So overall this is a good tribute to games like Streets of Rage and Final Fight. It even has lots of menu and UI touches like a fake arcade startup screen and RAM/ROM loading. The gameplay is simple but fun and the throws in front of or behind the character is my favorite mechanic because it's unique and can keep you from getting crowded. What's not so great is the ridiculous sexualization of characters, especially in the case of "Gal" (which I'm assuming is a nod to Final Fight's "Guy". Gal's boobs constantly bounce from her chin to her waist and her portrait on the character selection screen is unnecessarily pervy (is that her labia?!) To me things like that diminish the experience and the game is more than strong enough to stand on it's own without them, but it's a bit unnecessary in my opinion and holding back what otherwise would have been a great game.
I've tried this game on 3 PCs and a macbook air and none of them can get past the first loading screen. Also on the laptops even at the highest resolution the tiny text in the UI before the first loading screen is blurry and unreadable. I'm hoping that this game gets patched so I can at least try it. It seems like it could be fun, but I'll just keep playing Two Point Hospital in the meantime.
I tend to avoid srategy and tower defense games because most involve a learning curve that I'm not invested enough to go through. I'm sure they're great games, but I want something more "pick up and play." With that being said, I also want depth. Defender's Quest provides just that. It's super easy to pick up, but there's also a lot of depth and strategy. For me the best feature is the replayablity -every map has four versions of the scenario that range in difficulty from casual to extreme. The rewards are greater with every tier, and the enemies are new and different in the higher tiers which forces you to adjust your strategy which keeps it fresh. It's a fun way to strengthen your party without having to repeat the same exact scenario in a grind. You can grow out your party members to give them new abilities, and there's a skill tree so you have control over exactly how you want them to grow. The dialogue in the story is good, and games like this tend to have a traveling journey which this does as well, but it doesn't feel forced. Some of the characters are very funny and memorable, and I like the ability to customize the new ones. The soundtrack is one of the best that I've ever heard in an indie game. It's beautiful, relaxing, and suspenseful in different moments and really captures the mood of the game perfectly. For the price I think this game is well worth it, and I've actually been playing it more than some recent AAA titles that have come out recently.
