It's hard to find good sexy romantic female driven games. This is one of the few. The story of a middle age woman reclaiming her life and her sexuality. It's fun and funny, sweet and sexy - just what I wanted. Oh, and there's a scene where the main character cosplays as Revolutionary Girl Utena. Instant 10/10, game of the year.
I'm not all that far into the game yet, but I find my interest in the title waning. When booting the game up, it brings up four pictures - and asks you to provide a name for yourself as well as names and 'relationships' for three others - a woman your age, an older woman, and an older man. The default 'relationships' are things like 'friend' and 'roomate' and 'landlord'. However, almost immediately into the game, your 'landlord' is asking you to get a job and telling you she loves you. You find your 'roommate' giving someone a BJ, and she calls herself your sister. Oh, and the 'University' you go to looks suspiciously like a high-school. It becomes blatantly clear almost immediately that the developers made a game about a high-school student banging his sister and mom and then realized that violated a lot of websites terms of service and put in a paper thin copy-paste job to age up the characters and provide plausible deniability for the incest. It's weird and off-putting, particularly given how deeply the creepy family dynamic is tied in to the story. Aside from that, and given the fact that you can mostly opt out of relationships with your sister and mother (so far anyway), the game is pretty okay? It isn't nearly the interesting mystery that is presented on the store page (or, if so, I haven't seen any sign of it yet). The game's mechanics are also unclear - there are stats that limit conversation options, Persona style, but there are few clear ways to improve stats, and those ways seem prone to fail without warning, consuming time. Also, one of them briefly soft-locked the game. Rather than fixing this issue directly, the developers added a button to bail to the map if things get stuck. The map is also unlabeled, so trying to figure out where the game wants you to go is very trial and error. A lot of the above can be forgiven granted the 'early access' state of the game. Hopefully the jank will get fixed and the UI will get some clarity in future updates.
The title says it all - Defender's Quest is the best game I've played in a while. I picked it up during the GOG summer sale (along with a dozen other titles) and it is by far the most fun - and there were several other very good games in there as well. Why it's good: it has the best features of a tower defense game, a tactical game, and an RPG. I was fondly reminded of Jeanne d'Arc (one of my favorite tactics games) by both the plot and level system. As for the tower defense aspect, it is one of the best I have ever played. The six tower 'classes' are each useful (and get more useful as they level up). There is no one "must use" class, and even my personal favorite (ranger) can't solo a battle. Making more challenging versions of the battles immediately available means that you can always find a way to challenge yourself, and new game + mode takes that to another level, presenting hair-tearingly difficult challenges to overcome. An incredible game overall. Five stars. I can't wait for Defender's Quest 2.
