➤ The Aegis Defenders review 🎮

Let's try to mix platforming with puzzle elements and tower defense? By now we imagine them, indie developers, around a table trying to match in increasingly unexpected ways genres and videogame styles, even jarring with each other, to bring out something completely new from this overcrowded market. In this bizarre spin-the-fashion of suggestions and game mechanics, it sometimes happens that a particularly absurd combination can actually work, which happens above all when the team has very clear ideas, a handle in development and a certain mastery also for as regards the stylistic aspect. Aegis Defenders falls into this series: although it is not without flaws, a game that manages to make a mix of platform, puzzle and tower defense work still deserves an honorable mention.

In fact, each level of this title is initially proposed as a sort of Lost Vikings with different characters to be used to solve various puzzles in platforms structured environments, then at a certain point it becomes a real tower defense in two playful sessions that are actually detached from each other. Put like this it is difficult to believe that such a video game Frankenstein can actually work, yet the creature of GUTS Department and Humble Bundle is well built and also playable, beyond some inconsistency in design and general balance. None of its parts shines particularly, but the balance between the distinct sections manages to give a complete sense to the composite nature of Aegis Defenders, held well together even by a decent narrative - with even interesting ideas and sometimes non-trivial dialogues - and by a construction of the game world that has a remarkable coherence, recalling in this sense some of the most intriguing indies such as Cave Story, Risk of Rain and Owlboy, with influences and atmospheres that lead up to Nausicaä.

Ancient gods and mortals

The most functional elements to the characterization of this game are its setting, the story and the narration with which it develops over the course of events (the texts are all in English). The world of Aegis Defender starts once again from a post-apocalyptic vision, in which survival is played on a difficult balance between gods and mortals. In this strange setting, entire nations huddle around ancient entities called Deathless, ruins or reflections of previous civilizations worshiped as immortal deities by those who believe, representing a sort of glue for the new social structures that have been painstakingly created. In all this, some troublemakers could not be missing, represented here by a sort of atheist faction that tries to distance itself from the Deathless and live according to its own rules: but which side is precisely the reason in this clash is not easy to establish, and so the world of Aegis Defenders also brings some interesting reflections on religion and free will, no less.

The beauty is that all this is told in a very little verbose way, revealing itself gradually in the course of short intermission scenes between one level and another and above all through the dialogues between the characters, who interact with each other especially in the phases of camp at the end of each tiring day, when the moment becomes propitious for reflections on life, the universe and everything. A light but sanguine narrative, therefore, which takes place through unspoken dialogues, very pleasant despite the fact that the story behind it is not exactly innovative. The fact that the project was initially started as a starting point for a graphic novel clearly appears in the excellent characterization of the characters and in such evident care in the construction of the atmospheres and the surrounding world, and these are all elements that greatly enrich the game, which starts by putting on stage the simple actions of the hunters of ruins Clu and Bart then expanding their borders to tell the fate of a world in precarious balance.

Platforms and strategy

Almost all the levels of Aegis Defenders follow a common pattern, which is also the stylistic code of this strange hybrid game, or the subdivision between the platform component and the tower defense one: a first phase sees the protagonists engaged in the exploration of a map until reaching a relic with a central role in carrying out the mission, with a platform-style structure with puzzles. The puzzles are solved mainly with the alternating use of the various characters, each characterized by different specific equipment and skills that allow you to interact in various ways with the scenarios and fight with different styles. It starts with the young huntress Clu armed with a rifle and her grandfather Bart with his trusty hammer and ends up using four characters with the subsequent addition of Kaiim and Zula, but it is always possible to use only one hero at a time in an alternating manner. (or one for each player, in the case of multiplayer). The platform phase contains simple puzzles to be solved (mechanisms to be activated, sequential actions and doors to open) but also fights with enemies, and in both cases we find chromatic matches that force you to alternatively choose one or the other character (such as opponents or doors of a certain color that can respectively be hit or opened by a specific fighter), so the action is always choral for the group of protagonists.

It is clear that all of this finds its maximum expression in the cooperative multiplayer game, which is in fact the best way to enjoy Aegis Defenders., something particularly enhanced on Switch by the possibility of multiplayer "on the fly" with the two separate Joy-Con and the split-screen. This impression is further reinforced in the second fundamental phase that makes up each level: the strategic tower defense moment. Once the ruin is found, a countdown is triggered which requires us to set up defensive structures to face the arrival of waves of enemies through some portals. In this situation, the other specific abilities of each character emerge, which allow everyone to place a turret equipped with particular defensive systems. To add further strategic depth, it is possible to associate the turrets of two characters, obtaining different effects for each combination.

A beautiful but tough world

The fact that it is set up to be enjoyed particularly in cooperative mode also brings out one of the main defects of Aegis Defenders, which is a certain lack of balance in the single player game. Apart from the basic mechanics of having to constantly alternate characters even for simple clashes in the platform phases, which becomes rather fluid if two fighters are used at the same time, it is especially in tower defense-style moments that a certain imbalance emerges for those facing the solo play. The time available to deploy the defenses is always very limited to set everything up by yourself (at least in the more advanced stages of the game) and the elements to keep under control become too many for a single player, also because the artificial intelligence that manages the other teammates at the same time proves to be absolutely insufficient to carry out even the most basic actions, which forces us to act personally on all team members. These elements, on the other hand, prove to be balanced in order to be rightly stimulating if you find yourself playing in two, but multiplayer should simply increase the quality of a game of this kind, not end up being a deterrent for the single player. These drawbacks are exacerbated by a progression of poorly harmonious difficulty, which presents significant peaks in the presence of some missions after a very affordable start, and can easily frustrate the less patient. To soften everything there is at least the excellent technical realization of the game, which is well-finished and coherent in the representation of its particular world in pixels, managing to be also original despite the amount of similar productions that now crowd the market.

Comment

Tested version Nintendo Switch Digital Delivery Nintendo eShop Price 19,99 € Resources4Gaming.com

Readers (1)

2.8

Your vote

The strange amalgam of genres that makes up Aegis Defenders works as a whole, also thanks to a well-studied and staged characterization in order to give a beautiful identity to this game. Somehow the composite structure works even if it does not shine either as a tower defense or as a platform, but the alternation of the two phases manages to maintain a good pace of the game and we are easily led to discover what is hidden in this bizarre world. made up of adventurers, ancient gods and occult forces at work. Too bad that various flaws in terms of balance, artificial intelligence and level design block the full expression of Aegis Defenders' potential, although some flaws disappear when played in multiplayer.