Comparison

Shinobi vs Five Elements Tower Defense

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

Head to head
About

Shinobi

Features
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Eight chakra natures. One deep system. Shinobi: Elemental Defense is a tower defense built around ELEMENTAL REACTIONS - mix elements on your enemies and watch the battlefield ignite. REACTIONS, NOT JUST DAMAGE Water + Fire erupts into Steam. Water + Lightning chains as Conduct. Fire + Ice cracks into Thermal Shock. Every nature you combine on a foe triggers a spatial, timing-based reaction - the heart of the game. FUSE THE 8 NATURES Your towers are the eight natures: Fire, Water, Earth, Wind, Lightning, Ice, Shadow, Light. Drag one tower onto another to FUSE them into something new, and cluster three natures to unleash a channeled JUTSU seal. REBUILD YOUR VILLAGE Between battles, restore 16 ruined shinobi villages along branching upgrade paths - each choice a permanent, element-flavored boon. Then send what you rebuilt into Defend the Village raids. HEROES WITH REAL JUTSU Recruit original shinobi heroes, each with a unique active skill, aura, and ultimate. Level their gear in the Armory and specialize them in the Dojo. PUZZLE BOSSES & ENDLESS Break the Warden boss's wards in the right elemental order. Then chase the leaderboard in an Endless mode that scales forever. MASTER THE SYSTEM An in-game Elemental Codex and Help panel teach every reaction, fusion, and matchup - easy to learn, deep to master. No two runs play the same. Reactions, fusions, roguelike blessings, relics, and a village you rebuild your way - Shinobi: Elemental Defense is a tower defense that plays like nothing else on the store. Free to play. Optional rewarded ads.

About

Five Elements Tower Defense

Features
Read full description

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 — 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 — 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 — then refund and rebuild whenever you want. ALSO INCLUDED • Daily challenges that pay out mid-run • Achievements and lifetime stats • Cloud save across your devices • 15 languages, right-to-left included • Colorblind mode that recolors enemies and interface alike • Fast-forward, auto-wave, pinch to zoom, four targeting modes per tower • Plays offline — the game never blocks on the network Place the right tower. Hold the line.

Screenshots

Shinobi4 screens
Five Elements Tower Defense4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is ads: Five Elements Tower Defense at none against Shinobi's shown. On price, in-app purchases, device support and iOS requirement there is nothing between them.

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

CostPrice Ā· In-app purchases Ā· Ads Ā· Monetization

Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

Scorecard1 real difference Ā· 5 level
Shinobi versus Five Elements Tower Defense: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterShinobiFive Elements Tower Defense
PriceFreeFree
Update frequencyEvery 9 days—
AdsYesNo — better
In-app purchasesNoNo
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPodiPhone, iPad, iPod
Requires iOS15.015.0
Further details — not scored
Size390 MB72 MB
Age rating9+4+
DeveloperBurak GocegozViet Anh Nguyen

In-app purchases

None

Shinobi

No in-app purchases

None

Five Elements Tower Defense

No in-app purchases

Questions

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

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