DPrime Review: Crystal Defenders

Crystal Defenders is a Field Runners type game with Final Fantasy characters, enemies, and environments. There are three worlds (as they call it) each with four different stages, but only 2 unique ones, the others are the advanced version of the original level. The advanced versions just include more paths for the enemies to travel and diverge on or more things are blocking your attacks, but on the upside the enemies do spawn with a little less health. You start with twenty crystals and if the enemies get to the end of the path they take one. Every ten waves they send four bosses each with the ability to take 2 crystals instead of 1.

I didn’t do to well on this run but it’s still game play.

There are a variety of Espers (summons) that do different things such as do damage, cancel out effects, and make your range double and damage double. There are twelve classes to summon ranging from soldiers to thieves and have abilities to attack multiple targets at one time or giving you double gold. You can also summon three power crystals that increase your attack, speed, or range. There are six espers as well but unfortunately not all of them have unique abilities and they most of them also take five crystals just to use their power.

Anyone who played Final Fantasy 12 will recognize the locations. The locations are the Bisga Greenlands, Orchise Snowfields, Kthili Sands, Melby Point, Ruins of Delgantua, and Zellea. It also has 54 enemies and 10 different bosses. There are seven different races, the Bangaa, Hume, Grai, Moogle, Nu Mou, Seeq, and Vierra.

The objective of the game is not to let the enemies get to the end of the end of the path, each of the levels have 30 waves and every wave has one type of the same enemy. You deploy different classes to fight off the enemies and for gil you can upgrade them up to seven times increasing attack power, speed, range, and how slow your enemies move. Some of the enemies have special abilities like immunity to magic, quick moving, or the ability to recover health.

This game’s concept seems pretty simple but after the first twenty-four waves or so you start to realize your strategyisn’t quite as good as you thought. It’s decently difficult and an average play through of each level takes around ten to fifteen minutes so it will entertain you for a few hours and of course you can keep playing trying to improve your score. Your score depends on how long you last, how many crystals you have at the end, and how many people you summoned.

What I Liked:

Choices: There are many different ways to layout your troops which makes it fun to see what will and will not work.

Characters: They included a lot of enemies and allies from older Final Fantasy games which brings back memories.

What I didn’t like:

Time: When you are going for achievements and try to beat the levels if you fail you have to go through fifteen minutes of the same mission.