BTDB2 is an interesting game for a few tries or casual play, but one that I don't really feel like picking up again.

There are two main reasons:

BTDB2 feels like a phone game first and foremost that's ported to PC as a side gig. While the level and pervasiveness of monetisation gave me a bit of an annoying culture shock, the bigger issue is UX. Tower placement can only be done by drag-and-drop, which messes up muscle memory if you played other Bloons games and serves as a recurring irritant.

BTDB2 is based so closely on BTD6 it could almost be a game mode. While the latter is the pinnacle of its series, its greatest draw - taking normally despised lock-and-key design and making it incredibly deep and engaging - clashes with the core gameplay here.

Being limited in a match to a hero and 3 towers would be a good premise for a PvP tower defense. Unfortunately, between the ecosystem of BTD6, breakneck progression tempo, and players' ability to spam specific bloons, this results in extremely limited choice of towers. With the most dreaded killer combos appearing way earlier budget-wise than they were originally designed for, this forces you to pick towers able to deal with them early on, cutting out many specialists and late-game powerhouses, and also paradoxically putting a lot of redudancy into your builds.

This also results in an unfortunate flow of matches.
Either someone's experimenting and folds up very early; or both players have an impenetrable defence and the game turns into Massed Lead Zeppelins chicken - where both players gamble on who sends the big wave of DDTs with haste first. No, seriously - if gloss over low-rank screw-ups, virtually every game ended by either player getting killed by a DDT.

Passable phone game on PC where other game's great mechanics lead to stale meta.

[i]BTDB2[/i] is an interesting game for a few tries or casual play, but one that I don't really feel like picking up again. There are two main reasons: [h1]Phone port in PC land[/h1] [i]BTDB2[/i] feels like a phone game first and foremost that's ported to PC as a side gig. While the level and pervasiveness of monetisation gave me a bit of an annoying culture shock, the bigger issue is UX. Tower placement can only be done by drag-and-drop, which messes up muscle memory if you played other [i]Bloons[/i] games and serves as a recurring irritant. [h1]BTD6 doesn't fit here[/h1] [i]BTDB2[/i] is based so closely on [i]BTD6[/i] it could almost be a game mode. While the latter is the pinnacle of its series, its greatest draw - taking normally despised lock-and-key design and making it incredibly deep and engaging - clashes with the core gameplay here. Being limited in a match to a hero and 3 towers would be a good premise for a PvP tower defense. Unfortunately, between the ecosystem of [i]BTD6[/i], breakneck progression tempo, and players' ability to spam specific bloons, this results in extremely limited choice of towers. With the most dreaded killer combos appearing way earlier budget-wise than they were originally designed for, this forces you to pick towers able to deal with them early on, cutting out many specialists and late-game powerhouses, and also [b]paradoxically putting a lot of redudancy[/b] into your builds. This also results in an unfortunate flow of matches. Either someone's experimenting and folds up very early; or both players have an impenetrable defence and the game turns into [b]Massed Lead Zeppelins chicken[/b] - where both players gamble on who sends the big wave of DDTs with haste first. No, seriously - if gloss over low-rank screw-ups, [b][i]virtually every game[/i][/b] ended by either player getting killed by a DDT. [h1]TL;DR[/h1] Passable phone game on PC where other game's great mechanics lead to stale meta.