Purchased from the Android Market for the going rate of 600 Yen (~$7.30), Square Enix's Crystal Defenders seems like it could be a premium app, set to appeal to those who desire a higher quality Android game. Fret not! This port of an iPhone title (...or was it an XBLA title? A WiiWare title? A PSN title? An earlier cell phone's title?) is certainly not a top-tier Android release. In fact, of the handful of gaming apps I've played, it's at the very bottom of the barrel!
Crystal Defenders is rife with issues. From the very start, it's clear the game wasn't optimized to fit all screens, as large black bars were present on the left and right sides of my screen. While that's not terrible, more disappointingly, the game doesn't provide any functionality with Android's native buttons. The physical menu button does nothing, and back button only asks if you wish to quit the game. Again, this isn't game-breaking, but disappointing, nonetheless. Much, much worse, the game is prone to freezes. There didn't seem to be a set trigger to freeze Crystal Defenders, but I've seen it freeze several times; so much so that my estimation is that about a third or a quarter of my longer runs through the game have resulted in a freeze. Trying to exit the game through the back button, so it closes on its own isn't possible when this happens, so only the home button will work.
Even worse than in-game freezing? Leaving Crystal Defenders running, frozen or not, while I tend to another task, or just leave my phone idle nearly always results in a hard freeze of my phone. Sometimes it locks up with the screen off, other times, it'll be when the phone is idle, but there's no question: before the game download, this didn't happen. When the game isn't running in the background, this doesn't happen. When the game is running, the phone invariably freezes within the hour. To summarize, this game wasn't ready for market publication for my Android device.
Beyond all the technical issues, there is a tower-defense game inside Crystal Defenders. In fact, there's almost two games. W1, for whatever reason, is meant to be the simpler, beginner's mode, with W2 meant for more advanced players, according to the game's manual. W3, the other mode in the iPhone, XBLA, and PS3 version, is absent from this release. Units are based from the units in Final Fantasy Tactics, but here, they work automatically once in play. In brief, two things make Crystal Defenders unique: the melee units actually move from enemy to enemy rather than standing stationary, and in the W2 mode, units are powered up when a crystal is placed nearby. In this take of tower defense, the path for enemies is static, and units are placed around said path. Rather than gain experience, each enemy drops coins, which can be raised if a thief is in the vicinity of the defeated enemy.
When it comes to difficulty, The Crystal Defenders is tough. Each wave brings a new, unique type of enemy from the Final Fantasy series, and some waves contain enemies that aren't vulnerable to melee attacks, while others are strong against or outright immune to magic. Some waves contain quick enemies, and like many tower defense games, there's even boss waves, where a much lower number of enemies walk through the path, but have much higher health than is typical.
Crystal Defenders does not hand-feed, with only a simple manual and no demo or tutorial mode, either. Sadly, despite differently shaped mazes, gameplay always feels similar and the basic strategy differences required between W1 and W2 don't feel very unique or special. In all fairness, Crystal Defenders' gameplay isn't bad, but it just isn't all that special or compelling compared to other tower defense titles out there.
Simply put, given the freezes and the average gameplay, I can't recommend purchase of Crystal Defenders. Even worse, the game lacks a third mode, “W3,” found in other iterations of the title. I can't say whether future updates will be released to fix the issues, but even without the freezing, the game would only receive 2.5 star rating. Overall, I found Crystal Defenders wholly disappointing.
Reviewed Version 1.0 (16.11 MB) on a Motorola Droid X running Verizon's supplied ROM of Froyo with only official updates installed.
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