Aegis Defenders

I briefly tried Aegis Defenders. It describes itself as an action-platformer with tower defense combat, but in reality, it's just a side-view action tower defense game. Calling it a platformer would be doing any decent platformers a disservice.
Generally the game centers around defending a... thing from enemies that swarm you from the edges of the map. Standard tower defense stuff. The catch is that you actually control a group of characters, each of whom has their own towers or tower-like things. Run around, whack resources to gather them and then... build with them. Standard stuff, I said. Different characters also have different attacks and you can only control one at a time. Not controlling a character leaves them to do their default thing, such as repairing turrets, standing still where they were. Different characters (and their buildings) are also effective against different enemies, and there's some shop system between levels.

While the characters and platforming were probably supposed to make it unique, I actually disliked the game more than a run-on-the-mill tower defense. This kind of switching characters, fighting on my own, gathering resources... it detracted from the main experience, which was supposed to be a tower defense. Another game falling for the common blunder of trying to do too many things without even getting one of them right. Even if it was just the tower defense bit, it still wasn't very inspired or interesting.
The only moderate saving grace might have been the split-screen co-op, but I didn't have anyone to play with at the moment. More players means less time managing characters, more playing, and of course the standard "everything's better with a friend", but even then I have my doubts it would have had enough of an impact on this game. It just wasn't that good.

In brief: A rather boring tower defense further hindered by other, even less interesting, aspects of gameplay. If you got a friend in the same room to play with, then maybe it's enjoyable for a few hours, but I wouldn't recommend it alone.

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