Bloons TD 5 Reviews

pretty addicting but my one comment/annoyence is that the game almost never gets better/changes

This game is pretty old, but its one of the best tower defense games of all time. Grinding each medal on all the maps is a time consuming process, and if you don't have a friend to play with, its pretty much impossible to get all the co-op medals. Even then, it still takes a long time, and it does get boring after a while. Despite all of that, this is still one of the best tower defense games ever, and I would honestly consider it to be ahead of its time.

I started playing this series in elementary school, on good old coolmath4kids. I didn't realize steam had this game on here until It was advertised on sale for just a few dollars Now I'm 40 hrs in, I've absolutely gotten my money's worth and more with this game, it's insanely addicting and super fun to play while chilling and doing things like watch tv or a movie, I love listening to music and playing the game, it's super relaxing. I've played a lot of BT6 and it's nice to see this game not have micro transactions, and not have pay to win mechanics, everything is earn able without having to grind for endless hours, the maps are nice and theirs a ton, I mean a ton of them. I love this game, I wish the multiplayer aspects were still active, theirs no real people left to play with, but it is a 10 year plus game so it's understandable I think this game is worth the price it's asking for, regardless if it's on sale or not though I think the DLC is kind of stupid it's not at all needed as it's just skins for the characters. I love this game, and I absolutely recommend it, buy this game and you won't regret it at all. Also I wanted to say that it works like a charm on the Steam deck, it's where most of my time has been, its of course kind of funky with the controls but it's playable with custom layouts and you do get used to it eventually. 5 out of 5 stars

Not going to lie I don't enjoy it as much as I used to enjoy BTD Battles but it's a good time killer. Definitely worth a shot.

Bloons TD5 on Steam is a tower defense game that exemplifies the genre with its charming art style, engaging gameplay, and surprising depth beneath its playful exterior. Developed by Ninja Kiwi, the game continues the beloved Bloons series tradition of popping waves of colorful balloons (“bloons”) by strategically placing a variety of monkey towers with unique abilities. Released on Steam, this version brings the classic mobile hit to PC with improved controls, enhanced graphics, and a more expansive experience that appeals to both longtime fans and newcomers. At its surface, Bloons TD5 offers a simple premise: stop the bloons from reaching the end of the path by deploying monkeys with different attacks—darts, bombs, lasers, and more. However, the game quickly reveals its complexity as players must choose from a wide arsenal of towers, each with multiple upgrade paths that can drastically change their function and effectiveness. The variety of towers encourages experimentation and strategic planning, requiring players to anticipate the types of bloons in each round and adjust their defenses accordingly. The addition of hero units, powerful special monkeys with unique abilities and levels, further enriches the tactical options and personalizes gameplay. The pacing and progression system in Bloons TD5 keeps players hooked. Maps vary in complexity and length, offering different routes and chokepoints that challenge your tower placement and resource management skills. Early rounds are relatively straightforward, serving as an introduction, but as you advance, the bloons come in diverse forms—camo, lead, regeneration, and even the dreaded MOAB-class blimps—each demanding specific counter-strategies. The balance of risk and reward, combined with the gradual unlocking of new towers and upgrades, creates a satisfying loop that rewards both quick thinking and long-term planning. Graphically, Bloons TD5 maintains a colorful, cartoony aesthetic that is both inviting and clear. The vibrant visuals make it easy to distinguish different bloon types and track fast-paced action, even when the screen gets crowded. Animations are smooth, and each tower’s attacks have satisfying visual and sound effects that enhance the tactile joy of popping bloons. This presentation helps keep the tone light and fun, making it accessible to all ages without sacrificing clarity or excitement. One of the strong suits of the Steam edition is the improved interface and control scheme. Playing on PC allows for more precise tower placement and quicker access to upgrades, which is a boon in the heat of later rounds where every second counts. The game also supports higher resolutions and better performance compared to its mobile counterparts, ensuring a smooth experience even on larger displays. Multiplayer modes add another layer of replayability, allowing players to cooperate or compete with friends. Co-op mode is especially enjoyable, requiring communication and coordination to effectively manage resources and cover different parts of the map. Competitive modes challenge players to outlast or outscore opponents, bringing an exciting twist to the traditional tower defense formula. These multiplayer features significantly extend the game’s lifespan and foster a community around strategic play. Despite its many strengths, Bloons TD5 can sometimes feel repetitive over long sessions due to its reliance on similar mechanics throughout. While the variety of towers and bloon types helps mitigate this, the core gameplay loop remains focused on the same fundamental task—popping waves of enemies. Additionally, some players may find the difficulty spikes in later rounds challenging, which can be frustrating without prior experience or careful strategy. In conclusion, Bloons TD5 on Steam is a vibrant and engaging tower defense game that successfully translates a popular mobile title into a richer PC experience. Its blend of accessible gameplay, strategic depth, and charming presentation makes it a standout in the genre. Whether you’re a casual player looking for some quick, satisfying fun or a strategy enthusiast eager for intricate planning and multiplayer battles, Bloons TD5 offers plenty of content and challenge. It’s a bright, bubbly defense game that continues to prove why the Bloons series has remained popular for so many years. Rating: 9/10

