Pixel Junk Monsters Deluxe – Sony PSP

Dug out my old PSP 2001 to play around with and wanted a few new games to play on it – this Pixel Junk Monsters Deluxe was one of the ones I bought. It’s a pretty good tower defense game – challenging, but not too hard at the start. Has kept me entertained so I’m happy with it. I’ve only played it in single-player mode.

Pixel Junk Monsters is a fun defense/stragety game.

You are Tikiman. One day, his town has become overridden with various, dangerous monters. You must keep them from reaching the hut and killing his flock. If all survive at the end of the level, then you get a rainbow. You must get 7 rainbows to move to the left side of the map, where new worlds await you.

Each level is different. It will describe each level and what you should do.

Towers cost money to build. You need to think carefully about where to place each tower, so they will have the desired effect. Most monsters will leave behind coins and blue gems. Gems are needed to buy a new tower. But you must hurry to collect the coins and gems left behind. They WILL disappear on you if you’re not fast enough. Sometimes you can find coins and gems through the trees.

The most difficult part of the game is figuring out which towers will kill which enemies. Each enemy is different and not all towers will do the same thing to every monster. For ex: Canon towers don’t have any effect at all on flying monters. They don’t even fire. Arrow towers are helpful, but still not good enough. You need an airgun tower, and alot of them if there are a lot of flying monsters.

There are four different colored flags you can upgrade your tower to: Blue, yellow, purple and black. You can upgrade each tower to its fullest, which is black and gold. The tower will have a black flag and a gold base. This is the most powerful. Blue is the weakest. You can use the blue gems to upgrade quicker. You need the correct amount to do so. Standing directly in front of a tower and dancing will slowly upgrade your tower, but it takes longer. It takes longer with each color.

This game is extremely addictive. You can become obsessed with trying to get 7 rainbows to get to the other side of the map.

I picked up a copy of this game having never played the other versions before. I had been browsing the PSP catalogue trying to find a few cheap titles and came across this one which seems to have great reviews across the board. While I can’t say that I’ve played very many tower defense type titles in the past (I generally play RPG/SRPG and Simulation games) I can say that without a doubt this game is now a top favorite of mine.

The objective is simple. Keep the monsters from making it across the field to your hut using strategically placed defense towers. All towers cost a portion of gold, which you collect by killing monsters. Some more powerful towers are unavailable until you unlock them with gems, which also come from killing monsters. There are obviously some more mechanics at play which are also pretty straight forward. What makes it so addictive is trying to get a perfect score on every level- because in most cases you can breeze through pretty easily getting an 18-19 (20 is perfect). Sometimes you can play through what seems like a very long and stressful round and just when it seems you’ve got it wrapped up some little monster miraculously makes it through all of your defenses with a sliver of health and takes one of your potato babies. GAH!!

Visually the game is very simple yet attractive- colorful and smooth. This is not a game that is trying to blow you away with graphics, sound and a complicated control scheme. It delivers a very simple package that is easy to play and difficult to master- a classic recipe for a thoroughly addictive experience. Given the low price of PJM I would say if you own a PSP there is no reason why you shouldn’t add this one to your collection no matter what genre interests you.