History YMMV / KingdomRush

* EvilIsSexy:
** The Vampiresa enemies have prominent cleavage and a much bigger chest size than the good female vampire Lucrezia. Margosa from ''Vengeance'' is more modestly dressed than the Vampiresa but still less so than Lucrezia.
** If you look closely, the Scourgers in ''Origins'' are actually quite {{Stripperiffic}}.
** In contrast, most of the good-aligned female enemies in ''Vengeance'' are more modestly dressed, such as the Ice Witch, the Valkyrie, and the Devoted Priest, with the only {{Stripperiffic}} enemy being the Northern Huntress (and even then they show no cleavage unlike the Vampiresa).

** War Elephants and Drum Elephants are more MiniBoss examples, this time coming from the Hammerhold expansion of ''Vengeance''. Let's run them down: both are the strongest types of enemies the Hammerhold campaign has to offer, mostly thanks to large amounts of health. Both have incredibly high resistance to physical attacks, so magic-based towers (or Asra's armor-removal shots) are a must to counter them. While they don't have as much health as Cerberus and are far slower, they make up for it by being ''[[TheJuggernaut literally unstoppable]]'' -- any opposition, hero or troop, is TrampedUnderfoot and cannot block them, while abilities that trap, freeze, slow or stun are no-sold. War Elephants have two archers on their backs providing support, thus even [[DragonVarietyPack Beresad, Eiskalt, Murglun and Dianyun]] have to be effectively micromanaged to stay out of trouble. Drum Elephants provide significant boosts to units in their vicinity. If you had a rough time against such enemies during the casual play, then '''good luck''' tackling the Iron Challenge of ''Hammerhold Streets'' level. Both types of Elephants come in large groups, ''and you have only Twilight Harassers and Swamp Things available to counter them.'' Hope that you can mount effective defense before they inevitably march straight to the exit.

** Cerberus from the original game is a noteworthy MiniBoss example. Three-headed hounds from Hell are [[LightningBruiser the strongest units running at the speed of the ordinary Wulf]]. They're only encountered during the ''Pit of Fire'' and ''Pandaemonium'' levels, but the things can go awry really fast if you aren't prepared. Extreme amounts of health plus sufficient resistance to physical attacks equals the necessity to bring out Rock Elementals to stall them, as well as combined one-hit kills from different types of towers to keep even a single Cerberus at bay.
** War Elephants and Drum Elephants are yet another MiniBoss examples, this time coming from the Hammerhold expansion of ''Vengeance''. Let's run them down: both are the strongest types of enemies the Hammerhold campaign has to offer, mostly thanks to large amounts of health (tied up with aforementioned Cerberus enemies). Both have incredibly high resistance to physical attacks, so the magic-based towers are a must to counter them. War Elephants have two archers on their backs providing support - thus even [[DragonVarietyPack Beresad, Eiskalt, Murglun and Dianyun]] have to be effectively micromanaged to stay out of trouble. Drum Elephants provide significant boosts to units in their vicinity. Both types of Elephants are [[TheJuggernaut literally unstoppable]] -- they [[TrampledUnderfoot trample the opposition]] (no matter if it's regular warriors or Heroes) instead of being blocked. If you had a rough time against such enemies during the casual play, then '''good luck''' tackling the Iron Challenge of ''Hammerhold Streets'' level. Both types of Elephants come in large groups, ''and you have only Twilight Harassers and Swamp Things available to counter them.'' Hope that you can mount effective defense before they inevitably march straight to the exit.

** Cerberus from the original is a MiniBoss example. Three-headed hounds from Hell are [[LightningBruiser the strongest units running at the speed of the ordinary Wurg]]. They're only encountered during the ''Pit of Fire'' and ''Pandaemonium'' levels, but the things can go awry really fast if you aren't prepared. Extreme amounts of health plus sufficient resistance to physical attacks equals the necessity to bring out Rock Elementals to stall them, as well as combined one-hit kills from different types of towers to keep even a single Cerberus at bay.
** War Elephants and Drum Elephants are MiniBoss examples from the Hammerhold expansion. Let's run them down: both are the strongest types of enemies the Hammerhold campaign has to offer, mostly thanks to large amounts of health (tied up with aforementioned Cerberus enemies). Both have incredibly high resistance to physical attacks, so the magic-based towers are a must to counter them. War Elephants have two archers on their backs providing anti-air support - thus even [[DragonVarietyPack Beresad, Eiskalt, Murglun and Dianyun]] have to be effectively micromanaged to stay out of trouble. Drum Elephants provide significant boosts to units in their vicinity. Both types of Elephants are [[TheJuggernaut literally unstoppable]] -- they [[TrampledUnderfoot trample the opposition]] no matter if it's regular warriors or Heroes instead of being blocked. If you had a rough time against such enemies during the casual play, then '''good luck''' tackling the Iron Challenge of ''Hammerhold Streets'' level. Both types of Elephants come in large groups, ''and you have only Twilight Harassers and Swamp Things available to counter them.'' Hope that you mount effective defense before they inevitably march straight to the exit.

