12.23.08
Demolitionist: Crystal Defenders (iPhone/iPod Touch)
Square-Enix’s first foray into the world of iPhone gaming brings us this wonderful little gem, a port/compilation of three DoCoMo games that we’d never see otherwise (since DoCoMo is a Japan-only cell phone standard). While it’s primarily a simple tower defense-style game (at least in the W1 chapter provided in the demo), it does it with the charm and style familiar to players of the Final Fantasy Tactics Advance games, borrowing most heavily from the recent A2. Bear this in mind: I had never, to this point, played a tower defense game for more than ten minutes, thinking they were largely boring; the implementations of the genre that I’d tinkered with were atrociously hard or too simplistic. I’m still not entirely sold on the concept, but at least I know it’s not as boring as I’d expected; while the gameplay limits the kind of strategy involved, it’s still very fun.
Many folks who’ve played the demo have complained about the control scheme used; the game divides the screen in two, with the top screen being the display and the bottom screen being a virtual cross-pad as one might find on any recent traditional cell phone. This seems kind of clunky at first, but you can still touch the top screen to jump the cursor as you see fit. I think it works pretty well, given the game’s roots, but at the same time I think the controls could have been made a bit smaller to provide more real estate for the main graphics.
I didn’t buy the game– not yet, anyway; it’s on my list for a future date. Still, I have to say that it’s a recommended purchase if you dig tower defense, and if it prompts Square-Enix to port over more of its cell phone games (or, heaven forbid, prompts other companies with significant mobile divisions to consider the English-speaking market; I’m looking at you, Capcom), all the better. It’s a good first foot forward for S-E’s mobile division.