Jelly Defense’ Review – Clean And Polished, But Is Really Difficult

‘Jelly Defense’ Review – Clean And Polished, But Is Really Difficult
In a black and white world, the only colors are you, your crystals, and your enemies.

In a black and white world, the only colors are you, your crystals, and your enemies. Obviously, most creatures aren’t exactly possessions you want to risk a lot for, so your enemies will want your precious gems. Your job is to stop those treacherous creatures and enemies from stealing the crystals, while commanding where your support “towers” go.   In this modern styled, classic tower defense game, you have three available towers and your have to save Diploglobe and the Jelly Nation from doom. There’s an obvious abundance of tower defense games, including both high and low quality games. I’ll get into this stylish tower defense, breaking down each aspect one at a time.

Immediately after starting the game, I took note of the cartoonish style of the game, rather than other tower defense games where they feature “realistic/futuristic” enemies and towers. As I watched their intro animation and cut scenes, I was impressed with the smoothness of the game. The animations were sharp and polished, which was a bonus. The level selector/menu was a nice 3-D (Google Earth-like) globe, where you can easily select the level, or you can browse through the Jelly’s “Earth”. I can certainly conclude that the user interface was quite clean and minimalistic, but at the same time,  very detailed and impressive.

The gameplay following, was the only issue I had with the game itself. The most important aspect of almost any game is how well the game plays or how much fun/entertainment you can get out of it. Before I actually say some of the issues I had, this game is absolutely not for perfectionists.  If you’re any bit similar to me, I almost always have to complete a tower defense game with all my lives. This game just won’t let you, no matter how many times you try. The game is hard and frustrating when you try to keep all your 10 initial gems. In fact, after the first few levels, the game just loves to get you angry and mad, just like a troll. I am a self-proclaimed iOS gamer, and I’ve played probably over 20 tower defenses, and have gotten through quite difficult levels. This game is much more challenging than any of those other games.

There are three towers for you to choose from, a typical rapid-fire, but weak tower (red/blue), an explosive cannon tower (red), and a minigun tower (blue). The color corresponds to what enemy the tower can fire at, if it isn’t the correct enemy, the Jelly Tower will take a nap (won’t fire). Red enemies are known to be fast and bunch up in groups, and the blue enemies are distinguished to take more damage and are a little slower. The trouble with the towers are that they don’t have enough range, leaving enemies to get by extremely easily. All towers are able to have basic upgrades, increasing damage and range, while also changing appearance.

The game is addicting and has a decently long campaign. The replay value is decent, however it probably won’t be as much, unless you’re a tower defense perfectionist. The sound effects are materialistic as well, but sometimes get annoying, because they often repeat a certain SFX for many things.  The game is fun for a while, but depending on your patience, you will probably get as flustered as I did. Jelly Defense a good tower defense game, and really polished, but needs levels based on difficulty.

For more information on Jelly Defense visit their official website. The iOS version can be found at the App Store, universal for the iPhone and iPad for $0.99.

[review pros= “Great graphics, really polished and awesome animations” Cons= “Too hard, needs option to replay a single wave and needs more towers” score=80]