** Cerberus from the original is a MiniBoss example. Three-headed hounds from Hell are [[LightningBruiser the strongest units running at the speed of the ordinary Wurg]]. They're only encountered during the ''Pit of Fire'' and ''Pandaemonium'' levels, but the things can go awry really fast if you aren't prepared. Extreme amounts of health plus sufficient resistance to physical attacks equals the necessity to bring out Magma Elementals to stall them, as well as combined one-hit kills from different types of towers to keep even a single Cerberus at bay.
** War Elephants and Drum Elephants are MiniBoss examples from the Hammerhold expansion. Let's run them down: both are the strongest types of enemies the Hammerhold campaign has to offer, mostly thanks to large amounts of health (tied up with aforementioned Cerberus enemies). Both have incredibly high resistance to physical attacks, so the magic-based towers are a must to counter them. War Elephants have two archers on their backs providing anti-air support - thus even [[DragonVarietyPack Beresad, Eiskalt, Murglun and Dianyun]] have to be effectively micromanaged to stay out of trouble. Drum Elephants provide significant boosts to units in their vicinity. Both types of Elephants are literally unstoppable - they trample the opposition, no matter if it's regular warriors or Heroes. If you had a rough time against such enemies during the casual play, then '''good luck''' tackling the Iron Challenge of ''Hammerhold Streets'' level. Both types of Elephants come in large groups, ''and you have only Twilight Harassers and Swamp Things available to counter them.'' Hope that you mount effective defense before they inevitably march straight to the exit.

** Pandaemonium from the original game is seen as the hardest level in the series and for good reason. The map itself isn't doing any favors with 3 separate entrances to keep track of and lava fissures placed specifically at the chokepoints to roast your barracks units at the worst possible moments, but the wave design is what makes this level pure hell. Each wave is made up of sadistic combinations of demons, such as first 2 waves sending in Hell Hounds to encourage you to build barracks to at least slow them down (Since they are more like speedbumps because the hounds will easily blow your troops to pieces when they die). The next wave then decides to send a large amount of Demon Spawn along with Lords, which will most certainly plow through your barracks, and to seal the deal, Imps, Flareons, ''And'' Demon Legions show up within the next 6 waves. Even foreknowledge of the anti-barracks nature of the level won't be enough, since the demons show up in such numbers (The final wave has '''48 Demon Legions''', you know, the infinitely duplicating and sturdy enemies? Also you are required to kill all of them in the Steam version, even if you kill the boss) that you also need to know exactly when to use Rain of Fire to thin their numbers or else you will be overrun every single wave even with the right towers.
** Maginicia Shores from Vengeance is often seen as a ridiculous jump in difficulty from the main game, even by Elite Stage standards. You are just simply bum-rushed by a horde of heavily armored enemies, but they each have their own tricks so you can't just pound them with magic (Chasers leap onto your troops to bypass your towers and Wardens have their shields replaced by Infusers). The waves involving Wardens and Infusers can get especially hairy, as the game chucks so many of them at once despite having very good armor.

* HighTierScrappy: Eiskalt from ''Vengeance'' is widely considered the most overpowered hero in the series to the point where he kills any difficulty the game had. As a dragon, he flies around quickly, and his entire kit is based around high damage, area hitting and stalling, with ''every'' attack of his capable of slowing enemies. His ''basic attack'' is a True Damage wide-area attack that fires much faster than any artillery, his Ice Peaks deals a huge percent of enemy HP, and his Hero Spell is basically a "turn the tide" button by freezing all enemies for a good amount of time and allowing them to be picked off. He was nerfed by making him no longer target {{Airborne Mook}}s, but he's still one hell of a menace against grounded enemies.

* HighTierScrappy: Eiskalt from ''Vengeance'' is widely considered the most overpowered hero in the series to the point where he kills any difficulty the game had. As a dragon, he flies around quickly, and his entire kit is based around high damage, area hitting and stalling, with ''every'' attack of his capable of slowing enemies. His ''basic attack'' is a True Damage wide-area attack that fires much faster than any artillery, his Ice Peaks deals a huge percent of enemy HP, and his Hero Spell is basically a "turn the tide" button by freezing all enemies for a good amount of time and allowing them to be picked off.

