Crystal Guardians Prologue

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Crystal Guardians Prologue is very enjoyable Tower Defence and appears to be a great snapshot of the full game. ✅ A nice selection of towers. ✅ Good and varied itemisation and synergies. ✅ Skill tree meta progression. ❌ Effects can be a little overwhelming. ❌ Map generation could be improved slightly. ❌ Enemies are a bit generic. As is normal for most Tower Defence games, you place towers using currency earned from defeating enemies during waves. Crystal Guardians however, also rewards players with a selection of random items after each wave (and sometimes earned via loot towers discovered or generated from farming kills within range) that can be equipped to your existing towers with a wide range of effects and bonuses. You can continue to refine your strategies mid game as you're free to swap items to different towers as you progress. While some items clearly have great synergies, you can also unlock recipe's that enable you to upgrade or evolve the effects when you collect a set of certain items. Towers can also earn Experience as they make kills (or you can invest into them with your own gold) and upon reaching level 10, you can choose one of two upgrades. Each wave is began by extending your existing map based on where your path has lead, this can sometimes lead to a tiny frustration early on as the path could split (giving the enemy two directions to spawn from) giving you less chance of a good kill zone. This might however, result in a bit more challenge for those that seek it. Personally, I'd either like for the first few waves to be unable to branch to separate paths or see a system introduced where you can influence how the path will be generated (things like Straight Path, Corner Path, Split Path or maybe introduce terrain effects or even enemy buffs). Possibly buying zones to use, paying to increase the chance or a simple selection). A minor personal inconvenience however that doesn't distract from a really good Tower Defence game! Further more, you earn experience as you kill enemies with each level granting you a skill point to spend in a Skill Tree after your game, providing enhancements to specific attack types, towers in general or a towers upgrade. I did feel the experience granted was a bit too much too quickly, but that's very nitpicky and I understand will vary from person to person. There is also a really nice breakdown at the end of a game (win or lose) that shows you how your individual towers performed (damage, damage over time, critical damage and kills) and what items they had equipped. I'd also quite like to be able to get a tool tip reminder when you hover over said items on this screen and maybe the possibility to 'save' ideal builds, similar to how the existing recipe system works. I have already thoroughly enjoyed my time with this game and will look forward to the full release.