fun game got for cheap but worth the full price

The game is extremely fun (arguably more fun than BTD6) but if you don't log in for a while it completely resets your progress which i found out first hand.

>NO OP BOSSES >NO UNFAIR C.H.I.M.P.S. >NO CONFUSING CROSSPATHS >NO DDTs >NO SWEATY RACES >NO MATH DEGREE NEEDED TO FARM JUST PURE BLOON POPPIN For real though, boomer BTD is fun. It lacks much of the depth and improvements from 6 but it's a really nice change of pace. Good timesink game

A much better game than TD 6 in my eyes, mostly because it's much more focused on single-player. No heroes either, just the good towers. Love that there's not as much of a focus on money and leveling. The monkey lab is a very cool feature. Lots of maps to pick from too, not too complicated, not too many modes.

What can be said about the Bloons TD series as a whole here has almost certainly been said throughout the many years of this most iconic indie game that paved the way for what is easily one of the most satisfying and casual titles in the 'tower defence' genre, making it as accessible to many gamers out there, yet it also offers a substantial challenge and strategic gameplay experience for those who truly wish to test their tactical minds as far as tower placement/combos and the likes go! Though to answer whether it is worthwhile for anyone new to the series or BTD6 fans who have never got to experience the older entries here, Bloons TD 5 is a rather unusual entry where the transition between the Flash era style of gaming that the first four games made their own from back in 2007-09 and BTD6 which saw the big jump from the highly-stylized 2D artstyle over to the world of 3D graphics whilst carefully maintaining its cartoon aesthetics, seeing how BTD5 would mark the peak of the Flash era of tower defence gaming for many in the years following its release. Touching upon what the Bloons TD games are actually all about first, you are tasked with preventing the various coloured balloons and blimps that are fondly called 'Bloons' by positioning various monkeys and other towers to best eliminate the oncoming horde. This takes place by interacting with the HUD to buy and place each of the game's 21 towers where you feel they are best suited on each map, noting that some towers like the basic dart monkey and tack shooter are far more cheaper to buy and utilize at the start than a more powerful tower such as the helicopter pilot or the revered 'super monkey' that dates as far back as the very first BTD game. Part of what makes the BTD games so charming and memorable is without a doubt the visuals that sell it for some casuals without even a glance on the gameplay side of things as the artstyle of Bloons TD is quite timeless, seeing as there is something simply joyful about how the world and characters of this fun game is presented to the players. Honestly, as wacky as the idea of having dart-throwing monkeys and various colourful balloons and blimps as their mortal enemies may sound at first, it is one of those crazy ideas on the drawing board that actually worked out under the great developers behind Ninja Kiwi! As much as the graphics are a key part of BTD's success, it is the vast and complex gameplay that truly makes it 'easy to learn, hard to master' in a fun and satisfying way that truly matters at the end of the day. Since part of BTD5's fun comes from the huge plethora of maps to choose from, sixty seven to be precise ranging from beginner-friendly all the way to extremely-difficult fields that vary in how long the paths are and obstacles that make eliminating bloons more difficult, alongside each map having six different medals for the player to acquire, four of them being related to the game's difficulties (Easy, Medium, Hard and the revered 'Impoppable') and the other two being optional modes that either has you playing the map but in reverse or restricting the player to using the first 10 towers that originally came with BTD5 back in 2011! That's not even getting into all the other different game modes that players can try out if the standard Bloons TD affair isn't quite what they fancy in the moment, seeing as one can play all of the maps with another player online via Co-op with a friend whilst Odyssey serves as a multi-round journey of varying difficulties and lengths which grant bigger rewards than all of the rounds