** In Vengeance's Hammerhold expansion, Lord Malagar can be seen hiding around each of the five levels, but only disappears if you click on him. Why does he not aid his former mentor Vez'nan? He's likely laying low and observing how Vez'nan's forces claim their victory (as you're the VillainProtagonist controlling them), so he can avoid his past mistakes against Hammerhold's forces in ''Frontiers''.

** Umbra, the FinalBoss of ''Frontiers'' is a brutal fight even by final boss standards. It seems like a standard FlunkyBoss at first, but it get far worse after its first kill and reform. Umbra starts using EyeBeams that ''[[ThatOneAttack outright destroy your towers with no gold refunds given]]'', hurting your DPS and funds to build a new tower while making it harder to kill it and its already-strong Mooks[[note]]Umbra and the Spider Goddess are the only enemies in the ''entire series'' with a tower-destroying move, but Umbra can use it an unlimited number of times while the Spider Goddess only performs hers thrice in the entire fight[[/note]]. As such, Umbra turns into a race against the clock and funds as the player needs to quickly destroy it before its eye beams destroy the player's defenses and the hordes of rather strong minions get through.

** [[BonusBoss Ulguk'Hai]] also falls into this. [[LuckilyMyShieldWillProtectMe He has a shield]] that ''absorbs all hits on him''. He only puts it down when he's fighting your troops.

* HighTierScrappy: Eiskalt from ''Vengeance'' is widely considered the most overpowered hero in the series to the point where he kills any difficulty the game had. As a dragon, he flies around quickly, and his entire kit is based around high damage, area hitting and stalling, with ''every'' attack of his capable of slowing enemies. His ''basic attack'' is a True Damage wide-area artillery that fires much faster, his Ice Peaks deals a huge percent of enemy HP, and his Hero Spell is basically a "turn the tide" button by freezing all enemies for a good amount of time and allowing them to be picked off.

** The Druid towers in ''Origins'' are considered rather useless due to having nothing to circumvent the ArtificialStupidity of the Artillery towers not to mention being unable to hit air units at all[[note]]In the original, Big Bertha has homing missiles while Tesla has the ChainLightning. In ''Frontiers'', DWAARP has a 360-degree splash damage while Battle mech has the aforementioned homing missiles. In ''Vengeance'', the Goblin Zeppelin can be positioned to affect troops effectively, the Melting Furnace uses a 360-degree splash, the Rotten Forest has a similar 360-degree area of effect In ''Origins'' both the level 4 druids uses the same inaccurate rock throw with only clobber as the reliable splash damage[[/note]] with the ''Burst Arrows'' being considered to be far more reliable splash damage than the Druids. This unfortunately has the side effect of making swarms that much more difficult compared to other games but particularly the spiders who are both fast and easily shrug off the splash damage from the ''Burst Arrows''.
** In a similar vein, the Goblin Rocket Riders in ''Vengeance'' are seen as one of the more useless towers. Like the Druid towers in ''Origins'', they share similar weaknesses but are even less reliable. Nitro Boosters are a nerfed version of the Dragonbreath or Wasp missiles, having a much shorter range and the inability to target air units. Minefield is unreliable due to random placement on the track and can outright miss enemies that don't go close to them. Finally, unlike ''Origins[='=]'' Druid towers that at least had abilities to stall or stun (Runed Bears and Clobber), Rocket Riders don't even have a way to do either. The other artillery towers in the Melting Furnace, Rotten Forest, and the Goblin War Zeppelin are seen to be more useful thanks to having wider, more reliable Area of Effects and stuns, or dealing more damage while being more versatile.

* TierInducedScrappy:
** The Druid towers in ''Origins'' are considered rather useless due to having nothing to circumvent the ArtificialStupidity of the Artillery towers not to mention being unable to hit air units at all[[note]]In the original, Big Bertha has homing missiles while Tesla has the ChainLightning. In ''Frontiers'', DWAARP has a 360-degree splash damage while Battle mech has the aforementioned homing missiles. In ''Vengeance'', the Goblin Zeppelin can be positioned to affect troops effectively, the Melting Furnace uses a 360-degree splash, the Rotten Forest has a similar 360-degree area of effect In ''Origins'' both the level 4 druids uses the same inaccurate rock throw with only clobber as the reliable splash damage[[/note]] with the ''Burst Arrows'' being considered to be far more reliable splash damage than the Druids. This unfortunately has the side effect of making swarms that much more difficult compared to other games but particularly the spiders who are both fast and easily shrug off the splash damage from the ''Burst Arrows''.
** In a similar vein, the Goblin Rocket Riders in ''Vengeance'' are seen as one of the more useless towers. Like the Druid towers in ''Origins'', they share similar weaknesses but are even less reliable. Nitro Boosters are a nerfed version of the Dragonbreath or Wasp missiles, having a much shorter range and the inability to target air units. Minefield is unreliable due to random placement on the track and can outright miss enemies that don't go close to them. Finally, unlike ''Origins[='=]'' Druid towers that at least had abilities to stall or stun (Runed Bears and Clobber), Rocket Riders don't even have a way to do either. The other artillery towers in the Melting Furnace, Rotten Forest, and the Goblin War Zeppelin are seen to be more useful thanks to having wider, more reliable Area of Effects and stuns, or dealing more damage while being more versatile.
** The Templars in ''Frontiers'' are pretty universally agreed to be outclassed by the Assassins for most situations. Assassins have similar survivability (due to their dodge rate), way better damage, and their upgrades cost a lot less. Additionally, the Assassins go into stealth when not moving or in combat, so they can't be targeted by ranged attacks. The Templars' only real saving grace is using them against enemies with area-of-effect attacks, which the Assassins can't dodge.

