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    Defender's Quest: Valley of the Forgotten

    Game » consists of 2 releases. Released Aug 30, 2012

    Indie tower defense/RPG hybrid. Units are persistent and customizable.

    moonlightmoth's Defender's Quest: Valley of the Forgotten (PC) review

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    Worth remembering

    Defender’s Quest: Valley of the Forgotten isn’t the prettiest game, but as we all know, graphics does not a game make. This tower defence and RPG hybrid by Level Up Labs attempts to ram that point home with some considerable force by combining various mechanics and subtle innovations to create a very unique experience, and one of the best games this humble reviewer has played in some considerable time.

    Defender’s Quest tells the story of Azra, the Royal Librarian of the Ash Empire. After becoming infected with the plague she is dumped into “The Pit”, the titular Valley of the Forgotten, and left to die with the rest of the infected, but as is the case with these things, finds she has a special power which not only makes her immune to the disease, but enables her to exist halfway between the living and the dead. In this form she is able to summon forth others to fight beside her against the “Revenant”; humans turned into zombie-like monsters. It is within this realm where the battles in Defender’s Quest take place and you use Azra’s new powers to summon and position various classes of units around the map to defend her and destroy the oncoming revenant.

    Azra and Slak (although you can name them yourself).
    Azra and Slak (although you can name them yourself).

    Whilst the plot is perfectly competent, it is the characters and their dialogue which takes centre stage here. The developers jokingly advertise the point of saying that the story was written by an actual English major, but many a true word is spoken in jest, and to my mind this may well have paid real dividends for them as the writing is of a pretty high standard. The script is warm-hearted and funny, and the banter between the characters does much to make them endearing and enjoyable to be around. Azra herself is a great protagonist; unassuming yet charming, and never falling into any typical stereotypes, but while some of the others do come close, they always have some quirk of personality to make them more unique and memorable.

    The story, beyond being worthwhile in its own right, also integrates itself into the gameplay pretty much directly. New allies, enemies, bosses and gameplay mechanics are all neatly introduced from the context of what’s happening within the narrative at that time.

    Now the basic structure of the game has you playing a sequence of tower defence battles book-ended with text cut-scenes. As you progress across the world map you can visit various settlements to recruit more units for your army and buy/sell weapons and armour for them. Each unit has a persistent level, a skill tree in which you can add points as you gain experience, and both a weapon and armour slot. You gain experience from battles whether you win or lose, although units will gain at a slower rate for losses or where they did not take part in the battle. Your units are also customisable, with you able to change their name and colour scheme at any time.

    You can amass quite the army, should you have the funds.
    You can amass quite the army, should you have the funds.

    The battles themselves are divided into 4 difficulties, each with their own set of rewards. The game allows you to backtrack at any point to replay battles or try your hand at the harder settings with completion of these tougher encounters earning you more gold stars with which to unlock various bonus challenges. Each battle takes place on a 2D map, where both Azra and the enemy spawn points are fixed. At the start of each battle, and based on Azra’s level, you are given a set of resource points called “psi” with which to deploy your initial units. As you kill enemies you can gain further psi to either boost your units (they each have 5 levels of power, with higher tier skills becoming active once you boost to the relevant boost level) or add more of your units to the map.

    Now what makes these battles so fun to play is not just the great satisfaction of watching your personalised army and tactics play out successfully, but the staggering levels of flexibility you are given to approach each encounter. With the additional abilities to recall and reposition units at any time, set up unit specific targeting tactics, and control over the speed of the gameplay (you can give out orders even while paused), the game offers you unrivalled levels of control and gives the gameplay a degree of depth which belies its rather humble aesthetic. What the game does so well with regard to all these mechanics is its ability to make all these elements intelligible and very easy to understand and use.

    This level of player control extends far beyond the basic gameplay as Defender’s Quest even allows you to set the level of rewards and penalties you receive for winning or losing battles. As a result of this, pretty much anyone can play and enjoy the game, regardless of ability, or in fact patience, yet it allows for those who enjoy a challenge to have that experience should they so wish.

    The battle screen
    The battle screen

    Another great feature of the game is the way it handles its New Game Plus mode. Typically games don’t alter themselves as much as this game does; expanding the story through new side quests, journal entries, and introducing new mechanics and enemy abilities to subtly alter the gameplay in such a way as to make that second run-through a much more compelling endeavour than it could have been otherwise. Additionally, should you wish to revisit your first run-through and replay missions from that, you can do so. Your army is persistent across all battles and you retain whatever loot and experience you gain, regardless of where or what mode it was gained in, allowing you to jump back and forth from New Game Plus and the normal game with relative ease.

    The ultimate triumph of Defender’s Quest: Valley of the Forgotten is how it manages to offer so much and make all those offerings work together in perfect synchronicity. The story, the RPG elements and tower defence mechanics all mesh together with incredible ease, and the game bends over backwards with its options to deliver the most satisfying experience it can. Often when a game attempts to throw so many things into the pot it can make a mess and lose focus. That Defender’s Quest manages to not only avoid this, but make it its primary virtue, makes it worthy of very high praise indeed.

    Other reviews for Defender's Quest: Valley of the Forgotten (PC)

      You got you RPG in my Tower Defense game! 0

      The first tower defense game I played was Desktop Tower Defense, a simple game that is on a grid and sends wave after wave of enemy at you. This was a fun game mechanic and it would pop up with different themes in different games through the years. But, it was not until Defender’s Quest: Valley of the Forgotten that I found a game that used that mechanics to great effect in an Role Playing Game fashion.The opening of the game shows you as the main character being dragged out of her house a...

      1 out of 1 found this review helpful.

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