Take one look at Garden Rescue's cute and colorful graphics, and you'd be forgiven for mistaking this for a children's only game. The game is good for children--nothing [i]dies[/i], everything's simple to learn, new towers and abilities are unlocked at a good pace, and the difficulty level is adjustable at your leisure without hurting your achievement progress. But I'm a grown woman who simply loves tower defense games, and I've played dozens of them. My review will grade Garden Rescue on these merits.
Garden Rescue is simple to learn, but it gets surprisingly challenging in later levels even for tower defense veterans (I played on the hardest difficulty by default since I expected it to be an easy game). Your towers are various plants with creative abilities (a bell pepper that shoots fire, cacti that attack both land/air units, pumpkins that cause splash damage, etc.), and your foes are a variety of adorably dressed insects that either crawl or fly. You also get access to some abilities (a spring, bomb, and lawn mower) at particular points in each level. In an oddity for the genre, you don't make coins by defeating foes; strawberry plants produce them, and the strawberries are exactly what those thieving bugs are after. So if you lose a plant, you also lose a source of income. I never had an issue with this, but mostly because I'd restart the level if I didn't play it flawlessly since I wanted the achievement for 3-starring every level. If bugs [i]do[/i] reach your strawberries, they uproot the plant and attempt to carry it back. You lose stars, but you can technically still save the plant (and its future income). If a [i]boss[/i] reaches your strawberries, it's pretty much game over since they don't steal them, they eat them.
Tower upgrades are simple. There's one upgrade path, and it mostly does the same for each tower: adds to damage and range. Unfortunately, you can't unlock new towers, upgrades, and abilities and go [i]back[/i] to retry a level you've had trouble with, but at least you go into each level with the knowledge that you can beat it with what you have if you use the right strategy. You can dig up a plant and receive part of what you paid for it and its upgrades, which I found myself doing more so here than in other tower defense games. Like I said, the game gets surprisingly challenging on the hardest difficulty on the higher levels, and oftentimes I'd have to dig up air-only plants to prepare for a ground-dwelling boss or vice versa. Speaking of bosses, there are quite a few in the game, and some levels feature more than one. They have adorable designs, but they all share the same power: stomping the ground to temporarily stun your plants. Because of this and the fact that the game is fairly simple, some players may find it a bit repetitive in the later levels (there are 30 overall).
Last minute tidbits: the music is simple but strangely addicting in an upbeat way. Even as I write this review, my foot is dancing to my memories of the beat. Some of the sound choices are a bit annoying--the bugs sound like children when defeated, and each wave is accompanied by some child-like cheering. As someone who doesn't find children nice to listen to, this was the only off-putting thing about the game.
I half-expected to lose interest in Garden Rescue without beating it if only because it looked so tame and barebones. Instead, I 100% it in my 10.5 hour playtime and enjoyed every minute of it. There's not necessarily anything [i]new[/i] here for us tower defense fans, but Garden Rescue is a surprisingly fun and competent addition to the genre. I'm someone who will try literally [i]any[/i] tower defense game--years ago I played even the worst of them on Kongregate, mastering most, even shovelware--and Garden Rescue is one I'm proud to master. Additionally, I own Garden Rescue: Christmas Edition (must've bought a bundle), and I look forward to playing that one as well. If you're a tower defense fan who doesn't need twists and turns in your games, I suggest adding Garden Rescue to your collection.
