Ranking Every Final Fantasy Spin-Off Game

The tower defence genre has always been a very popular one, having paved the way for the massive online battle arena (MOBA) games that dominate e-sports and have remained popular in their most primitive form amongst casual gamers on mobile phones.

Square Enix featured a basic tower defence scenario in Final Fantasy VI before including the optional Fort Condor minigame in Final Fantasy VII, but only once have they ever released a standalone game – Crystal Defenders, which began life on Android and iOS before being upscaled for the PS3, Wii and Xbox 360.

Initially, the game was a fun experience as a result of it making use of classic Final Fantasy jobs as the unit types and monsters as the mobs. The novelty soon wore off as the lack of strategic depth became apparent, with every level winnable by following the same basic strategy and ignoring more complex gameplay elements such as summons given the punishment imposed upon their use.

There’s certainly scope to do tower defence justice as a minigame in a future title (Fort Condor in VII Remake Part II seems likely), but a standalone game like Crystal Defenders priced at £7.99 was a very cheap cash in on Square-Enix’s part, particularly given that they appropriated all of the graphics and music directly from Final Fantasy Tactics A2. It somehow spawned a mobile sequel, Vanguard Storm, but that never made the jump to consoles and has long since drifted into obscurity