Review by mecatronic 6
Lacking, but with a Bright Future
My review for Lazerus TD 5.0:
It's nice to have a chance to review an innovative td during its early stages, and to have a chance to see it improving over time. Anyway, let's begin...
Let's start with the basics, shall we? If you're going to make a screen with a fancy background containing only the map name, don't make it the loading screen, that's what the preview picture is for. Loading screens should be either a nice piece of art which players like to look at during the few seconds of loading time, or a nice information text teaching the basics of the game or telling what has changed since the last version (you can always include everything on the same loading screen). Also, loading and preview screens are the first thing that the player will see before playing the map, and can make a big impact on the expectation, ranging from "meh, another kid's map" to "seems promising".
If you're going to make an introduction scene (they're risky), make sure they explain almost everything the player needs to learn to play the game, and MAKE SURE PLAYERS CAN SKIP IT!
Another thing that shows if the game is "professional" or not, is the quality of the information. A game in which a player has to take guesses is incomplete, no matter what. This game has two big problems with tooltips:
- First, you don't have any information about the heroes during the hero selection, except the skill names. I don't know if they're damage dealers, supports, if they have high HP, or even what the custom skills do!
- Second, when I'm playing a TD, THE LEAST I expect is tower information. There are two things I NEED to know about a tower BEFORE i build it: DPS and range. There are many other important information that could (or even must) be present, but these are the essentials. As if the lack of information were not enough, the tooltips don't follow a pattern, just compare the frost tower and one of the damage dealing ones.
Talking about standards, this map has a serious problem regarding hero skills. Although the map is a TD, one can't deny that the heroes have a very important role in it, I even spend more time microing my hero than building my maze some times. Heroes have almost random skills that don't match the hero's role, neither his others skills. And worse, the skills have random levels and tooltips. Some heroes have skills with 10 levels, others with 6, others with 3.. a total mess.
The worst thing about this map (everything until now had work-arounds) is the lack of good towers. Come on, it's a TOWER defense! This map has only a few different types of towers, and doesn't take advantage of the HUGE variety of abilities that World Editor can fit into a tower. Lazerus TD only has slow poison and cold from the classic towers, and ALL THE REST are the same tower basically, differing only in damage type. This is BORING. Having different towers that only have damage type as difference is not clever, players will mostly choose one of them and stick to it, even more because they have balance problems.
Now the good side. Although I may have sounded like a devil's advocate, pointing the weaknesses of a map os more important than pointing its strengths, since this review is directed to the map makers and he or she can work on what's wrong.
Even with so many mistakes, this map managed to make me play it a few times in a row (which is not something easy). It has so many new concepts built around a simple tower defense that somehow give it a very enjoyable gaming experience. To name a few:
- Heroes in a tower defense. This is not a new concept, but it's the first time I see it used right. Usually it all ends up in a hero survival with a few towers around, but this time it is used ONLY to get leaks.
- Skulls and Feathers. Although the Skulls are not expressive enough, the concept of a permanent bonus for your hero is very good. Skulls are like a bat-belt of utilities, that always come in handy.
- EXP zone for hero. This is what binds the two sides of the map together. Without this, it would be just another of those TDs where you have to leak intendedly just to feed your hero. A huge portion of the map's uniqueness comes from this.
- Multiboard. As I stated before, one of the most important things on a map is information. This multiboard has lots of it. Congratulations on this field.
- Simple. Although this map mixes Towers and heroes, it's very simple. It has a very soft learning curve and doesn't abuse on fancy systems.
In short, this map has lots of flaws, but it's built around some very nice concepts. It's a hybrid of TD and Hero Defense (with much more focus on the TD, for the matter) that has problems with both heroes and towers. Even with this, the map is pretty fun and innovative. I recommend playing it a few times with friends to enjoy an excellent game experience, and then come back in a few versions to see the improvement (which I've been following for some versions), because right now, in my opinion, the map is not ready for a serious gameplay.
My badges for Lazerus TD 5.0:
My ratings for Lazerus TD 5.0:
PS: I'm testing a new format of review this time, tell me if you think it needs more modifications.
History:
- 24/March/2010: Added some information that explains the badges, added info about simplicity, and fixed grammar mistakes.
- 27/March/2010: Added the score chart and changed the overall rating.
- 29/March/2010: fixed grammar mistakes.
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