Caltrops - Gamerasutra - Immortal Defense

Forum Overview :: Gamerasutra

by FABIO 02/15/2008, 6:01am PST

Good story, bleh gameplay

The problem with this game is that it's just too stylized for its own good. It almost reminds me off an Introversion vector game but unfortunately this makes it extremely difficult to tell just what the hell is going on. To get an idea you really only have to watch the gameplay video. Can you gather any kind of idea what's going on? It doesn't get much easier when you actually play.

And that's what cripples this game, really. One of the most important parts of a strategy game is fast, easy to understand feedback so you get an idea of what works and what doesn't, that's why Desktop Tower Defense was addictive and obscure long term economics sims like Galactic Civilizations 2 and Supreme Commander were murky borefests.

Desktop Tower defense laid everything out with half a dozen, easy to identify, easy to observe enemy types with nice neat damage numbers and very visible life bars. Here in Immortal Defense everything is constantly fading in and out because the style demands it. See that thin line being traced in the sample video? That's the all important paths enemies will be traveling along, something I'd think the player would want to be more visible instead of something that you can only see 20% of at any given time. It gets to be a giant tangled piece of spaghetti in some levels and it's sometimes impossible to tell where the exit is or how far along some enemies are.

As far as enemies, there are something like 27(!) different types and fuck if I can remember what a third of them do. None of them are intuitive. There are little frog guys that can sometimes be quick, some blob that shoots bullets, some blob that regenerates, some blob with a shield, some blob that teleports when hit, etc etc. You never know what each enemy can do until after you've encountered it and go back to look it up in the glossary and find out what special ability it has, which still doesn't help much because like everything else enemies are only visible part of the time. If they're not completely faded out then they're in some bubble that hides their type from you. Lines fading out, enemies fading out, enemies obscured, bullets fading out. This game doesn't let you see anything. There is no way to form any kind of strategy mid-level because it quickly spits 20 different types of enemies at you, half of which you can't remember what they do and half of which you can't even see at any given time.

There are about 11 different towers, half of which I'm convinced are useless. About one third through the game you get the ultimate Danmaku tower, and at that point the winning strategy just becomes buying a Danmaku point and placing it in a good spot. Sit back and let that win the level for you. The only time you can't get away with this is if the level has those little skull enemies that nullify the closest tower, and even then all you have to do is surround the Danmaku with other cheap towers so they'll get nullified instead. For boss battles just keep hitting them with charged shots until you win.

Then there's a bunch of other little rules that the game never fully explains, and the poor feedback makes it difficult to figure out on your own. There will be little diamonds or triangles or whatever scattered around, they...block shots? Block towers? Have some sort of buffer effect? I still don't know, plus like everything else they are subject to only being visible part of the time until some fancy lighting effect flashes over them since playing this game is like trying to read a book at night by the spinning light of a police car. In some levels all my bullets were curving off in wild directions like there was some sort of black hole mechanic thrown in: something the game didn't tell me about and was impossible to gauge or workaround. Whatever, your job is to just keep firing charged shots and let your Danmaku handle everything.

The story is the highlight of the whole thing. It's pretty good. Shame about the gameplay. I found myself wishing there was a way to just skip the levels and read the plot since after the first chapter that was the only reason I kept playing.

Desktop Tower Defense had some flaws, but it was easy to tell what was going on and had that addictive "easy to pick up, hard to master" quality that got you to keep trying to think up the ultimate setup. For Immortal Defense I couldn't tell what was going on, and after awhile I just didn't care. Let's just get this level done so I can hear what my demanding bitch of a granddaughter has to say.

Since the story is entertaining, I'd pay maybe $5 for this, an-HOLY SHIT they want $23??! Tell you what, if anyone is curious, send me a dollar and I will type out a transcript of the plot and send it to you and you can read it while playing the sample video's soundtrack on a loop.