** The Vampiresa enemies have prominent cleavage and a [[BuxomIsBetter much bigger chest size]] than the good female vampire Lucrezia. Margosa from ''Vengeance'' is more modestly dressed than the Vampiresa but still less so than Lucrezia.

* NamesTheSame: No, the Flareon demons aren't [[Franchise/{{Pokemon}} flaming fox-like critters]].

** It seems odd that Vez'nan dislikes dinosaurs, expressing his hate towards them and outright refusing to tame them into his ranks, despite having his own dangerous troops that include ferocious beasts like wulves and worgs. This can likely be explained by dinosaurs being much more difficult to train compared to goblins, orcs, trolls, demons and even wulves and worgs, thanks to their uncontrollable primal nature. The primal dwarves were able to tame them thanks to living with them for ''centuries'', way longer than Vez'nan has been around.

** The Vampiresa enemies have AbsoluteCleavage and a much bigger chest size than the good female vampire Lucrezia. Margosa from ''Vengeance'' is more modestly dressed than the Vampiresa but still less so than Lucrezia.

* FanPreferredCouple: Eridan/Alleria and Reg'Son/Lynn are the two most popular pairings in the community, despite the lack of any canon evidence (not that it matters, since past the first game, the heroes barely have any profile). Even [[https://www.ironhidegames.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=8129&start=340#p100348 the]] [[https://www.ironhidegames.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=8129&p=125191#p125058 devs]] support them.

** Pandaemonium from the original game is seen as the hardest level in the series and for good reason. The map itself isn't doing any favors with 3 separate entrances to keep track of and lava fissures placed specifically at the chokepoints to roast your barracks units at the worst possible moments, but the wave design is what makes this level pure hell. Each wave is made up of sadistic combinations of demons, such as first 2 waves sending in Hell Hounds to encourage you to build barracks to at least slow them down (Since they are more like speedbumps because the hounds will easily blow your troops to pieces when they die). The next wave then decides to send a large amount of Demon Spawn along with Lords, which will most certainly plow through your barracks, and to seal the deal, Imps, Flareons, ''And'' Demon Legions show up within the next 6 waves. Even foreknowledge of the anti-barracks nature of the level won't be enough, since the demons show up in such numbers (The final wave has '''48 Demon Legions''', you know, the infinitely duplicating and sturdy enemies?) that you also need to know exactly when to use Rain of Fire to thin their numbers or else you will be overrun every single wave even with the right towers.

** Pandaemonium from the original game is seen as the hardest level in the series, and for good reason. The map itself isn't doing any favors with 3 seperate entrances to keep track of and lava fissures placed specifically at the chokepoints to roast your barracks units at the worst possible moments, but the wave design is what makes this level pure hell. It crushes you with the worst combinations possible.

** ''Frontiers'' has [[FinalBoss Umbra's]] EyeBeam attack, which ''instantly destroys a random tower outright'' with no gold refunds given, reducing your damage output by a significant amount unless you saved enough gold to replace it. Umbra's other attacks involve spawning minions, and shooting your troops/hero for a good bit of damage, neither of which are as threatening as his tower destroying one.

** Umbra, the FinalBoss of ''Frontiers'' is a brutal fight even by final boss standards. It seems like a standard FlunkyBoss at first, but it get far worse after its first kill and reform. Umbra starts using EyeBeams that ''[[ThatOneAttack outright destroy your towers with no gold refunds given]]'', hurting your DPS and funds to build a new tower while making it harder to kill him and his already-strong Mooks. It and the Spider Goddess are the only enemies in the ''entire series'' with a tower-destroying move, but Umbra is far tougher because it has unlimited uses while the Spider Goddess only performs hers thrice in the entire fight. As such, Umbra turns into a race against the clock and funds as the player needs to quickly destroy it before its eye beams destroy the player's defenses and the hordes of rather strong minions get through.