Colorful RPG style tower defense like you've never played.
Overview:
Congratulations on an Indie title that adds many elements to the tower defense type game and keeps it simple at the same time. The interface, menus and play mechanics are extremely simple with large displays and easy to view gear and all their stats which makes perusing your inventory and comparing stats easy on the eyes. The colors and lighting are vivid and the game design has a mix of cell shading and computer graphics which are crisp and just so nice to look at. Instead of a typical top down view, where hordes of mobs just flow through the map as you race to build, repair at a frantic pace,Defenders is an immersible 3-D game, where you play a character in 3rd person view, that you control to repair and build as well as attack the mobs to help your defensive efforts. You can customize the colors of your Toon as well as the Crystal your defending. There are also elements of an RPG as there are weapon drops, item storage, player and gear leveling, elemental stats that are random on gear. Plus there is a Tavern where you rest between levels, sell or buy goods, get a pet, test your DPS on attack dummies, open your DLC content and view your trophies that are placed, change game modes from Campaign to Challenges as well as tweaking some of the settings.
Game play:
You set up defenses against mobs that are trying to destroy your Crystal that resides in a placed area in the level. Depending on which class you take, there are different towers and ways to defend. You can choose either Mage, Knight, Huntsman or Priest and after each level, can change characters so you can mix your type of defenses. There are Creep doors in every level, where the mobs will enter your area. They are clearly marked with a billboard that displays the type and number of mob before each wave starts. You can select your defense towers or barriers and repair between levels. Once you initiate the start of the mob attacks, you patrol the level and can attack the mobs to aid your defenses. As a mob is killed, they drop colored gems that add to your Mana/Energy or they can drop random items. Each character level increases the amount of gems you can store. Gems are used as currency to build and repair. If you can't store any more gems, they will remain on the ground and can be collected even after the final wave. Stored gems can be converted to level equipment between waves. When doing so you have choices to level the raw defensive or damage stats or the elemental stat that may be on the item. Items will have a current level and max level available. Not all gear can be leveled past level 1. When items drop, you can equip immediately or store it. The game will indicate if the item drop is better, equal or worse than what is equipped. Even though an item is suggested as better, it may lack elemental stats that are useful for a particular level, so the choice is still yours. After each wave has been defeated, there is a healing and rebuilding process that can take as long as you want it to, no timer, unless you select that in the game options. Treasure chests will appear after each wave and contains drops and gems. Now you can opt to turn in collected mana gems to your bank, where you can store endless amounts to upgrade your gear. Movement is W,A,S,D, aim and move direction is your mouse, hotkeys are setup for building and repairing and menus or you can use the middle mouse button to call up the menus as well. There is also an online play available where you can team up with up to 3 others and play as team to defeat the mobs.
Conclusion:
As you can see there is more than just place towers and watch the mindless mobs. When you attack you can actually lure the mobs towards your direction or make the archers stop and shoot to the advantage of your tower placement or even push them back with a mage's slam of the scepter on the ground. The only reason I didn't give it a ten is because even though there is a tutorial level, there isn't any real explanation of what some of the stats mean during stat leveling ( +5 Hero ) or explanation that you need to use all 3 points in one area to level it. Other than that, This is a very well thought out game, very fun, relaxing and interactive. I don't think I can ever play the Flash type Tower Defense games again.