# Defense Derby — user reviews > 74 indexed App Store user reviews of Defense Derby by KRAFTON Inc, rated 4.71/5 from 725 ratings. - Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/defense-derby/id6444201027/reviews - App overview in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/defense-derby/id6444201027.md - Rating breakdown: 5★ 628 · 4★ 47 · 3★ 16 · 2★ 7 · 1★ 27 ## What do users think of Defense Derby? Overall sentiment: negative **Pros** - 🚀 Fun and unique gameplay - 👍 Addictive and engaging - 💡 Interesting tower defense concept - 🚀 Polished and well-designed **Cons** - 🐛 Frequent crashes and freezes - 🔋 Significant lag and performance issues - 💰 Overly aggressive monetization and pay-to-win model - 🐛 Bugs and glitches after updates **Commonly reported bugs** - Stuck on loading screen after updates - Lost progress and account issues after updates - Inability to log in or access the game - Gameplay freezes and input lag **Most requested features** - More events and content updates - Improved server stability and reduced lag - Ability to skip tutorial after updates - Better progression system and less reliance on RNG ## Newest reviews (16 of 74) ### 3/5 — good game but read this before u buy it *2024-02-22, version 1.803.02* so there’s 3 reasons why I rated this 3 stars, 1 is that every event there’s a limited castle right? well if u want that castle u gotta pay 20$ for it, now for the devs I have 2 options u guys could do for this reason, u can make it 5 dollars or something like that, or pay 800/1000 gems for it, I would be happy for any of them, but not all of us are incredibly wealthy, 2, the game needs a chat, now I understand why we have to use emojis it’s bc we try to keep kids safe, tho it would be better communication if we had chatting, then I could play with my friends everyday without them having to be right next to me, 3, avatar creator, where we can make our own avatars and maybe get our own powers, like a power shop in the shop menu, every power would cost a certain amount of gems, and I already have a idea for a power: the slicer, kills every enemy that’s shown, but u gotta wait 6 rounds until u do it again, so that’s basically all my ideas and stuff like that, it’s Alr if avatar creator isn’t added tho lower prices ARE DEFINITELY a need, I don’t wanna become even more poor;) ### 3/5 — Lag 'til you lose *2024-01-08, version 1.705.02* I've been playing this game for probably about six months and loving it, but lately the lag has gotten well beyond unacceptable. This is the only app on my phone that lags, so it's not an issue on my end. This game involves very active play: you need to strategically place and move your units around the board over the course of each round. As far as the moving part goes, time is of the essence; you need to act quickly and your units need to move exactly where you want them to, exactly when you want them to. This was quite possible for some time, but over the past few weeks or couple of months the game has begun to lag so badly that this strategic placement and replacement of units is impossible to do. I put my finger on a unit and drag my finger to where I want the unit to go, only to find that my finger never picked up the unit and it's still standing where it was before I attempted the move operation. Now precious seconds have been lost to lag and if I'm going to get out of the round without damage to my castle, I now need to move twice as fast, which I can do – but the game is even less capable of keeping up with such fast movement than it is with the original movement that it failed to keep up with in the first place. One reviewer called this "strategic lag" and if that's what it is, I'll be sorely disappointed in the developers. I'm still enjoying the game as of this writing, and I hope I'll be able to continue to do so, but this lag issue is wearing heavily on my patience. I have some very powerful units and I enjoy the game's challenge and would hate to delete it because it's become unplayable, but unless this lag gets addressed somehow, that's what I foresee happening. ### 3/5 — Strengths and weaknesses *2023-12-25, version 1.705.02* The mechanics are a unique take on the standard idle style, with PvP defense tower game with bidding making this an interesting take, and fun to play - until it pauses, freezes or outright crashes. Not sure if their backend servers are over capacity but the experience is routinely marred by these issues. ### 3/5 — Update Woes *2023-11-22* Each time the game is updated you must repeat the tutorial before being able to log in. Please put log in in front of the tutorial so I can save 20minutes of my life each update. ### 2/5 — Game won’t load *2023-11-22, version 