Push back waves of monster assaults.

Collect the most powerful heroes and form the optimal squad.

Improve your roster for faster clears.

Pal Go is a hero collector, merge, and tower defense game playable on Android and iOS.

As with other tower defense games, your goal is to put down wave after wave of enemies before any of them manages to reach the gate. The gate has a fixed amount of hit points to resist being destroyed all at once. Minor enemies that manage to breach your defenses inflict some damage and disappear after doing so, while boss monsters stay on the map until they are eliminated or are able to destroy the gate.

How do you go about plotting your defenses? That’s where your heroes come in. Forming a group using different characters is your first order of business after sorting out the tutorial stages. This is less of an actual field party but rather a summon roster. You won’t have control of what units you’ll get. Instead, you’ll have to rely on luck and quick decision skills to properly place units and set up efficient kill zones where you can dispatch monsters the quickest. This is a little different from the traditional tower defense games where you can choose a defensive installation from a build menu and get what you need right away. You’ll also have to combine identical heroes to unlock a higher-tier defender.

The main adventure content is presented in wave battles. You’re given an initial amount of summoning energy to call forth a few units to serve as your initial defenses. Every successful wave you endure rewards you with more energy to bring more allied creatures to the field. Defeated enemies charge up a skill gauge where you are allowed to pick one boost for your team when the target is reached. These boosts vary by grade and the number of allies they can affect. It’s up to you to make the best use of the provided choices. There are at least two boss stages at every level. The first you’ll encounter is a sub-boss that is placed in the middle part of the stage. The last enemy of a level has the biggest sprite of all and has more hit points than the one before it.

PvP is a 1-on-1 battle where you and another player set up heroes and repel enemy assaults before hitting your gate. The first whose gate is destroyed loses. It will take a few hours into the game to unlock the PvP menu.

Heroes stand at the core of the game. They come in different grades, with Epic types being some of the best units you’ll aim for to get optimized parties able to tackle just about any content type. Lower-rarity heroes can work fine, with more careful placement and constant unit improvement. Improving heroes from leveling up, and unit ascension, to equipping gear on them. You’ll need some character shards to call upon a Hero to your roster. These pieces are also used to ascend and give them new abilities or modifiers.

In summary, Pal Go’s gameplay mechanics directly affect difficulty – depending on how lucky you are in getting the needed Heroes and boosts at a given stage. This game isn’t meant to be breezed through and you’ll find yourself replaying levels until your units can confidently handle the waves of enemies thrown your way.

If you are big into games that focus on incremental development, then this merge tower defense game is a good place to start with.