Gotta Protectors is a top notch, retro-throwback (yet unusually unique) game that can probably be summed up as stage-based 8-bit Diablo.
Just to get this out of the way, I'd say this game is a solid 15 hours of absolute fun. Nearly every level's fun to play, and you'll want to complete all of them. That being said, I don't have any inclination to go back and replay the game againGotta Protectors is a top notch, retro-throwback (yet unusually unique) game that can probably be summed up as stage-based 8-bit Diablo.
Just to get this out of the way, I'd say this game is a solid 15 hours of absolute fun. Nearly every level's fun to play, and you'll want to complete all of them. That being said, I don't have any inclination to go back and replay the game again though, so take that for what you will.
The basic objective is to clear each map of enemies while making sure your princess is kept alive. The maps are relatively different from one to another, ranging from wide open areas with choke-points, to long corridors, to mazes, to... well, there's not really too many re-occurring themes in terms of map design. They're all pretty different from one to another.
You've got a basic attack, which is different from one class to another (EG: The Archer shots arrows while the Fighter has a melee area-of-effect attack), as well as a special attack. I used the Old Guy a lot, because his special attack was a ranged homing missile that added an absolutely necessary bit of utility to a unit who's somewhat slow and melee-based.
There's this RPG element where you can upgrade your abilities (like regeneration, more damage, more armour, etc.) with dropped junk from enemies.
There are 100 levels, and while the first few don't seem that hard, the difficulty ramps up pretty well. Around level 60, you'll start feeling the effects and have to start really thinking about your strategy.
It's exceptionally satisfying to barrel through countless enemies, aim for and destroy their spawn point, and then make your way back to the princess to heal yourself and make sure she's not close to being attacked.
One very unique element this game has that I haven't seen before is this importance of proximity to the princess: As you move further from her, your abilities get weaker, you move slower, and your basic attack gets downgraded. You have to either spend your earned gold on upgrading yourself so your abilities are just inertly better when they downgrade, or you move the princess with you as you're killing all the enemies. It introduces this very unique strategy dilemma that I haven't seen in any game.
My one complaint is the writing and character design. Most of the characters are one-dimensional (EG: Archer is the smart, strategic, "tired of everyone's **** kind; the Mage loves food; the Old Guy is senile, etc.) and the humour is very self-referential. This was funny in the beginning, but I got tired of it pretty quickly.
That being said, I know it's a kind of humour that some people love (particularly those who'd appreciate a game with a retro art-design). A good comparison would be any web-comics that revolve around video game logic or concepts. They tend to have this "look at how absurd the video game logic is when placed side-by-side with reality... let's do it anyway! (queue laugh track)"
So if you like self-referential video game humour as well as mowing down countless goons, you'll probably love this game. If you think you'll get sick of the humour, give it a try anyway, because even when I got sick of it, the gameplay itself sold the rest of the game for me.… Expand
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