combined if one is skilled enough to complete them all in one go. There also exists several different types of challenges for more 'out there' missions whether this be Daily/Random Missions that throw you into a map of any of the four difficulties but with the catch that you are restricted to four specific towers and must make full use of them and any niche they have that would be too situational under regular gameplay or Unique Missions that puts the player in special situations normally not seen in gameplay, such as a map that only features camo balloons/blimps or having to keep a fully upgraded wizard apprentice tower fueled by carefully balancing which towers to keep on the cheap-side and which tower that'll be sacrificed to the wizard at the end of every second round! (That's not even getting into Boss Events, which I honestly thought were introduced in BTD6!) It's a without a doubt that, compared to BTD4, this game truly expanded in many ways what the tower defence gameplay has to offer to its players in terms of both good old-fashioned strategic challenge as well as experimenting with new ideas that would ultimately become established features in the sequel following this title, hence this rightfully deserving its own place in the greats of tower defence games! However, whilst BTD5 does very much offer a wide variety of difficult maps and modifiers for seasoned players or even veterans of the genre to test their mettle with, there is a key reason why Ninja Kiwi ported all of the towers from this game to BTD6 bar one. That, of course, being the odd contraption that is the 'Bloonchipper' which I initially wasn't all that keen on until I finally got around to testing it out proper and seeing its true potential as a stalling type of tower. This may not seem so bad until you realize it can also deal with lead balloons quite easily and even shred entire MOAB-class blimps all on their own, and for a rather low price at that! (There's a reason my go-to combo at the start of each map was a ninja, bloonchipper and farm after all!) Despite this though, this isn't what made this game hardly a challenge at all since, around 60 hours into my time with BTD5, I explored some more of the cash shop which normally featured cosmetics paid via real money had added some new bonuses in that were, to put it lightly, VERY overpowered! Given that it wasn't there before, I assumed it is one of those things you unlock in later levels however, spoilers for those not wanting to know, [spoiler]purchasing Double Cash Mode, a premium bonus that says precisely what it does in that [b]everything[/b] is doubled, essentially breaks the difficulty cycle for all but the hardest maps on Impoppable.[/spoiler] Given that it was my choice to utilize this for achievement hunting and pushing the game to its limits, I can see why Ninja Kiwi stuck with the decision to leave many unbalanced aspects of this entry untouched in favour of BTD6 being much more refined as both games serve their own purposes as far as what different BTD fans want out of them. However, I also understand that having something that eliminates almost all of the challenge is not so ideal either, although perhaps this was an 'apology' of sorts for how overly monetized this game was in its earlier years, with premium upgrades and other features locked behind real money paywalls. Regardless, outside of the gameplay cycle eventually becoming repetitive for more casual fans and it not being as visually impressive as the latest entry of the series, I found it quite fun to revisit this game from my initial first go at it on the PS5 back in 2021. And guess what? If you like the idea of playing BTD5 but not for the price point of £7.19 or having to wait for a good discount, it's not only possible to play an older version of this but also the first four classic games and other Bloons titles via their collection here on Steam that is available entirely for free! https://store.steampowered.com/app/1275350/Ninja_Kiwi_Archive/ To conclude, Bloons TD 5 earns its place as a respectable entry that deserves to be played here in 2025, even when compared to the titan that is its sequel, and I can wholeheartedly recommend anyone remotely curious about a tower defence game that is easy to access but has lots to offer in terms of content and challenge. After all, that lovely 'popping' noise never does get old!