Playing A Game Defender's Quest: Valley of the Forgotten PC

Defender's Quest: Valley of the Forgotten is a humble game: it has a simple audiovisual presentation, it's technologically unambitious (based in Flash, or, Air, or whatever), and it has a no-bullshit mission statement. But atop these humble foundations lies a finely-crafted experience, carefully polished and brimming with personality. The game's lack of bombast and ego allows the developer's passion to shine through, and, well, it's really hard not to get caught up in it.

Defender's Quest bills itself as a tower defense/RPG hybrid, and while that's literally true, it doesn't really do justice to the gameplay formula. Within a combat encounter, the game resembles tower defense more than anything else, as you place different unit types - melee attackers, ranged attackers, healers, magic support, et al - in strategic positions to prevent waves of enemies from passing through lanes to the end of the map. You can also use some magic abilities in real-time, and fiddle with individual unit AI, but none of these facets are even remotely as important as unit placement and in-combat upgrades ("boosts" in the game's parlance).

It's outside of battle that the RPG elements step into the spotlight. Every unit you can place - some given to you by the campaign, others you can recruit for money - has an experience level and gains experience points from participating in battle. Level-ups give units skill points that you can invest in active or passive skills: active skills unlock and power-up new abilities that get enabled by boosting, while passive skills can be anything from increased attack power to a chance of special effects like blind or freeze.

In addition to experience points, there's also a "scrap" currency you accumulate from winning battles, which can be used to buy new armor and weapons for your deployable units. Weapons especially can have a dramatic effect on the damage output of a melee class. So, yeah -- outside of combat, it's a lot like a traditional RPG. It's this balance between the game's two sides - realtime combat like a tower defense game, and leisurely out-of-combat statistical planning like an RPG - that I found really appealing.

What I also found appealing was the campaign's writing, which is where the game's personality shines brightest. The premise on its own is suitably fascinating and compelling, but Defender's Quest doesn't rely on melodrama to keep its narrative interesting; it's got a very healthy sense of humor as well. What's really commendable about it is that the dialogue banter between campaign characters is neither sterile nor over-the-top, but grounded and believably witty. Good writing is rare enough in video games, but this is really among the best I've seen.

There is a lot going for Defender's Quest, but I can't simply forget its flaws, either. Most of the game's mechanics are very well explained by introductory tutorials, but some important and non-obvious aspects of the game (like re-doing earlier encounters on higher difficulties to earn new rewards) are left to discover by accident. Controlling the overworld map can be a bit painful, due to an odd decision to path through partially-hidden caves. And the campaign's difficulty ramps up sharply toward the end, requiring quite a bit of stat-grinding to get through the final levels. Ultimately it was this grind that most significantly lowered my opinion of the game.

But it succeeds on its basic promises, despite its overall humility -- in fact, some of its shortcomings, like the flat animation style, add to its charm. Defender's Quest is a fun, fairly-unique game, with refreshing writing and minimal time-wasting garbage. I'm not quite sure if I'm ready for a sequel yet, but I'm at least happy to have experienced this one.

Better than: Anomaly: Warzone Earth
Not as good as: in theory, a full-fledged strategy/tactical RPG, but I haven't played a good one of those in recent memory.
I think it's also better than: Plants vs. Zombies, but it's hard to remember that for sure, either.

Progress: Finished the campaign on default settings.

Rating: Good