Gamezebo Rating:

Naughty Kitties is an adorable, energetic mash-up of two genres that excel on mobile: endless runner and tower defense. It's a unique pairing that works surprisingly well. The nonstop obstacles of the ever-scrolling runner have become targets that must be destroyed instead of dodged. The strategic unit positioning and between-game level-ups of tower defense offer more activities than your standard jump, duck, dive. The kitties are icing on the already delicious gameplay fishcake.

Unfortunately, despite a strong base and charming theme, Naughty Kitties falls short of revolutionary. Runs are often repetitive and unbalanced, crawling through boring spans of enemy-free territory until you hit an overly aggressive and indefensible attack. Its freemium model forces frequent downtime on players through an easily-emptied energy meter. Kitties are expensive and difficult to unlock, resulting in replaying levels with the same units again and again. The result is a game that's great fun for the first dozen or so runs, but inevitably grind-heavy for players who don't wish to shell out real clams.