Lock’s Quest began life as a brilliant Nintendo DS tower defence game that gave life to an otherwise dull genre. It’s been almost nine years since then though and the industry has changed a lot. The 2017 remastery has not found its way onto 3DS or Vita but rather it’s been given a full-scale Xbox One release. A brave choice as this requires a lot of work to scale a game up appropriately from a 32-bit handheld to a 1080p home console.
Let me be frank when saying this is a pretty poor remastery. It’s one thing to just create the same game as you did nine years ago but it’s something else to make one slightly worse. The original used the DS’s innovative stylus controls for placing turrets and defensive walls. Needless to say that’s not an option so they choose to swap this out with standard analog movement. The problem? It feels awful to control. It’s an extremely cumbersome system which makes the experience of building your defences up, the fundamental aspect of literally any tower defence game, not enjoyable. This really isn’t helped by the fact that the camera cannot be rotated at all. Perhaps this is more forgivable on a DS game due to the limited control options but an Xbox One title? No. Even the original Sims had rotating cameras and that’s 17 years old!
To the game’s credit the actual gameplay outside of building is relatively faithful to the original. There’s still a focus on balancing the punching Lock himself does versus how you choose to use your turrets. Obviously, the whole placement on turrets and prioritising of certain enemies is very much still relevant too. Likely due to the fact they’ve not changed all that much, the balancing and difficulty curve is as fair and well developed as ever. When a new enemy appears, the game tells you what said enemy can do. When you get a new turret, it tells you what that turret does. Nothing special but these are core explanations which are necessary to give the player information. Using this information you will always have a fair shot at any level first time around without the need for tiresome trial and error. Lock’s Quest encourages a level of strategy in your turret placement which should keep you engaged for a while. Slight warning though, it can become very repetitive in longer sits as there’s little in situation variety.
The one thing I can praise without doubt is its visuals. Lock’s Quest may use the same pixel art we’ve seen a million times but that doesn’t make it any less appealing to look at. The game also fixes a big problem the original had in regard to visibility. Due to the DS’s limitations not much of a level was displayed at once. This made it hard to keep track of enemies and where they were coming from. The Xbox One port does not suffer from this issue. The camera’s field of vision is now several times larger, often allowing you to see most of the level on a single screen.
Defense Mode is a brand-new addition to the series and arguably the only actual new feature worth discussing. Defense Mode is basically just an old school horde mode where wave after wave of enemies come and it’s your goal to get as far as possible. A simple enough concept and honestly probably my favourite part of the game. There’s nothing wrong with the story and I’m sure many will enjoy it for what it is. However, it’s not what I’m looking for in a tower defense title. I’m here to get stuck in and enjoy some fluent mechanics and strategising. Defense Mode allows for this far more than the main story as there are no interruptions, just pure gameplay.
Lock’s Quest 2017 has a lot of missed potential. Bluntly put, it just feels like a DS game with nicer graphics. I’m sorry but that’s not enough when you’re charging £15.99 and $19.99 respectively. Just off of my head right now I can name a feature that would improve the game. Some form of research lab that allows for you to unlock new turrets and defenses that are otherwise not present in the main quest. How about giving Lock a weapon store in which you can purchase different blades, spears, guns etc. which all work differently depending on the opponent faced. If you know an upcoming level is going to have a lot of Brute units then you would set up for that, adding a new layer of strategy entirely. Alas, this is nothing more than me wishing for something that just isn’t there. Instead what we really have is a game where you clunkily place turrets down and hit enemies with a fairly boring ‘press the button when it tells you to’ combat system coupled along. There’s a few nice additions but nowhere near enough to justify that fairly hefty price tag all things considered. There might be value for huge fans of the original and those that are just particularly interested in an Xbox One tower defence but that’s it. Even then I’d point you to Defense Grid 2 before considering picking this up.
Summary
Without rather some serious improvements or a sale that brings it down to a more reasonable price, Lock’s Quest is probably not worth your time or money. The developers needed to do more when bringing it over to Xbox One.
Kurt contributed 8 articles to ICXM in 2017, covering game reviews, and Xbox news with a focus on hands-on impressions and verified-source reporting. Their bylines on the site span the Xbox One X launch year and Microsoft’s wider Play Anywhere / UWP gaming initiative. They post on X as @kurtjp35.