Tower defence usually rewards panic. You build in a hurry, plug leaks as they open, and hope the last shot lands before the last monster does. Towerpath strips all of that out. The path is drawn before you arrive, the enemies are already queued at the top of it, and nothing takes a single step until you say go.
What's left is the genre frozen into a chess problem - one board, one gate to hold, and all the time in the world to find the answer that was always there. The ground itself does half the arguing. Rough tiles blunt a tower, monster-shield tiles swallow its damage whole, and rate-boosters double its fire, so the same weapon is a steal on one square and dead weight on the one beside it.
The parade coming down the path is just as awkward. Some monsters wear armour, some outrun your reload, some shrug off the cold entirely, and some march shrouded - visible only to a tower standing right on top of them. That is why the armoury runs eight deep - Cannon, Ballista, Storm, Acid, Frost, War, Ram and Ember - and why you are handed only five slots to fill. No single tower answers a whole wave: Frost is wasted on the cold-immune, and your longest gun is blind to the shrouded.