Prime World: Defenders

Genre: Tower Defense

Players: 1

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Review:

Prime World Defenders a Tower Defense game that uses a mechanic that, at least on the surface, is designed to resemble Collectable Card Games. However, this is largely skin-deep – you won’t be shuffling any decks, and the “cards” in question are just a way of representing the different towers you can build and the different “spells” you can use to affect the battle.

Originally released on PC with a Free-to-Play model, this version avoids the microtransactions of other versions of the game and presents a straightforward self-contained experience. However, due to this game’s legacy, one of the elements that has been retained here is grinding – players grind for more cards, which can either be used to expand your arsenal of abilities, or combined with other cards to upgrade them. This mechanic will undoubtedly be divisive for players – some will enjoy the opportunity to build up their forces and the variety this format enables, but others will resent the push to replay levels they’ve already beaten for the sake of the grind.

As for me, I’m a bit torn. While normally I like grind in games where I feel like I’m seeing a noticeable difference, the battles in this game can be fairly time-consuming, which can drag down the pace of a grind to a crawl. At the same time, I can’t deny the appeal of being able to go back and grind if I encounter a particularly tough battle or if I want to try to get some new card I don’t have yet.

As for the actual Tower Defense gameplay, this is pretty standard stuff for the most part, although there are a few interesting and unique elements, such as shrines on the map you can place towers nearby to take out during their downtime to get additional resources. I found this to be a refreshing approach that makes players consider where to place towers based not just on how well they cover the path monsters travel, but also how well-placed they are to get you more resources when monsters aren’t present.

As far as the presentation goes, this game looks really good, with detailed, fully 3D levels and a fairly unique for the genre medieval fantasy setting. The game also features a fully-voiced story that’s… well, nothing particularly interesting, but the fully-voiced thing is nice.

All told, Prime World: Defenders is a solid Tower Defense game with good graphics and a card-grinding mechanic that has upsides and downsides. However, on the whole this is a solid entry in the genre that genre fans should definitely give a try.

tl;dr – Prime World: Defenders is a Tower Defense game with a Collectable Card Game mechanic that results in some grinding being a part of the game, for better or worse. In any case, the game looks great and plays pretty well. Fans of Tower Defense games should definitely give it a look.

Grade: B

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