Crystal Defenders (iPad)

Transparent and hard sums up Crystal Defenders nicely.

It's clear that it's nothing more than an up-scaled port of the iPhone and iPod touch original, carrying no discernible improvements to justify putting up with its excessively difficult gameplay.

In fact, there's even less of a reason to play it on iPad as a result of the dull graphics. The concept is a good one, but the execution leaves much to be desired.

Crystal Defenders takes the tower defence mould and fills it with character classes, summon creatures, and enemies from the Final Fantasy universe. Soldiers swiping at Tonberries, black mages casting spells against Marlboros, and waves of gelatinous Flans slowed by magic issued from a time mage - it ought to be a pleasantly familiar mix of wave-based tactical gameplay and cute characters.

But the ridiculous level of difficulty spoils the charm. This is a game that gets the structure right - great variety in enemies, a nice mix of units, appropriate length for levels, straightforward controls - but the level design is so unforgiving that it's unplayable.

There's absolutely no room for error. Most levels end in failure because a wave of overpowered enemies trundles through carefully crafted defences with alarming ease.

You can spend hours figuring out how to pass the 20th wave in a given level only to watch the 21st or 22nd wave invalidate your strategy. While all tower defence games possess an element of trial-and-error, Crystal Defenders takes it too far.

Given the poor graphics, you can't even use the excuse of pretty visuals to motivate play. The graphics have been up-scaled without improvement, meaning units are pixelated and slightly blurry.

From a company that has built a reputation on stunningly beautiful games, this iPad version of Crystal Defenders is a disappointment.