Unity - Completed - Beautiful Mystic Defenders [Final] [Fantasize Games]

Might not be the perfect game - plenty of people in the thread have some valid criticisms. But the OP / dev is responding very well to those criticisms and that kind of engagement should be encouraged!

Average Tower Defense. It's cute, and does what it does okay. It might be worth your time to just play through it, but currently, very unbalanced.

Gameplay, 2/5: Unbalanced, Very Much So.
As another reviewer said, ranged is OP. The DPS is insane. Melee? They do not even hold the enemies back for the most part, and when they do, it's ONE enemy. Low damage, low crowd control, melee is useless.
Another thing, heroines are pretty damn strong, especially Yasako, who's meteor does everything; crowd control, DPS, sustained damage.
Also, there's no reason to even switch heroines. Using one levels them up, and so far, there's no, "weak against arrows" or "weak against magic" type deals.
Also, I found that the magic tower is the best all-rounder. Has better damage, and doesn't seem to miss like the cannon does. The arrow tower seems to do less DPS but I didn't test it too much.

Overall, it's very unbalanced. There needs to be reason to level up heroines, but with that, an easier way to level them up, say, use multiple heroines, or something. Enemies with certain strengths and weaknesses, etc.

Art, 4/5: Cute.
Not much to say, I like the chibi art, I like the animations, I like the character portraits and stuff. You see what you get, really. You don't like anime, then, well... Yeah, not for you.

Audio, 3/5: Is Alright.
Moans here, sound effects there, some it sounds kind of off. Moving the heroines, they have soundbytes, but they are shared between each. From what I've noticed, there's two variations, melee sound bytes and ranged sound bytes. Gets a bit repetitive and disappointing to hear different heroines with the same voices.
Music is alright, might be stock, but it's good stock music if it is. If not, again, it's alright. Pretty nice for what it is to be honest.

Story, 3/5: Average.
Plot: you're guy who works a 9-5 job, beats meat and plays games. Starting off... Very strong (this is sarcasm, I've already seen a few games with this kind of intro already). The heroines are part of a nation and they're losing to the chaos go- I mean, another nation who wants to subjugate their country because the enemy nation has had a tough time? Like it's Russia or something trying to raid Idaho and their potato farms? And so our gamer introduces themselves as a master tactician and starts leading our girls to victory, I guess.

It's a simple plot, VERY average for a H-Game. Also, you don't progress H-Scenes based on heroine level (which would also be a good reason to level up multiple heroines, but might be too grindy). I don't know how they would re-work it to make it intriguing, but... For now, it's alright.

Overall, 3/5: Very... Average.
I saw the first few lines of text, already knew where it was going. Played with the girl I thought was hottest, was already clearing Hard difficulty. It's just... Not the best well balanced game. Cute art, and could be fun if it was a little better balanced. I don't mind the "easy" (or first play through of a level) being that easy, but please balance melee and ranged a bit more.

I've played through the entire demo and I have to say: there are many problems in the game as it is.

