Guards!

If you’re looking for something to play in short bursts and like your board games, then Guards is well worth venturing into the fantasy realm for. It could use a little more depth to its mechanics but at such a modest price point it’s hard not to recommend this simple turn-based adventure. It got its hooks into me and I have to say I very much enjoyed coming back to this again and again.

Guards is a game that approached turn-based strategies in the simplest way possible, while still adding a twist to it – and the game succeeds at that – but there’s a glaring lack of an interesting story and cumbersome grind that the player has to endure.

Guards is an okay game to sink some free time into that can bring a modest amount of fun, but its downfall is its restricted gameplay that could have been developed that bit more to flesh it out.

[Guards is] by no means the most in-depth or complex strategy title you’ll be able to scrounge up, but I was pleasantly surprised by the level of challenge the game manages

An accessible game to those unfamiliar with tactical RPGs, Guards has enough to satisfy newcomers, but its reliance on grinding as well as its limited gameplay system might persuade veterans to look for something deeper.

A good centre, but the rest of it makes it not worthwhile.

Ultimately, Guards embraces a design so simplistic that it feels as though it’s falling short of itself. The gameplay can be fun and challenging, but it also falls into a rut pretty quickly.