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Star Wars: Galactic Defense

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Star Wars: Galactic Defense

Adding Star Wars into the tower defence genre mix is an odd choice.

There aren't actually that many towers in the entire canon of Star Wars, and they certainly don't play a pivotal role in any scene from the series - or at least not from what I can recall about the six main movies.

But there must be a good reason to make a TD game out of this cherished licence, beyond just the potential for big sacks of cash.

Surely.

Right...?

I'm going to try and find out if that's the case with Star Wars: Galactic Defense over the course of seven days, and if you like you can follow me as I do so by coming back here every couple of days.

First impressions

Star Wars: Galactic Defense begins by asking you what you'd like to be referred to as. The game automatically found that my name is Peter, which was nice, but when I confirmed this selection it renamed me to "Peter#600", which wasn't.

I imagine there are already 599 players with that name, but don't ask me my name and then set it as something slightly different - that's just plain rude.

You pick a side to follow, either Jedi or Sith. You don't get much of a chance to discover the differences between the two factions are, but I chose Jedi because I'm a nice guy like that.

It's immediately evident that there's a lot of content here. There's several campaigns, each with loads of levels that can be played on multiple difficulty levels.

But as for the game itself, I'm yet to see anything that really grips me with galactic excitement.

I get to field Luke Skywalker as a special hero that can run about the stage to tackle problem areas, but that's nothing new to the genre, and each tower feels like any other you've seen in a TD game.

There's a standard one that shoots lasers, a splash damage one, a post for units to act as a temporary barrier, and a status debuffing tower.

It's early days yet, here's hoping things get a little more interesting soon.

Day 3: Enjoys long walks on sandy beaches

Shortly after I popped the first part of this review in the other day, I created a hands-on video for AppSpy showing some aspects of the game. You can watch it here if you want an idea of what it looks like in motion.

As you'll see, it's not the most handsome of beasts. Chewbacca in particular looks absolutely awful - as one commenter on my Instagram image noted "it looks like a bad pic on a dating website".

Other than the profiles, during play the art is generally fine, and allows you to see exactly who you're up against, and therefore what actions you should be trying to take against them.

The towers look a bit same-y, and the level environments are drab, but a Stormtrooper looks like a Stormtrooper, and in terms of pure function Star Wars: Galactic Defense is fine.

Progress is slow. I think that's mostly because I have to level up my heroes, and open access to new tower types, to make myself more powerful and therefore stand a better chance at winning.

Each stage also take a fairly long time to play, and there isn't a fast forward button you can press to speed things up. Considering you need to go back and replay the same stages multiple times to say that you've truly completed it, this can make it a bit of a slog.

It's a slow burn then, but not an unpleasant one, as I head into Day 7.

Day 7: Repelling the inVaders

After a full week with Star Wars: Galactic Defense, I'm left with a sense of hollow satisfaction: a knowledge that, even though I enjoyed my time, I wasn't really fulfilled on any level.

Star Wars: Galactic Defense isn't much of a Star Wars game. Having now tried out a few of the Dark Side missions, the main difference between these and the missions for the Rebels is a palette swap.

While it's a completely competent tower defence game, it's not trying anything that I haven't seen elsewhere, so again I'm not wowed on a gameplay level either.

The free to play stuff is starting to raise its head as I finish my seventh day, and I can see how it's going to play out from here. New heroes cost an absolute fortune in currency, so if you want to field more than one you'll need to shell out or grind for ages.

So do I recommend playing it? Yeah, if you like. It's a good tower defence game, but not a stellar one, and it's got the Star Wars name slapped on it, if that sort of thing is important to you.

Do any of these things ensure that Star Wars: Galactic Defense won't be completely forgotten about by the general gaming populace within the next 3 months?

No, of course not. But for some casual gamers looking for another TD fix, this will keep them going until the next one comes along.

How are you getting on with the game? You can tell us and the rest of the PG community about your experiences by leaving a comment in the box below. Click here to learn about our free-to-play review policy.

Star Wars: Galactic Defense

Star Wars: Galactic Defense is a vanilla tower defence game that just so happens to include characters and vehicles from a cherished franchise
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Peter Willington
Peter Willington
Die hard Suda 51 fan and professed Cherry Coke addict, freelancer Peter Willington was initially set for a career in showbiz, training for half a decade to walk the boards. Realising that there's no money in acting, he decided instead to make his fortune in writing about video games. Peter never learns from his mistakes.