Aegis of Earth: Protonovus Assault (PlayStation 3) Review

Aegis of Earth: Protonovus Assault, henceforth just Aegis of Earth, is a fairly traditional tower defence game, with one major difference. The area the player must defend is a series of circles, each one able to be moved independently. While the wave unfolds, the player must move each circle to ensure that the city's defences are aimed at the onslaught approaching. These towers are set up in between battles, spending money earned from battle to upgrade them.

It's all fairly standard, aside from the rotation aspect, and unfortunately, nothing else sets the game apart from other traditional tower defence titles. The gameplay is somewhat difficult to control, as both moving the circles and switching between them are handled by the left analogue stick. Sometimes, when trying to aim a series of towers towards a new bad guy approaching in the distance, it's all too easy to switch circles altogether.

The city itself, during the planning stage, is filled with a few variations of the same kind of defences, all of which perform as well as the player is willing to invest in them. Typically, this equates to upgraded weapons, a generator that powers the towers, or residences. The generator and residence definitely add a layer to the gameplay. The generator ensures all weapons continue working optimally, and the residences allow new people to move into your city. More residence means that after every battle, those residences' happiness is gauged, depending on the damage done to the city. The happier they are, the more money you get, and the more new weapons you can build.

This is all overshadowed by a complex system that doesn't really go anywhere. It's hard to be certain what the team you've assembled for each battle is there to do, aside from one team member who yells what stage of the battle you're in. This is a bit problematic, because the screen is never too busy to distract from the progress meter, at least not in the beginning. This might seem minor, but it contributes to Aegis of Earth's biggest problem: it never lets you figure out anything by yourself.

Tutorials are nice, but there comes a point where they feel like reading a textbook. The first 15 minutes of Aegis of Earth are filled to the brim with moments best summarised as "Character Intros" and explanations for why these cities need defending. This doesn't mean there's a story, because there most certainly isn't. This just means the game spends its first quarter of an hour introducing the player to stereotypes of anime. After all of this, during the first few battles, the game continues to lay on tutorial after tutorial. The first time you get to experience a battle without a tutorial, it can seem a bit jarring, and that's never the sign of a game that wants you to experience what it has hidden. It's much more the sign of a game that feels like it's too complex to be understood, and that's unfair.

Beyond all of this, Aegis of Earth seems to fall complacently into the "slow and cumbersome" category of tower defence titles. It's not bad, just incredibly dull. Every battle is a race to the results screen, as enemies are slow and rarely sneak up on the player. It's frustrating, as the base idea of forcing the player to stand with their decisions and ensure battle plays out as they envisioned is lost to a lot of poor design choices and handholding.