Hands-On Preview: Defender Chronicles: Legend Of The Desert King

The App Store is plump full of tower defense games so it is imperative that developers come up with a way to make their application feel fresh and unique.  It looks like developer Gimka Entertainment along with their publisher Chillingo has the fresh and unique part completely covered with their new game Defender Chronicles: Legend of the Desert King. Defender Chronicles is set in a fantasy medieval world where the capital city of Londrom has fallen to the Orc Hordes.  You are an inexperienced warlord who is destined to defeat the evil Orc king and become a legend. Defender Chronicles sports a unique side-view that has rarely been used in tower defense games.  This allows you to experience the game in a whole new way, although the enemies are still funneled through the levels as they are in any other tower defense game so you should still be comfortable with the gameplay. Another big difference between Defender Chronicles and every other tower defense game is the addition of an RPG element.  This is kind of reminiscent of what Puzzle Quest was able to do with the match-three genre.  Instead of just mindlessly conquering wave after wave of enemies, you are able build up and then spend experience points on equipment and items for your warlord.  You are also able to level up your six different defenders by playing through the campaign.  Because of the RPG element, the game starts out fairly slow, but after a while it picks up and keeps you coming back for more just to level up your characters. The six different defenders include a warrior, archer, berserker, ranger, halfling, and mage. Each defender has its own unique ability.  For example, Orcs are basically unaffected by an archer's arrows so you must be sure to build up your army with another force such as warriors.  You must be careful, however, not to get too lax with where and how many units you place.  The game only allows you to place units in a certain number of spots on the map.  As with most tower defense games, there is a bit of strategy involved so you must plan accordingly. Defender Chronicles features 5 hand-drawn battlegrounds sporting the side-view perspective that will allow you to zoom in on the action.  You can choose from 5 different game modes as well, including campaign, freestyle (random), extended, classic, and classic extended.  The game features 7 original music soundtracks, spatial sound effects, and a variety of voice-acting. If you are a fan of the tower defense genre and you enjoy a good RPG, Defender Chronicles is one to watch for.  We aren't sure at this point what the final price will be or the release date, but Chillingo has told us it should be available in the App Store very soon.

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