Crystal Defenders: Vanguard Storm Review

Crystal Defenders: Vanguard Storm is the new game to go with the Crystal Defenders series on the i-pod touch and I-Phone. You will have to take up positions on different maps and try to hold off the advancement of the opposition. This is a turn based game where the enemy will advance one square each turn, with some exceptions, until they reach the other side. You'll be positioning units that different attack patterns to try to defeat those enemies before they can do that.

The graphics appear just like they did in the Crystal Defenders game. Each of your characters has a different look so you're not going to confuse the units. The enemies all have their own look to, and gave me fits of nostalgia as they reminded me of the earlier Final Fantasy games. The backgrounds all have their different look, and there's 10 different maps to experience. The problem is that you're going to have the same grid every time, so there's not that much uniqueness to the maps.

The music and sounds are straight out of an early Final Fantasy game. There's not much else to say besides if you like the older music, you're going to be right at home with the music in this game.

The controls simply have you positioning your units every turn by placing your finger on the unit and then dragging them to the new position. Thankfully you have a timer so if you accidentally fat finger something and misplace a unit my a space you can correct it, as long as there is time still available.

As stated before you're going to battle through 10 different maps, and there's going to be several waves of enemies to each of them before you can move on to the next one. At first look this game looks like its going to be short, but in reality its about the right size for a game like this. The problem is that you really don't have the ability to customize what you have on the field during battle. Sure you can select one of two reinforcements from time to time, but there were maps that I wish I could just select units from the beginning allowing my strategies to be unique to others. That's one of the problems there's really one way to play some of the waves, and it gets a bit frustrating. There's also a scoring system that you get through the levels, and as far as I can tell there is no relevance to it whatsoever. This game was definitely an improvement from Crystal Defenders, but I think there is still room for improvement, and maybe a bit more substance to the game. Once you've played the first map, you've already done all you're going to do throughout this entire game. Yes you'll have access to new troops as you go, but is that enough to get you through the game?

If you are a SquareEnix fan get this game, Final Fantasy old school music fan get this game, if you're looking for a strategy game that you can easily grasp on this platform get this game, if you need variety and a game that truly opens up as you play this might not be for you. This game gets a 7.7 out of 10.