Developer: Acquire
Publishers: Acquire, PQube, Aksys Games
Platforms: PS Vita, PS4
Tested on: PS4
Aegis of Earth: Protonovus Assault – Review
It’s safe to say that mankind might be the strongest race on the planet nowadays. We have enough weaponry and other technologies to fend off a lot of possible problems. But what if there was a force that was unbeatable by anything? Some malevolence that wanted to wipe mankind away? It is your task to prevent this from happening and to protect civilians at all cost. Are you up for it?
Story
Fifty years ago, there was an incident called the ‘Silent Apocalypse’. As the title might make clear, it wasn’t a good turnabout of events. Various vicious creatures and monsters spawned, all there to kill and destroy mankind. All hope seemed lost, until humans discovered that there the apocalypse spawned something good as well. There was a new crystal called ‘Altenite’, which can be used to build weaponry and defence systems. Although this was a ray of light in this dark period, cities had to be fortified and protected.
Today, you’re promoted as a Commander of a team of the Allied Command, and at the start, you need to protect the city called ‘Kimberley’. Your four subordinates all have quite colorful personalities, which can be experienced during the story sequences. Progressing the game, you’ll also get the possibility to defend other cities as well.
Although the game revolves around the tower defence part, the story is quite important too. Yes, the characters have different characteristics, but the conversations are mostly similar as it ends in some of the girls quarrelling or talking about the non-existing love life of one of your crew members. If you’re looking for something with some depth, you won’t find it here.
Graphics
Aegis of Earth: Protonovus Assault combines two different styles of graphics, depending on the aspect of the game you’re doing. The story part is done in a comical 2D style, where the characters are all flat images. Their appearance changes depending on their emotions, so you’ll get a bit more depth then. Each character has its own particular characteristics that match their personalities, which makes it more amusing.
The other style can be found when you’re developing town and fighting off enemies. Kimberely’s overview is done in a 3D overview, where you can rotate and zoom all you want. Both the surroundings as the weaponry feel quite simplistic and in combination with the 2D graphics, it feels like this game isn’t really meant for the PS4.
Sound
What you can expect in this game, is some nice beats that will spike your energy level when you need it the most. During the development phase, the music settles down as you need to focus on building new defences or weapons. There are some sound effects here and there as well, although they don’t really seem to stand out as you’ll probably are focussing more on killing the bloody leeches. For instance, the missiles have their all-known sound while the recreation park emits some laughter and cheering.
During story moments, the characters are being filly voice acted while at other times, some standard lines are being repeated. Although it is great that there are some parts that are completely voiced, this is being dragged down by the rest of the times. You’ll hear certain short vowels or sentences over and over, which makes it kind of dull after a while.
Gameplay
Aegis of Earth: Protonovus Assault is a tower defence game where you’re one of the commanders of the Allied Command. This organization wants to protect mankind and you’re in charge of leading a squad to keep cities safe. For instance, Kimberley is built around the Command Center, where a giant crane can be replaced by a fighting command post. There are four rings around this center and each ring is divided in an amount of squares where both offensive, defensive as residential buildings need to be placed. The outer ring is only for defensive purposes, while the inner three are used for the other two possibilities. During the fighting sequence, these rings can be moved, as the enemies can attack the city in 360°. You can see where the enemy will emerge thanks to the flashing ‘emergency’ label.
Aegis of Earth has two major stages when you’re defending your city. First of all, there is the planning phase. Here you can do certain things, like building new elements or fortifying some of your constructions. Also, you can choose to move everything around to your liking. If everything is set, you can start the strike phase, where you go head on with a pack of enemies. Waves of bad guys will try and attack your city and you need to rotate the rings to the appropriate spot to give them an ass-whooping. It could be that they’re attacking in three different angles, which means you need to be quick enough to shift your weaponry and find the right strategy for that moment.
Of course, coordinating such an intensive attack can only succeed with good subordinates. At the beginning, you start with four people that lend their strengths during battle. For instance, they might trigger their special ability, depending on their focus. It would have been nice if there was a way to activate this manually. Even more, when you have six people that are helping you, it is hard to see who has activated his or her ability and which effect it has. This is mentioned while you’re fighting off the baddies, but it isn’t that clear as you’re focussing on changing the rings.
After a strike you get some sweet loot, depending on the amount of enemies you killed and their level. For instance, you’ll also find certain Altenite crystals. These can be used to make pure Altenite and both of these types of gems can be used to improve and buy new buildings. These crystals are also used to fortify some of the constructions or to hold events which raises the happiness of the town for instance. The happier your residents are, the more will join this safehaven. Increased citizens also means that there are more earnings for you, which makes it easier to improve the town. Another element that is available after a strike is that you can distribute a bonus to one of your subordinates. This will restore a part of their energy level and gives an experience boost. It is a good idea to take a look at everyone’s energy before deciding whom to choose. One last thing is the happiness of the townies. This is determined by the amount of taken damage, if there were any events and so on.
If you want to advance in the game, you’ll need to clear some objectives. When you do these is up to you, although it might be hard to find out what you need to do when you’re playing for a while. It seems that an overview of the objectives can only been seen when you start the game as you get information regarding the chapter you’re in and some intel about the city.
One of the most important section of the game is the R&D department. Here is where new additions to your weaponry and such is researched and developed. Before you can actually investigate several things, you’ll need some cash and/or Altenite so keep some in your pocket. One of the biggest interesting things that is automatically researched is the ‘merging’. This important technique makes it possible to fuse buildings of the same type, when align two or three of them on the same row. This means that they will have a bigger range and do more damage, which can be a lifesaver in certain battles.
Overall, the missions go quite fast and although this might seem ok, it is also a way for the game to get repetitive quite fast as there isn’t that much variation. There are only two different stages and the only thing you can do is turn the rings when you’re fighting or gather money and build/fortify buildings.
Conclusion
Tower defence games mostly revolve around placing your resources on the correct spot, but Aegis of Earth: Protonovus Assault tries to use some different tactics. Shifting the rings and the merging buildings is something refreshing but the repetitive part, simplistic graphics and quite disappointing storyline neutralizes this effort. If you’re looking for a fast tower defence game and you don’t mind some of the flaws, you might consider this title.
Aegis of Earth: Protonovus Assault - Review,
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