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.

Pet Alliance

Despite the clamoring of its fans, Nintendo still hasn’t graced Android or iOS with a real Pokémon game. Let’s face it, fellow Pokénerds — it will probably never happen. That void causes tons of developers to take a shot at making their own twist on the series. Nobody’s ever come very close to capturing the entire magic of Pokémon, but some have captured portions of the formula with resounding success (Puzzle & Dragons comes to mind). Egame Company has recently released their take on monster collecting, Pet Alliance, for Android, iOS, and Facebook.

When you start your own adventure, you can name your character and select an avatar out of four male and four female options. There’s a bit of a narrative intro, but you’ll soon be in familiar territory selecting your starting monster. Will you choose the water crab, the grass onion (seriously), or the fire leopard/wolf thing? It doesn’t matter too much because you’ll be able to get the others pretty early in the game. Fortunately, Pet Alliance lets you name your monsters to, so Oniony and I set off on our adventures through Mololand. I was destined to become a master pet trainer.

Pet Alliance is guilty of my biggest pet peeve in the realm of free-to-play RPGs — you can’t actually do anything in combat. Instead, you’ll sit and watch your monster exchange hits with its opponent until one of them passes out. There’s no skill involved. In fact, there’s no luck involved either. Once you’ve defeated a monster, you can skip any future fights with the same type of monster, instantly claiming its experience and loot. Some of the depth of RPG combat is present: monsters level up and eventually evolve, monsters learn multiple skills that can be upgraded over time, and there’s a typing system that pulls all 11 of its types directly from the Pokémon series. A short ways into the game, battles will escalate to 3-on-3 matches. This is good so that your grass-type doesn’t lose every match against fire-types, but it makes the matches last longer when you have to wipe out all those extra enemy monsters. Picking the three monsters at the front of your party is probably the most important decision you’ll make. They’ll claim all the experience and they’ll do all the battling. You’ll want three of your strongest monsters that offer a wide type variety.

There’s no overworld to speak of. Instead, you’ll tap a map location to indicate where you want to go and then you’ll tap an icon for what you want to do there. You can participate in the ranked PvP arena, go shopping, hatch eggs, fuse monsters, or head out into the wild. In the wild, you pick a location and then one of its five monsters. Once you’ve wiped out each of these five monsters at least once, you can access the Heroic version of that area, populated with harder versions of those monsters. Defeat those and you can move on to the next area. Heroic monsters remain defeated once you best them, but the standard monsters can be fought over and over again. Thanks to your monsters healing between fights and the skip button, you can literally blow through a pile of monsters by tapping Skip, Again, Skip, Again, Skip, Again. It’s a great way to level up fast. By “great”, I mean efficient — not fun. Of course, each battle you engage in takes up one of your 15 AP, but it regenerates slowly over time.

There’s a story to follow, but the writing is weak. There were a few attempts at humor that just seemed like the writers were trying too hard. At one point, my character exclaimed “Pikachu!” from sheer excitement and then wondered aloud why he would say such a thing in the first place. It made me chuckle just a little, but only because it was so bad. The characters say some strange phrases which is certainly a problem that arose in translation. Still, I appreciated that Egame tried to have fun with it instead of making the story completely flat and serious.

The game includes a booklet item that serves the same role as a Pokédex, documenting each kind of monster that you encounter and own. Collecting is an important mechanism in monster RPGs, for some players, the fun of finding, capturing, and evolving their monsters to acquire them all is the most important part of the game. Pet Alliance has nearly 230 monsters to acquire, but there are a few problems that make the thrill of collecting fall flat. First, there is no mechanism for intentionally capturing monsters. Instead, you get monster eggs as loot after a battle or as a reward for completing a mission. You can hatch eggs easily enough, but that’s not the problem. Being able to find monsters out in the wild and capturing them directly is a lot more satisfying than grinding away at repetitive battles hoping a monster finally drops an egg. The second problem is that most of the monsters feel terribly uninspired. They just don’t look cool enough for me to want them — and that’s a huge problem in a game that revolves around its monsters. There’s a baby chicken with a bottle of milk, a blue crab, an onion, a hamster with a lollipop, and a crocodile with a lollipop. I wish I were making this up. Why would I ever want two different lollipop-wielding animals to fight for me in battle? Not all the monsters are that bad, but for every interesting monster there’s several more that are completely boring.

