JUSTICE LEAGUE : Earth's Final Defense Review
PROS
- Unique skills to unlock for each character; gives them an individual feel and makes you want to try them all out.
- Relatively familiar KRPG action controls; press all the buttons for victory.
CONS
- Experience only applies to current hero; difficulty scaling encourages replay of previous levels - grind, grind, grind, grind, grind...
- 'Credits' required to unlock additional characters and upgrade side-kicks; low credits earned per level encourage IAP-to-play.
- Occasionally broken and unresponsive controls; point in a direction and attack... watch as your hero goes somewhere else entirely.
VERDICT
Buried underneath the layers of poor progression and an insistent focus on repetitive grinding lies a game that beats with the action-packed heart of the Justice League, however being Earth's Final Defense may not be an option when you're given boring combat that you'll likely need to repeat over and over.
- Full Review
- App Store Info
[This review was featured as the Mini-review for the Friday News Wrap-Up for the 3rd of August, 2012]
If you told me I could pick up a game on the App Store that not only allowed me to play as Batman and Superman, but also involved a chunk of the Justice League and their quirky rogues gallery... then I'd say shut up and take my money. However, pause for a moment before heading the App Store and grabbing JUSTICE LEAGUE : Earth's Final Defense.
The licensed beat'em-up takes its cues from old-school titles, placing you against ever increasing odds so you can unleash your super-hero's repertoir of powers with abandon. Unfortunately the game suffers for its pairing with KRPG like mechanics to 'level up' your character, doling out pitiful rewards for progress while placing high prices on not only unlocking the rest of the heroes that are available, but also to level up the 'companions' that unlock for each hero.
Experience is limited to individual heroes, meaning you'll need to grind the same levels multiple times if you decide to play around with someone else.
It's hard not to feel as though your time is being wasted - especially when boss battles feel more like a slow, monotonous dance of chipping away at their health than an epic battle; the one payoff of levelling up should be glorious fights, but 'immune' enemies can block attacks and harsh penalties are exacted for not grinding endlessly for a perfect score.
The cherry on the cake is that those of you who have jailbroken your iDevices will be unable to play the game as it kills the game on loading. If Justice League presented even a glimmer of a game worthy of its title, we'd let at least some of the rest of its irksome features slide (from the poor controls to the stiff model animations), but as it is all you can expect is a time waster that constantly asks you to pour in more time with little reward for doing so.
Screenshots
$0.99
