Lesson Learned: Cult of the Elizabeth Review

In my experience, tower defense games are either strategic masterclasses, like every instalment of the Kingdom Rush series, or completely miss the point of the genre by disregarding the importance of the towers, as seen in Dead Ground. The next contender in this increasingly populated market, Lesson Learned: Cult of the Elizabeth, comes courtesy of developers MadGamesmith. 

Lesson Learned: Cult of the Elizabeth is just a mere taster, a teaser if you will, for the full game Lesson Learned. Can the free prologue be all the enticement needed to splash the cash on the entire experience, or is Lesson Learned: Cult of the Elizabeth a valuable, yet counter-productive, insight that could see you wasting money?

The premise is a simple one, in that a girl named Amelia somehow ends up being transported from her classroom to the Renaissance era, along with her friends. The aforementioned Cult of Elizabeth refers to the henchmen of noblewoman, and alleged serial killer, Countess Elizabeth Báthory de Ecsed. If Amelia is to escape this dream-like world, not only does she need to find her friends, but also fend off the advances of the fanatic hordes. 

As a plot, it’s lacking in depth, with no real explanation in regards to why this is happening, nor any further narrative beyond the opening gambit, which is minimal at best. That’s only natural though, with this being a mere prologue. Instead, it’s the aesthetic that’ll catch your attention as the characters are presented a bit like cut-outs and the enemies are rather obscure in appearance. In fact, the baddies are pretty hideous as if they’re mutated humans, which is cool.

Lesson Learned: Cult of the Elizabeth doesn’t feature an awful lot, but there’s a tutorial and three levels to get stuck into. The objective is to defend a makeshift base, which is part-spider, from the hordes of Miss Bathory’s crazy followers trying to attack it. There are moments for strategic planning before the incoming waves, but to be honest the preparation time is so swift that it all tends to blend into one.

In order to build a tower, you must first gather wood and stone from the surrounding area. While some resources are ready to pick up, you’ll also be chopping down trees and garnering stones by mining big rocks. This is time consuming, so you can assign a minion (another classmate) to partake in these activities. Unfortunately, the minion requires regular guidance, which involves moving Amelia to go and assign the task far too often. That takes away vital preparation seconds.

The hordes soon descend, with three different enemy types coming your way at intervals indicated by a timeline at the top of the screen. As for the towers, they also come in three varieties – Arrow Pricker, Boomer, and Spitter Machine. The Boomer is heavy on resources, but does area of effect damage; the Arrow Pricker is slow and sturdy at targeting a single foe; and the Spitter Machine is all about speed over substance. 

Even with just a few incoming enemies on the easiest difficulty, it’s stressful because everything feels rushed and you never really seem to have enough towers. Fortunately, Amelia is equipped with a slingshot and you absolutely have to use it to intervene in the action, slowing down the onslaught where possible. I get that it should be challenging, but succeeding provides relief, at best, instead of happiness and a sense of achievement.

Defeating the enemies enables the base to edge closer to the end of the level and further away from where enemies spawn. Then it becomes even more of a chore to collect resources as you have to venture back and forth between the horde entrance and the base. In the end, it gets to a point in every level where it’s easier to just forget the idea of building anything else, with all your hopes resting upon what’s already constructed and the use of the trusty slingshot.

Overall, and while Lesson Learned: Cult of the Elizabeth might look like an intriguing tower defense, a taste of the gameplay is enough to cast doubt on advancing to the full game. There’s no harm in giving this freebie a go, but in the hour it’ll take to finish, you’ll probably have had enough. Despite the historical element and quirky design, the resource gathering sucks the fun out of any joy the incoming waves might bring. It doesn’t help that the helper is an idiot, so you’re effectively doing twice the work.

The lesson learned here is to always try before you buy. Lesson Learned: Cult of the Elizabeth could save you some cash!