Comparison

Big Ninja Defense vs Five Elements Tower Defense

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both games, side by side โ€” with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Big Ninja Defense

Features
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Defend the grid. Command your towers. Survive the onslaught. Big Ninja Defense is an intense tower defense strategy game where every placement decision matters. Deploy powerful weapons across a 9ร—19 battlefield, hold the line against relentless waves of enemies, and conquer 90 hand-crafted levels across three brutal difficulty tiers. THE BATTLEFIELD Enemies don't stop โ€” they adapt. Drag and position your towers strategically on the grid to intercept Scouts, Rushers, Tanks, and Phantoms before they breach your defenses. One wrong placement could cost you everything. 5 UNIQUE TOWER TYPES Rapid Fire โ€“ High-speed suppression for swarms of light enemies Rail Cannon โ€“ Long-range precision that punches through armor Cryo Tower โ€“ Freezes enemies in their tracks, buying you critical time Devastator โ€“ Unleashes massive area damage for clustered threats Omega Core โ€“ The ultimate weapon. Unlock it. Unleash it. 4 ENEMY TYPES Scout โ€“ Fast and fragile. Don't underestimate the numbers. Rusher โ€“ Sprints past weak defenses. React fast. Tank โ€“ Absorbs punishment. Bring heavy firepower. Phantom โ€“ Slips through gaps. Cover every angle. 90 LEVELS. 3 DIFFICULTIES. ONE CHANCE. Progress through Easy, Medium, and Hard โ€” 30 levels each. Your towers and lives carry over within each difficulty run, so every decision compounds. Lose too many lives and your star rating suffers. Play smart. Play flawless. STARS & RANKINGS Earn stars based on how many lives you protect across a full difficulty run. Compare your performance on Game Center leaderboards for Easy, Medium, and Hard. Unlock 6 achievements that reward skill, persistence, and total mastery. NO MERCY ON GAME OVER Caught off-guard? Watch a short rewarded ad to continue with 5 lives and keep your run alive. One second chance โ€” use it wisely. CLEAN. STRATEGIC. ADDICTIVE. Portrait-only design built for focused gameplay Intuitive drag-and-drop tower placement No stamina timers, no energy systems โ€” just pure strategy Free to play with optional ads and one premium unlock Big Ninja Defense is built for players who love deep strategy, satisfying progression, and the rush of holding the line when everything is on the line. Download now and prove you have what it takes to defend the grid.

About

Five Elements Tower Defense

Features
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Five Elements Tower Defense is built around one idea: every tower and every enemy belongs to an element, and the matchup decides the fight. METAL CUTS WOOD. WOOD DRAINS EARTH. Metal beats Wood, Wood beats Earth, Earth beats Water, Water beats Fire, Fire beats Metal. Attack the element you counter and you deal 1.5x damage. Attack the element that counters you and you drop to 0.7x. Elementless enemies ignore the cycle entirely โ€” those you beat with position and timing instead. Each element brings its own effect from tier 1: Metal shreds armor, Wood poisons straight through it, Water freezes and slows, Fire burns, Earth stuns and empowers the towers around it. BUILD, UPGRADE, SPECIALIZE Eight tower types, three tiers each. At max tier every tower forks into one of two specializations โ€” a permanent choice you cannot undo, so read the wave ahead before you commit. Selling refunds 60% of everything you put into that tower. KNOW WHAT IS COMING Twelve enemy types and six bosses. Armored enemies shrug off raw damage. Regenerators heal back what you cannot finish. Flyers ignore your maze and cross in a straight line. Splitters become two enemies when they die. Bosses shield themselves, summon escorts, or disable every tower in a radius, and enraged enemies cancel your elemental advantage outright. The next-wave preview shows exactly what is coming, and warns you when nothing you own can shoot at flyers. COMMAND THE FIELD YOURSELF Send a controllable hero anywhere on the map to body-block a lane. Your hero levels up during the run and revives at the rally point after falling. Recruit soldiers to hold a chokepoint. Call in an artillery strike on the densest cluster, or an Iron Curtain that drops every enemy on the field to a third of their speed. 23 MAPS, FIVE REGIONS, ONE ENDLESS ARENA Grassland, frost, ash, shadow and void, each with its own tileset and its own boss. Every campaign map is scored 1 to 3 stars on the lives you keep. Clear it, then unlock Heroic (tougher enemies, half the lives) and Iron (a single life, waves that never stop). Then step into the Endless Arena, where all six bosses rotate and the only question is how long you last. Global leaderboard included. SPEND YOUR STARS Stars buy six permanent talents: damage, gold income, starting lives, starting gold, skill cooldown and hero power. Prices climb, and there are never enough stars for all of them, so you commit to a direction โ€” then refund and rebuild whenever you want. ALSO INCLUDED โ€ข Daily challenges that pay out mid-run โ€ข Achievements and lifetime stats โ€ข Cloud save across your devices โ€ข 15 languages, right-to-left included โ€ข Colorblind mode that recolors enemies and interface alike โ€ข Fast-forward, auto-wave, pinch to zoom, four targeting modes per tower โ€ข Plays offline โ€” the game never blocks on the network Place the right tower. Hold the line.

Screenshots

Big Ninja Defense4 screens
Five Elements Tower Defense4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Five Elements Tower Defense at none against Big Ninja Defense's 1. Five Elements Tower Defense also leads on ads (none vs shown) and iOS requirement (15.0 vs 26.2). On price and device support there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price ยท Rating ยท Positive reviews ยท Number of ratings ยท Update frequency ยท Ads ยท In-app purchases ยท Monetization ยท Best chart rank ยท Devices ยท Requires iOS

CostPrice ยท In-app purchases ยท Ads ยท Monetization

Both are free to download. Big Ninja Defense sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Five Elements Tower Defense asks for nothing beyond the download.

Scorecard3 real differences ยท 3 level
Big Ninja Defense versus Five Elements Tower Defense: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterBig Ninja DefenseFive Elements Tower Defense
PriceFreeFree
Update frequencyMonthlyโ€”
AdsYesNo โ€” better
In-app purchasesYesNo โ€” better
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad, iPod โ€” better
Requires iOS26.215.0 โ€” better
Further details โ€” not scored
Size20 MB72 MB
Age rating9+4+
DeveloperJeronimo LascurainViet Anh Nguyen

In-app purchases

1 purchases

Big Ninja Defense

One-time1
  • Vortex Core$0.99
None

Five Elements Tower Defense

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Big Ninja Defense free?
Big Ninja Defense is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Five Elements Tower Defense free?
Five Elements Tower Defense is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do Big Ninja Defense or Five Elements Tower Defense have ads?
Big Ninja Defense shows ads; Five Elements Tower Defense does not.

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