Legion of Heroes

Finding a great MMO game on mobile can be difficult. There isn’t exactly a shortage of MMO type games for Android, but you’d be hard pressed to find a great MMO title, one that really brings in some amazing gameplay. Up until now one of the best ones was arguably Order and Chaos Online from Gameloft, but even then it’s just a really close mobile copy of World of Warcraft. It’s a good game, but if I wanted to play to World of Warcraft I would just play World of Warcraft. Darkness Reborn from Gamevil will be a nice break away from the norm once it’s released in November, but until then what’s an MMO lover to do if they want some MMO action while on the go?

Enter Legion of Heroes, the recently released MMORPG from NEXON M Inc. The best thing about Legion of Heroes is it’s unique and fresh take on the MMO genre. The important elements are there. You have PvP battles, questing, leveling up with XP and there is tons of gear and upgrades to be had. Where it really stands out is its fresh take on the combat system. When you enter into a battle, combat is handled in a turn based strategy/tactical RPG like feel, also similar to the way JRPG’s offer up combat with a player turn and enemy turn. Instead of like the traditional MMO where combat movement is free, players and enemies are placed on a grid and attacks or defenses are executed in turns. It’s different, fun, and overall it brings something new to the world of the MMO.

Legion of Heroes as I stated above also features PvP battles, which can be as massive as putting 45 players from each opposing side up against each other. There is a huge epic fantasy world to explore, with familiar movement controls using a virtual D-Pad like you might find in other MMO games, or you can move by tapping on the screen in the direction you want to go. You can also collect heroes to aid you in your fight, which can be picked up by hiring them using hire tickets that are acquired in game from quest rewards, drops etc. Of course there’s also Dungeons, something no MMO should be without, and you can even form or join guilds for taking on higher difficulty challenges. For those who enjoy it, there’s Google Play Games services tied to the game too. There are four different character classes to choose from at this point in the game when you begin, with a warrior, a mage, a gladiator, and an archer/hunter type class. The game even has a certain level of immersive engagement and production value with epic music and what so far appears to be a pretty in depth story line, which really kind of elevates the game quite a bit. Legion of Heroes is free to play, and if you’re looking to give the game a try you can pick up the download from the Play Store link here.

Divine Might – 3D

Kabam recently made a new hire looking to add more console quality gaming experiences to its portfolio. It’s unfortunate that didn’t happen before the release of Divine Might, a fantasy dungeon crawler that is ambitious in scope and looks pretty enough but asks so little of its players it could almost be played without paying attention to it at all.

While there’s nothing wrong with a dungeon crawler being mostly a statistical exercise, the problem is that in Divine Might, that’s essentially all it is. You pick a character from one of four classes and set him or her on the path to saving the land of Laia after its near brush with a giant skeleton being that required the combined forces of several deities to defeat. But like Arnold, he promised he’d be back.

The story is actually the best part of the game, as you’ll encounter all kinds of interesting characters as both NPCs and companions, though the latter conveniently always have to be somewhere else when the fighting starts. The graphics are also impressive, save for some occasionally wonky collision detection. This game never met an unintentionally half-buried treasure chest it didn’t like.

There’s also no lack of things to do, even if some time spent playing the game is required to unlock most of them. Along with the main story quests, there are side missions aplenty, gear to craft, an arena to do battle against other players, pets to collect and train and a host of ways to improve your character. You’ll also be able to join guilds and enter dungeons once you attain a certain level.

You know what we haven’t talked about to this point, though? The combat, because as silly as it sounds in a dungeon crawler, there really isn’t any. Within each mission, you simply tap to move along a predetermined path until you run into enemies, at which point all the fighting plays out automatically. If your character and pet are powerful enough to win, they do, and if they’re not, you lose. Once you learn some skills, there’s the thought that those might require you to tap the screen to activate or something, but it’s false hope.

Even in the arena, it’s much the same way. It’s like if you distilled the dungeon crawler  experience to a spreadsheet, except with pretty 3D visuals to set the proper fantasy tone. The one good part of the gameplay being on autopilot is the button you can hold down to run directly to the next quest or NPC you need to visit, though frankly there’s very little chance you’d get lost anyway.

