Weirdly enough, it feels like just a few weeks ago that I was pointing out one of the perils of making an indie game in the style of a highly-successful and distinctive well-known title. When you’re talking in more general genre terms like platformers and shooters, nobody will necessarily assume you’re targeting a specific title, you’re just trying to make something in a well-known generalized style. But when you target a style of play that’s much more distinctive, there’s no mistaking where the inspiration is coming from. The thing is, as long as you have some ideas of your own and execute them well there can easily be room for more success. As we’ve seen with many variations on Vampire Survivors, quite a few of them have been thoroughly playable. But when you limp into the eShop with a game that’s lackluster at best you’re going to get called out on it.

With Defending Camelot, the targeted high-profile classic happens to be Plants Vs. Zombies, which even had an excellent release on the Switch late last year. Having received more than enough accolades since it originally came out many years ago, it’s worth noting that its design feels no less smart and enjoyable now, so a developer with some ambition and skill could absolutely get some traction in the eShop with some variation on that formula. For those who somehow aren’t aware, the game is essentially a lane-based tower defense game, with you needing to use a wide variety of flora to stop zombies of all shapes and sizes. The challenge is collecting the resources you’ll need to buy new units while being sure to stop, or at least temporarily slow down, incoming enemies. Given that the fundamentals of the formula are pretty basic, what really made the experience pop was the personality behind it, featuring all manner of silly-looking enemies along with some great animations.

Unfortunately, Defending Camelot comes up quite short of that mark in multiple areas, though I’d say the biggest problem starts with the game’s pacing. It’s slow… and I mean really freaking slow, and you seem to have no means of speeding things up. With pretty much every tower defense game out there, this is a critical tool in helping the experience feel less excruciating, especially once you’ve set up your critical defenses and are simply waiting for everything to play out. Another issue is that visually it’s quite underwhelming, feeling more than a generation old, with what just feels like a very blurry quality to its overall appearance. Finally, there just isn’t much here of substance to really dig into, let alone try to enjoy. If you’ve played pretty well any other variation on this formula you’ve likely played a better version, as this just plods slowly forward in an almost zombie-like shamble, and has pretty well no original or redeeming qualities that make it worth a look even for fans of this style of play.