more (amounting to… a buttload of time spent playing), you unlock Mastery Mode for Beginner fields. The Bloons in every wave change, M.O.A.B.s of all three sizes appear earlier. You unlock Masteries for later field difficulties by fulfilling additional requirements. So if you thought you were fine just beating stages for completion… you’re not even halfway through.

Oh, and on selecting the center building on the main screen, you can not only access the main mode, but also play any existing track in Co-Op Mode, play an Odyssey (a series of levels you must beat without a single Game Over to get the end reward), play a mission selected at random among 250 available (!), take part in the Daily Challenge, or do any of the Special Missions.

I’m 75 hours into this damn game and it feels like I haven’t even done 10% of it, for Pete’s sake.

The amenities

Yes, do come back every day. For as long as you'll feel
like popping balloons.

Going over the options on the main menu quickly.

-Premium Store: Buy (with real money) cosmetic changes to your towers, or use the Monkey Money earned in-game to buy what amounts to cheat codes, like double money or free tokens.

-Achievements and Options: Self-explanatory.

-Monkey Lab: Where you spend your hard-earned tokens on permanent upgrades to improve the popping power or firing speed of your towers, increase your starting cash or lives, sell towers back for more money, decrease the HP of M.O.A.B.-class Bloons before they appear or decrease the cooldown time of your towers’ special abilities. Upgrades past a certain point require Masteries to be unlocked.

-Monkey Mailman: This little guy will always have three missions for you, with rewards in Monkey Money, Tokens, free towers or special agents, to use in stages.

I hope you have the cash to use these...

-Special Agents: Costing Monkey Money, these "towers" can be placed around a battlefield and have plenty of uses; some are offensive, others are utilitarian (like the Farmer who instantly grabs the bananas from a Farm or the Meerkat Spy that lets all towers in its radius see camo Bloons), or change the field (the Portable Lake lets you use a water tower on land, the Pontoon lets you use a land tower on water). The Super Monkey Storm instantly beats a wave if you’re in trouble. Using one enough times upgrades it into a Pro version with new features and skills.

-Specialist Buildings: You can focus your Money on improving, up to four times, a specific tower. You can only have one Specialist Building active at a time though, so choose wisely.

-Tower Information: In case you forget what each tower can do, all of the information is here.

-Daily Reward: This treasure chest embodies the free-to-play aspect alongside the Mailman and Daily Challenges, with a free item every day.

Final thoughts

Fire! Lasers! There's nothing these
Bloons won't go through!

I’m always a bit leery of reviews that feel like a list of features more than a detailed description of the game. This fell in the first category, despite my best attempts to liven the description. Then again, tower defense titles aren’t too big on story, focusing more on gameplay. And gameplay, here is fairly strong – between the fields to pick from, the many towers to use and their associated upgrades and abilities, a whole bunch of Special Agents to learn to use, and a whole lot of strategic options to tailor your experience to your liking. There is a lot of depth and complexity to what otherwise looks like a cute and simple title.

Yeah... 250 is a lot.

At least, the list of features makes it clear just how much content is here. 94 stages, which you basically have to play through at least 8 times to get everything (once for Easy, Medium, Hard, Impoppable, on top of the extra Reverse and Ten medals, then double that in Mastery Mode). Then, 66 of those are available in Co-Op Mode if you’ve got a friend who also likes tower defense titles; the Odysseys, which change every couple days; 250 random missions; the daily challenges; and 10 special missions. WOW. Then again, the game has been adding content regularly for more than eight years already.

The game looks great, going for a cartoon style that works well with the subject. All of the towers look different with each upgrade, the stages are pretty and detailed. The music is some smooth jazz that, while pleasant, gets old fast. And there’s no way to only lower the volume; it’s just On/Off. On the plus side, the game employs the free-to-play format of always having new missions to complete, new content to try out, and bonuses to unlock; but only the cosmetic changes require real money. Makes sense; the game isn’t really free-to-play, it costs 9.99$ USD.

Some fields are pretty creative, like this one
where Bloons often take the wrong path.

One issue with this game may be that since the Bloons in each wave don’t really change between difficulties and only the price of towers and number of lives do, it may start to feel repetitive after a while to play through every stage. Some stage layouts and missions shake up the formula, forcing you into using specific towers, diversifying your strategies; and so do the Masteries, but they take a long time to unlock and are mainly a much harder mode to reward you for getting this far. Yeah, you can change your experience in many ways, but it frequently comes down to grinding for cash and tokens. Also noteworthy is the sheer number of things that can be on the screen at once (towers, bullets and Bloons included), so the game can be prone to lagging on late waves.

This one is faithful to the franchise and adds a bunch of cool ideas that weren’t in the Flash-based originals (such as the Special Agents, the Tokens to permanently improve your fighting chances and the Specialist Buildings). It has fantastic depth in gameplay, but its surface repetitiveness is a mark against it and I understand why many people less crazy than me wouldn’t spend 70 hours on it.

….The kicker? I’ll probably need just as much time played to properly review Bloons TD6 eventually.