1.604.02* I had been playing this for a while and had made some decent progress in the game but since the update they did on 21/11/23 the game gets stuck on the loading screen. I hope you fix this ASAP as I don’t want to start again and lose the progress I have made. I was thoroughly enjoying the game before this and would have given it 4 or 5 stars. ### 2/5 — Poorly Balanced PvP in a PvP-heavy game *2023-11-22* My first impressions of the game were good. The concept is interesting, and the gameplay is fun. Having said that, the games balance is quite poor. As you progress in the game to higher ranks (I’m currently in Master rank as of this review), it has become obvious that there is a single deck which, if you’re not playing it, you’re losing to it. In a game with very little counter-play, you’re stuck playing the very specific meta deck. Your only chance at counter-play is the token bidding, but due to the way that the game only lets you bid on units from the leading player’s deck, and that the meta deck is going to be 2-3 of the other players, your odds of seeing anything outside of that deck to bid on are extremely low. This is a major issue that affects all of the games systems fairly deeply. This seems to have been an issue for some time now, and Krafton have already passed one balance patch without effectively addressing the issue and opening the gameplay to more diverse decks. Pass on this one. If this is the way a mobile game company with micro transactions and gacha elements chooses to balance a game, I can guarantee you’ll get burned by spending money here. ### 2/5 — Good gameplay, laggy server *2023-10-28, version 1.405.02* The game was good, very solid mechanics. But the server started lagging recently, extremely laggy, I had difficulties to even drop a card down or bet money. ### 2/5 — Absurd game pricing *2023-09-25, version 1.307.02* The IAPs are disgusting. Play this game if you want to be asked to spend $25-$50 every time you rank up. ### 3/5 — Stuck on loading game config *2023-09-24* Uninstalled and reinstalled, seems all progress was lost unfortunately. Game is fun otherwise, but that was the end for me ### 2/5 — New update broke game *2023-09-23, version 1.304.02* Stuck on loading game config. Reinstalled on iOS already. ### 4/5 — Good concept *2023-09-21, version 1.304.02* Game is quite good, but it drains the battery quite fast and makes the phone hotbafter playing for half an hour. Easy to understand instructions and good graphics ### 2/5 — Frustrating *2023-09-08, version 1.211.02* This is a good game however it keeps crashing and is very frustrating ### 4/5 — Could be the 1 game *2023-09-08* This game has potential to be bigger and better than all the leaders right now and I’d like to see it get there but there is something so off-putting about the progression system of units. When I started and they were all level 1, I regularly beat the first stage unscathed, now that the units are level 50 and legendary it’s still very possible to get hurt in stage 1. That doesn’t seem right. You can’t feel or see the difference in 50 levels and 4 stars. If progression gets you nothing, spending money will also get you nothing. ### 1/5 — Bad RNG and pay to win game *2023-09-08, version 1.211.02* I really liked this game when it was released, and spend hours everyday to play even there is no more missions to do. But after the update, the dev team got greedy. Cubic summons barely give you a 3s. I summoned 13000 cubics and got only four 3s, only spending money for gem summons would give you good units. And for the game, does not matter how smart you are or how many strategies you have, RNG always mess you up. For example, you play a magic team, they always give you physical units at the beginning, scouting, or guaranteed unit after boss wave. Therefore, after the second update, I have more reason to delete the game. Bye bye DD. You used to be a really fun game… ### 1/5 — Great concept combined with terrible p2w model *2023-09-05, version 1.207.02* Seriously don’t waste your time, less generous than clash royale ### 1/5 — WARNING: Cooldown on Reward Pass *2023-09-01* WARNING: Cooldown on Reward Pass… This is by far one of the worst things that you could have done. It annoys me to no end, waiting to see if you remove it. Limiting rewards on a game that’s already limited in events? Yes, overall game concept (can be) fun… but remove ability to get rewards/ limit your rewards… NOT cool. I don’t even care that I lost the ability to log into my old account (others had the same problem)… Shady though? Yes. Seems like you all were scrambling to slow down player progression… Understand something, when you’ve already limited in events/ player vs player in the game we can only do one thing… PROGRESS, and fast. ## Most critical reviews (10 lowest-rated) ### 1/5 — 垃圾 *2024-10-05, version 1.1307.02* 卡的一比 ### 1/5 — Latest Update Ruined The Game *2024-05-03, version 1.1105.02* They changed the daily activities to remove the currency to summon units and removed a feature used to level multiple units. They previously did this with artefacts but you had challenges to get these which are now removed also. You essentially need to pay money to progress now… Very disappointing as I was enjoying playing this game daily. ### 1/5 — hh *2024-01-14, version 1.705.02* not for cn play ### 1/5 — Every update messes up the installation *2023-11-21, version 1.604.02* Like many others I’m getting stuck loading game config on the loading screen following an update of the game or an update of iOS. The only way around this is to uninstall the game then reinstall it. Unfortunately this also means you are forced to go through the terminally long winded tutorial to get to the point where you can re link your account and recover your data. It’s a shame because I enjoy the game but this makes it unplayable. Developers … can e we AT LEAST have an option to skip the tutorial??? ### 1/5 — Urgent - lost progress *2023-11-08, version 1.507.02* I uninstalled the app due to unable to log in after the update yesterday ! And then I lost all my progress, can you urgently help me here ? ### 1/5 — Where’s my account *2023-11-07, version 1.507.02* Did the update and lost my account, thanks! Was building it up for a while now👎🤬👎 ### 1/5 — Mediocore game design, low bar operations *2023-11-07, version 1.507.02* Lack of depth, can be fun at first. Unfair gameplay. Pacific time 1AM or east coast 4AM, there is a free gem event daily that grants 500 gems, more than all other sources combined(monthly card, daily quests, maintenance rewards, etc) yet designed at the worst time possible for NA players. Amazing…. ### 1/5 — FIX YOUR GAME *2023-10-23, version 1.405.02* Won’t load for four days now ### 1/5 — Game crashes a lot *2023-10-19, version 1.405.02* Crashes on a regular basis and now stuck unable to load, what a waste of time. ### 1/5 — My old review removed, so here is a new one. *2023-09-25, version 1.307.02* Why remove reviews? Why? ## Most praised reviews (10 highest-rated) ### 5/5 — Amazing! *2024-05-09* The best tower defense with a fun twist! Can’t believe I’m just now finding it. Deserves way more downloads!! Beautifully made ### 5/5 — Kind of auto playing itself *2024-04-06* Don’t have my user name weak app but fun to play for passing time not a bunch of things to strive for just fun unlocking things lol ### 5/5 — Amazing! *2023-11-10* The best tower defense with a fun twist! Can’t believe I’m just now finding it. Deserves way more downloads ### 5/5 — . *2023-09-21, version 1.304.02* Wish they added more stuff for the guild and fixed it up so that people would have something to grind together for and also leaderboards of some kind would be good ### 5/5 — 游戏很好但是太卡顿了 *2023-08-31, version 1.207.02* 很棒的游戏，画面也很精致。但是网络太卡顿了，iPhone13Pro，还有好的网络，打开最低帧率，也会卡的像幻灯片。另外，按键触摸之后的反馈也很慢 ### 5/5 — One of the best defense games I’ve ever played *2023-08-26* Defense Derby really impressed me from day one and in my opinion this has to be one of the most well done defense style games I’ve ever played! From the exceptional anime inspired art, the deep levels of gameplay/strategy, and just the absolute fun play style, thus game delivers on all fronts. I am hooked and want to keep completing all the missions to build my team even stronger. This is fun to play with friends or even solo. Kudos to the team for providing an incredibly fun game that I’m so happy to have discovered! ### 5/5 — Very fun! *2023-08-23, version 1.111.02* Addicting ### 5/5 — Best tower defence *2023-08-21, version 1.111.02* Good tactic game. Best tower tactic defence game. I also like character design coz It remind me of Castle burn. I miss Castle burn which is best RTS game… ### 5/5 — DEFENSE DERBY *2023-08-19, version 1.111.02* DEFENSE DERBY Is AWESOME GAME And GAMEPLAY Is AWESOME And GRAPHICS Are Awesome And I GIVE It A Thumbs Up And I GIVE It Five Stars AWESOME Job APP Developers!!!!!!! ### 5/5 — If you like TD *2023-08-17* …this is a no brainer **Developer response:** [Defense Derby] Thank you for your feedback! We're glad you find Defense Derby fun to play. If you encounter any concerns, please report them through our in-game support option. Your input helps us enhance the gaming experience. --- *Data collected daily from the US App Store and indexed by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/). User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-06-10.*