Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. While true, there is some evidence that Korean company Kurechii should be calling their lawyers right about now. Their new 'tower defense without the towers' game Tiny Guardians may be good, but it sure seems like I've played this before.
Games of any genre share common elements, it's the nature of working within the confines of any particular niche. FPS games will have HUDs (or not), MOBAs will have three lanes and, after about three months, a toxic community of players; and Tim Schafer titles will be brilliant but underappreciated. A tower defense game will have branching paths, unique towers that function as MMORPG classes (tank, mage, dps, etc) and waves of enemies. Tiny Guardians has all of these things, simply without the towers.
It is not the gameplay that I decry - more on that. But there are some serious artistic liberties at hand. From the moment I fired up the game with its chibi-esque characters, I had this strange sense of déjà vu. I hadn't played this game before, but I've certainly seen it: Kingdom Rush.
What can provoke audible cries of outrage, however, is the good-not-great touch tracking. I played the game on an iPhone 5S (though the game really calls for a 6) and lost a unit or outright died because the game simply did not register what I was doing. It froze on a number of occasions, especially early on during the intro levels, when I just couldn't X out of some informational screen.
Thankfully, the gameplay is such that I just stopped the program and immediately fired it back up and continued on my merry way.
Intellectual copyright law aside, Tiny Guardians is a great take on the tower defense genre. The game should definitely appeal to long-time tower defense fans who are looking for not only something different, but a compelling challenge as well. Newcomers may get easily overwhelmed with the amount of micro-management required, but if you're on board, the game will certainly reward you. Even on the easiest setting, every victory in Tiny Guardians felt like a hard won battle
And even I can't say that about Kingdom Rush.
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Tiny Guardians was reviewed using a code provided by the developer. The game is available on the iOS and Google Play stores now for $3.99.
