On the surface, Wizard Defenders seems like a promising blend of match-3 puzzling and tower defence; in its best moments it's a concept that works well. Unfortunately these moments are rare, and despite its budget price this title lacks the magic to make a gamer happy.
This is a good example of a reasonable idea being undone by poor execution, as on paper this seems like an enjoyable premise well worth the minimal investment. You hold the DSi sideways in its "book" position, with Teyon accommodating lefties with a screen-switch in the menu, and you simply use the stylus to play. The touch screen shows your army of colour coded wizards streaming in from one side to join the ranks, while enemies attack from the top screen. You simply match three or more wizards of one colour, horizontally or vertically, to fire deadly beams at the advancing blobs, mummies and assorted array of ghoulish creatures. With two well-placed buttons at the top to use a "hurry up" command for more wizards, or a powerful weapon gradually earned by completing combos, it's all intuitive and easy to access.
The concept is rock solid, then, but the problems begin once you start to play, with the mechanics to actually move your wizards to form combos most likely to frustrate. While it should be a simple case of tapping and dragging, there are some serious issues with lagged input and quirky 'tracks' that you seemingly need to follow when moving your magical troops. In the early stages, when the enemies are weak and few in number, it's possible to work around this unnecessary trickery and have a reasonably good time. Within a few minutes, however, the difficulty ramps up with faster, stronger monsters in greater numbers, and the inability to respond with sharp, responsive controls becomes a serious issue.
With each enemy that reaches the wizard's lines, a vertical row of obstacles emerge and push your ranks back, which can be gradually destroyed by beams or wiped out with one tap of the limited-use power weapon. Like many puzzle games of this genre, it's game over when you army of wizards is pushed back and off the screen by these barriers, with each new row making combos increasingly hard to pull together with less available wizards. When you combine this with the drastic increase in difficulty and awkward controls, you're left with a poorly balanced experience.
In terms of the modes on offer, it's a scenario that runs across the whole title — good idea, bad execution. A Tutorial mode introduces the basics and explains that some enemies are only vulnerable to specific types of beams, which theoretically adds a nice strategic element to the puzzle gameplay. The only problem is that the game is so difficult that we were only able to complete half of the exercises before it became impossible to go further. There will be puzzle game savants that have no such issues, but there'll also be plenty of less experienced gamers drawn in by the budget price who'll immediately become flustered and frustrated.
The main game, simply called New Game, allows you to choose from three difficulty settings — which adjusts the number of colour combos that are possible — and the "pace" of the game. As this game is hard enough already, we suggest going with the minimal pace, as selecting a higher setting will speed up not just your wizards but also your enemies; this makes it borderline impossible. There's a local leaderboard to show the top five scores in this mode, but not many will gain much pleasure from their minor efforts.
Aside from that, there's nothing else on offer. For a budget puzzle game that's not necessarily an issue, but the problems lie with the poor balancing and control responses. You're unlikely to get on a roll and last for longer than 10 minutes in a round, and if you're not on your game you'll lose within a few minutes. It's also worth noting the music that loops incessantly, which lets down otherwise reasonable presentation. It's some of the worst music we've heard in DSiWare, with a high-pitched, hyper-active riff that grinds away 90% of the time, only eased by loading screens and a brief change when a horde of enemies are about to appear and charge at speed; at that point you're probably close to game over, anyway.
Conclusion
If we were presented with the concept of this puzzle game and a plan to release for 200 Nintendo Points on DSiWare, we'd probably say that it's a good idea. The problem with Wizard Defenders is that it's executed so poorly, with harsh difficulty levels that make even the Tutorial unbeatable and sticky, temperamental controls that infuriate in the process. When you can see a combo that's part of a good puzzle concept, but the game won't allow you to put it together without a fight with the stylus, all the while bombarding your ears with awful music, you know something's gone wrong. We suggest a disappearing spell for this one.
Comments 10
I didn't expect that. Nice review though.
Sadly, it really isn't that good. Well written review!
Not so magic then.
Honestly, this game seems to be a poor man's version of Might and Magic: Clash of Heroes, a retail DS that has done all of the things this game does better. Sorry for the terrible grammar in that last sentence, but you know what I mean.
Anyways, great review. Was interested in this, but I had a bad hunch about it that was just confirmed.
another classic!
I've played it for two hours on the hard level. Like in the awesome Might and Magic: Clash of Heroes, the key is tactic. The game is absolutely playable and is worth the 200 points.
I guess Fun Unit missed the mark on this one...
So as it seems, Fun Unit's best game is Candle Route. Although, they recently made a 3DS eShop rhythm game that came out in Japan this past week.
Guys, this is not entirely Teyon's fault... Fun Unit (the developer) was the one that blew an opportunity for execution in Wizard Defenders.
Man, that's so disappointing. You had me at match puzzle plus defense, two types of games that I really like, and the graphics look pretty cute. While I am a fairly avid puzzler, it sounds like the controls for this are likely to still be too much for me. I can't stand when the screen doesn't obey my input. WHHHHHYYYYY can't games that sound awesome to me not be flawed?
I was thinking it kinda reminds me of Might and Magic, which I loved and would love to see another one of.
Poor poor me, my first comment around here and I have to disagree with mr. Thomas >.<
But I want to cause despite the warning I risked and downloaded the game... and I liked it! O_O
In all honestly, I can't fully disagree with the review, but I found this game to be quite fun and playable despite ruined by the "impossible to keep up challange", not perfect controls and the miss of extra modes.
The tutorial for example is beatable in my opinion; I am terrible at this kind of games and still it wasn't hard to beat it even for me ^^;
The real matter is perphaps that the tutorial was the best part of the game, it really made me wish for a "more" that was nowhere to be found...
But for 2€ is surely a game that can be worth a try and can give few hours of fun (in more sessions of course, afterall this is a typical game of quick-play sessions). 6 is the score it would deserve in my opinion, still not much, but if in future teyon will make a sequel with some extras like a "mission mode" I think it will come out a... well...not a masterpiece, but a really fun little game for sure ^O^
Was looking to buy this game. Now, I'm not so sure...
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