1. Heroines are way too strong. While the ones fighting in melee might not be so overpowered, the ranged ones definitely are. I've been using Yasako for the most part, and she's definitely the most powerful heroine. All ranges heroines can attack enemy from huge distance. Yasako, when placed in the middle of the map, had range on the entire map. That means that if I place her away from the path, somewhere in the middle, I can basically forget about her, knowing she's already in the most optimal position. Combined with how much damage she deals at just level 4 she's definitely too strong. But that's the case for every single heroine, they deal too much damage in general, easily one-shot killing most enemies. The range on distance heroines should be hugely nerfed, they should stand behind the soldiers and helping from behind the lines, not gods of death just chilling in the middle of the map.
2. The abilities that heroines have are broken as well. The ability to freeze enemies is cool, but it's range is way too big, and the cooldown time makes it possible to stop the enemy in place forever. It's similar for meteorites. They deal so much damage, that I accidentally killed the last boss with them, before I could even see his entire design. The abilities should have much longer cooldown, as they're meant to help you in dire situation, forcing you to think about them strategically, not use them every 5-10 seconds. With heroines at level 5 and their abilities, you can beat the entire game without placing a single tower.
3. The upgrades are just bad. They should be grouped, based on the tower they upgrade, and there should be a separate line for abilities. It would also be a good idea to block certain upgrades, by requiring the player to unlock something else first. It doesn't have to be like kingdom rush, with it's linear progression. For example you can make a tree, where at some points you give people ability to chose whether they want more range or damage, or maybe attack rate. They can even be exclusive to each other, making the player think about their decision more deeply. There can also be a possibility, that you may need upgrades from two different paths to unlock something really strong or useful, making the player want it, but requiring him them to first unlock a bunch of other things first. The upgrades themselves are without any logic. One of them makes towers 8% less expensive, which is pretty reasonable, especially when you consider that it costs 10 golden stars, which means 4 levels on hard difficulty. But for the same price you can get 20% reduction in attack cooldown, which is absolutely broken and would be overpowered even if it cost 15 stars. When I saw it I thought it's a typo, but no, it actually works that way. It's probably the best upgrade in the game right now, and should be changed ASAP. Increasing damage by 25% is too strong as well. In general I think this whole thing needs a solid rework. With the way things are, I only had to use mage towers and upgrade them to level 4 and just forget about the game. I managed to make myself a coffee and when I came back I won the level without even playing it. The same goes to tower upgrades in levels. There are 4 levels on each tower, and they don't work well. They change the damage of the tower (which is fine), range (which is broken, since the circle you see doesn't represent the actual range, and it's actually longer than it looks like) and the fire rate. The last one is particularly bad. Reducing reload time by 1 second with each upgrade is way too good. One upgrade is better that building another tower to such a degree, that It's best to just upgrade one tower to the max level, rather that build a couple different ones. Also having the ability to upgrade the towers to level 4 since the very beginning is not good, since it gives the player no incentive to play further, to actually discover them. There are no variations in upgrades, which could actually be unlocked by research/ upgrade tree, to make it more engaging. In general, no good.
4. All enemies feel the same. It's not exactly true, since they have some differences. For one, they look different, which is the biggest difference I have spotted. Other than that it's just the resistance to magic and physical damage. But it doesn't do much, since I can just spam mages on units with magic resistance, and it still works. In general the resistance should reduce the damage received by a percent, ie. one bar means 30%, with 3 bars being 90%. Also some units should have immunity, to force the player to use different types of towers. All enemies in a given wave have the same amount of HP, which is also wrong. HP should be based on the type of unit, not the wave, and compensate for lower HP by having different resistance, or some other abilities. This is what Kingdom Rush did so well, and what made all enemies unique, memorable and challenging. For now only ticks and spiders have such an ability, since they explode upon death, but that's why they are the most fun enemies in the game right now.
5. Stages work poorly. The idea to make the waves random is the dumbest I have seen yet in a tower defense game. It feels like someone who was dead drunk thought "we should have something to make our game different from Kingdom Rush" and came up with the most retarded TD mechanic ever created by a human being. The first time I saw it I just thought that I remembered the stage incorrectly, but as it turns out it really is that way. Not only are the enemies each wave different (ie. wave 2 on a given level can have different, more challenging enemies), but also the spawn point is random as well. This should never have happened in a game created by a functional human being. If the game was more balanced with towers and heroines, it would actually require you to form a strategy on how to deal with the enemies, which would be impossible, since they're different EVERY TIME. In most TD games the waves are the same each time, so when you eventually get defeated you at least have an idea on what you should change to deal with the enemies next time. For example, in KG the first boss map had a lot of Dark Knights, who have a lot of physical resistance. That means that if you use mostly arrow towers and cannons, you are bound to lose once the boss appears. When you do lose, you at least get to know, that you should change your strategy and build more mages, to deal with the knights armor. Something like that could never work here, since you have no idea who may come at you next time. As for the different pathways, the way they work in KG is to force you to change your strategy later in the level, and not only build towers in one area. There is a good reason for them to get activated later into the level, and that provides some variety to the game. They are not random as well, for the same reason that the enemy spawn is not random, and this is something you should not change compared to the KG. The only thing that is consistent are bosses, who are rather well done. I like that there is a different boss each level, but they should definitely be more strong compared to now, and it would be nice if each one had some unique ability, to make the stage more challenging.
6. There is no porn . For something that's supposed to be "Kingdom Rush meets Hentai VN" there sure isn't a lot of hentai. There is only one scene, and it's censored for some reason. WE DEMAND MORE PORN IN THE GOD DAMN PORN GAME! I wouldn't be so mad if the TD part was good, but it isn't. It hurts me a lot, since I'm a fan of both TD games (I've played them since I was 8 years old) and porn (I've watched porn since I was [redacted] years old).

For the nice things I can say, the design is pleasant, and I like the look of the game. The enemies look nice, and so do the towers, although I'd do some changes to them, but I'm no artist, so no advice on that from me. I don't see much reason to play the game in it's current state. It took me 3x more time to write this review than to beat the whole demo on gold.