This is a solid game. The difficultly seems just right this time around. It's challenging, but not ridiculous, and it's different enough from the other MMMs to not just be a re-hash.
To the many who don't read the rather clear instructions, there's a GIANT RED MESSAGE that you'll die if you air strike without shifting first AND it starts one of the levels by telling you to try shifting and air striking. I don't think it could be possibly any clearer that airstrikes are fatal, short of having a giant screen-filling arrow point to the shift button when you air strike. :P
As far as "stealing" goes... he took maybe 4 sound effects from Starcraft, and they're menu noises. To the people saying he stole everything, exaggeration much?
About 1/3 of the castles are the "1 well protected guy in the bottom middle where he's invincible if you're first shot doesn't kill him, usually in a pyramid shape castle" setup. Yes, that's one way to make a level hard, but it's way, way, overused.
The rest of the levels are fun, but you need to find other ways of making a castle difficult.
It's basically a combination of Bubble Bobble and Kid Icarus... which actually works pretty well.
For everyone rating this a 1, imagine the following:
1. You actually played the game past level 5.
2. There was no buyable level pack or bonus items.
Would you still be rating this a 1? If no, then rate the game on its own merits, not ZOMGPAYWTFBBQ! I see a full 50 level game here, with the option to purchase a second set of levels. If you don't think that option is worth it, then obviously, don't buy it... but that doesn't mean the free game is a 1/5.
The overall design is good, but the balance is absolutely terrible. As a mage, I could barely make it to the 4th dungeon. As a warrior, I cleared them all with >60 turns left. Balance problems:
1. Warriors get the second best weapon just by training a stat they have to train anyway, mages get meh gloves for training theirs.
2. There are no new spells, no caster gear, and no way to boost spell damage except your stat... and the stat isn't much better than the warrior's, so that free sword guarantees better damage than a mage can get, ever.
3. Despite having an attack that will ALWAYS be weaker, mages have limited mana.
4. Warriors never need magical defense, mages can't survive without physical defense.
Result: Mages suck, and clicking mage at the beginning ensures you will basically fail at the game.
The game appears to have broken. I'm using Flash 10 and FF3, but it's stuck in the tutorial forever. If I let the tutorial finish, it goes to a picture of a stick battle and completely locks up. If I try to skip the tutorial in the hopes it won't get to where it locks up, clicking or pressing enter restarts the entire tutorial. So I have no choice but to watch the tutorial... and watch the game freeze.
I played engineer first, and found you could usually make 1 mistake per fight. A few enemies had to be fought once or twice to learn their skill order, but that’s fine – it’s challenging without being frustrating.
Then I tried psionic. Nearly every battle involves 1/2 second timing, and 1 mistake usually = death. The 6th boss raises this to absurdity. You have to counter his 3 second heal with a 1.8 second spell, and use 1 second of invulnerability to block other stuff. To top it all off, his basic attack can stun, so even if you time everything PERFECTLY, a single unlucky stun and you’re dead. So, I have maybe a 1/5 chance of beating this guy and that's when I make no mistakes AND he never gets a lucky stun.
When a battle is that ridiculous in an RPG, you can grind for levels (nope – can’t level except on bosses) or gear (the tiny gear mods make almost no difference). So it's basically memorize what the boss does, get your timing perfect, and pray the RNG finally lets you win.
It's a fun game, with interesting towers. For those complaining it's too hard, read the towers and how they work - then stop using your DTD setup. :P In particular, focus on getting a good maze up BEFORE you get your first big tower, and with the exception of the boss tower, the final upgrade isn't usually worth it.
The only one I didn't really see the point of was the cash machine - the effect radius is too low early in the game to be worth tying up any money into it, and the payout is too low for it to be worth bothering with late in the game... maybe make it a percentage instead of a flat number?
4/5 - I'd give this a 5, but it just doesn't add all that much over the DTD concept.
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