If you haven't played the first entry, well, this review won't do you any good of course. I will say that you're doing yourself a disservice by not actually playing it, so stop reading this and plop down the $10 or so for it on PSN. If you've ever played a Tower Defense game on the PC (and chances are you have) then you'll be able to handle the basics of Pixeljunk Monsters well enough. Your end goal is the protection of your village on every stage against hordes of enemies, and you fend them off by building up small "tower" structures with various weaponry designed to battle specific monsters. As you advance there's quite a bit of strategy involved with not only tower placement but also weapon types, and you can also gain experience for your individual towers by causing your lead creature to dance around each tower during or after the battle.

Pixeljunk Monsters Encore doesn't deviate from this basic gameplay set up, and it doesn't screw it up with funky new additions either, but the difficulty is definitely amped all the way up for these new stages. If you thought getting Rainbows on every stage in Monsters was tough, wait till you see what they have in store for you here.

The expansion is comprised of 15 new stages based around a new setting called Toki Island. Unfortunately nothing that you gained in the original game is carried over here, so you'll be starting from scratch on Toki Island when it comes to weapons and power-ups. The other big disappointment is the lack of new enemy types and towers, which seems like something that would naturally be included when it comes to an expansion pack.

The lack of your previously unlocked towers and abilities make some of the early levels a real chore to play thru. As of this writing I have yet to actually rainbow every new level, and I'd be willing to bet it'll be sometime before I'm able to do so. The Easy levels are even pretty damn frustrating, but I don't chalk this up to level design as much as I do the multitude of enemies and enemy types that you'll encounter early on, without the proper defenses to handle them. Why I can't carry over my old stuff is a bit beyond me, unless it was the developer's way of masking the lack of new towers.

Still, Pixeljunk Monsters can be a blast to play through, despite the incredible difficulty. You'll find a lot of fun when playing thru with a friend, which is the best way to play the game. If you own the original, and you've played it to death, then you should obviously pick up the expansion. There's not a lot of new content outside of the levels, but they'll definitely keep you busy for quite a while.