Divine Might is ostensibly part MMO, since there are shared common spaces and dungeons, but the lack of character customization options makes Laia a land full of clones. Players do change visually as they grow in power and attain new weapons and armor, but they all start out looking the same, and there’s not enough variety to make thins interesting at any particular point. If you’ve seen one Level 25 archer, you almost literally have seen them all.

If you enjoy the number crunching and min/max aspects of dungeon crawlers, this game is for you. Or if you ever played Diablo and thought that you’d enjoy it a lot more if it only you didn’t have to be bothered to actually push any buttons, this is probably exactly the experience you seek. Everyone else is going to wonder why there isn’t more game in the gameplay, and no amount of cute story or eye-catching graphics will be enough to make this any more interesting. Sorry about that.

Soul Taker-Face of Fatal Blow

Android is filled to the brim with games, but let’s be honest, not all of them can be flaunted around for “best in show”. At least, depending on your actual preference for graphics. There are definitely a few that are designed to put your phones or tablets to the test. Soul Taker tries to be one of them, offering players with beautifully rendered 3D graphics and over the top effects to fill up phone’s screen. And it’s an MMORPG to boot.

Like many RPGs these days, especially online ones, you will be met with your staple “go for this, kill this” tropes, and Soul Taker isn’t exactly diverging from that tradition. Depending on your patience, you might actually see all the 500 monsters and 1,000 items that developer AndromedaGames is bragging about. One thing that sets this game apart is a Pokemon-like mechanic, where, instead of totally vanquishing opponent, you get to turn them into your minions and faithful companion, by absorbing their souls no less, no matter how twisted the concept may sound.

This game is definitely one of the prettier ones in the market. That is, if over the top visuals typical of modern JRPGs are you cup of tea. What mobile RPG these days doesn’t have some sort of card system, and Soul Taker is no different. Character customization comes through classes, only two of which are currently available, the Knight and the Assassin, and skill trees. And being an online game, you can test your builds by dishing it out with other gamers worldwide in PvP.

Soul Taker-Face of Fatal Blow is available for free on Google Play Store but has in-game purchases, which isn’t exactly surprising, especially for an MMO. Price ranges from $0.99 to as much as $90, however, so do be careful when making those acquisitions. The developer notes that some items might be eligible for a refund, but better to not reach that point in the first place.

Soul Guardians: Age of Midgard

The barrier of entry and the required commitment involved to play it can make or break an MMO experience. Thankfully, Soul Guardians: Age of Midgard makes it surprisingly easy. New adventurers will be introduced to a bustling hub town where they can toil over a myriad of pursuits in order to be the Soul-iest Soul Guardian there is - and considering that it’s conducted all in 2D, navigating between tasks and ventures helps establish a seamless sense of direction.

Aside from the world map, the town also houses other landmarks integral to the gameplay. From the left, there’s the in-game store, a mission task master who assigns appropriate conditions and side-quest modifiers, a card workshop for building and enhancement (more on that later), and finally there’s the PvP arena where players can duke it out with all of they’ve got. The roles of each of these facets offer a slew of depth and palate cleansers to character growth that in-turn vindicate the insanely simple but adequately engaging fighting system that hinges on a single gimmick: cards.

Players will encounter several cards through various means like monster drops or hidden cache locations, and like your prototypical trading-card game, the variety of ranks and associated rarities to the stronger cards drive the main incentive to constant grind as you customize and experiment with every new card. Working with five slots at first before earning more, players can arrange and assign hundreds of different cards that jive better with specific classes over others, which can also be unlocked with in-game currency. Aside from the card combo attack, battling consists of standard attacks and class-specific abilities with their own respective cooldowns, offering a plethora of strategy that caters a wide range of play-styles.

Soul Guardians is fundamentally enjoyable and has plenty of potential, but it’s somewhat squandered through inconsistent pacing that cranks the introductory levels of the game from a 4 to an 11 by the time you reach the second collection of dungeons. The hike in challenge isn’t totally geared towards bullying players to reach for their credit card spending comfort of stat boosts or perks, though. Players can grind and naturally grow their characters to be able to challenge the increased adversity - it just takes a very long time to do. Recycling the same level runs and loot raids on beaten levels will become a mundane chore before you’re even half as strong as you need to be for the second world, and the same trend ensues on the next world after that.

For a free MMO with an impressively sized player base, you can’t go to wrong with Soul Guardians: Age of Midgard. Just make sure you have the time and money for it if you plan on staying for the long haul.