Pet Alliance has good production values and an okay free-to-play system, but that’s really all it has going for it. The content is deep, but the gameplay just isn’t. The best players are absolutely going to be the ones who put the most real money into the game. They’ll be the same players who can afford the rare monster eggs and the AP potions that will let them keep playing without waiting for any timers. The battle animations actually look like the monsters are doing something, but that something isn’t very exciting. Even if the combat was full of explosive particle effects and other eye candy, it’d still feel pretty hollow because I’m not actually responsible for triggering any of the attacks. The game is mindless to play, but certainly that’s what some people are looking for. Unfortunately, Pet Alliance is a mediocre free-to-play RPG at best and does practically nothing to fill the Pokémon-shaped gaps on Android, iOS, and Facebook.

The Infinite Black

Having only recently attained your pilot’s license and a new shuttle from Earth, you’ve set out to explore the great beyond; “Space, the final frontier” and all that nonsense… You know as well as any veteran flayer captain that space is simply another market to exploit. After destroying half a dozen pirate ships in the designated “grey zone” – a safe perimeter established around your home planet – you decide to dip into “the black” with the hopes of liberating more valuable cargo. Having only jumped a couple sectors outside of the grey, you’re suddenly met face-to-face with a small fleet of titan-class ships belonging to “Murder, Inc.” – a corporation well known for smearing rookies like you across the galaxy. A simple, yet pointed message flashes across your HUD: “Join us or die.“ Fire, run, or be assimilated… choices choices.

Infinite Black is an MMO (massively multiplayer online) game that harkens back to the old-school days before 3D immersive graphics but after M.U.D.s had taken root. Those of us like myself enjoy single player games to a certain degree, but nothing really beats teaming-up with live humans and accomplishing feats of destruction and organization together. On a whim one night, I decided to see what the current MMO scene is like on Android and was faced with the usual suspects – games such as Pocket Legends that strive to bask in the afterglow of what us PC gamers are used to, and those that happily market themselves as MMOs even though they’re no such thing. I also ran into The Infinite Black.

All Substance, Low Style

After scanning through the screenshots on the Play store, I was expecting to be shoved into the pilot seat of a spaceship – third-person style. Unfortunately, this lead to some dashed preconceptions of what Infinite Black was all about… Let’s get this out of the way right now – there are no fanshy 3D graphics in this game. In fact, you’re presented right out of the box with nothing but a vast network of color-shaded and arbitrarily linked octagons spanning as far as you can swipe. The background layer behind the map is customizable with various rendered space-themed graphics, but they mean nothing in the grand scheme. Turn them off, and you’re left with a very very dull interface. I almost quit right there (spoiled).

You begin the game as a rookie pilot of 0.5 level stationed at Earth (a designated safe zone) with nothing but a shuttle to your name. Higher levels unlock new tiers of equipment. Once you leave the blue zone immediately surrounding Earth, you’ll enter “the grey” – a PVE (player-vs-enemy) zone where you’ll spend many days “farming” heteroclites, pirates, and mercenaries for their materials. Your shuttle has a fixed number of “equip points” which are basically slots to be used for equipment such as weapons, hulls (armor), storage, computers, etc. It won’t take a rocket-scientist to quickly realize that he wants more space for better stuff… farming. It happens early and it happens often.

Farming In Space

Almost immediately after leaving Earth, I began to start murdering the various AI ships in the grey, collecting their resources, and selling them at various starports for credits. Obviously, you’ll need money for new ships and equipment. Lots of it. There are somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 different ships, from battleship to wyrd reaper, all sporting an increasing number of equip points. Once you have a better ship, you can either pick up common items at the starports or start browsing the market for auctions. Yes, this game has a server-wide auction house! In the market, you’ll find rare items to either bid or buy-out that offer both higher stats as well as use fewer equip points. You can also sell dropped items you find while farming to help speed up your own purchases.

As you’re hopping from sector to sector blowing away npc enemies, you’ll be taking damage and salvaging resources. One such resource is both valuable for selling as well as repairing your ship – metal. Other resources you’ll find along the way will be mostly used to trade for credits until you manage to weasel your way into a corporation. This is where things get interesting.

Of Corporations And Alliances

The Infinite Black has a tiered leadership structure, like most MMOs, similar to that of “guilds”. Within my first couple levels, I was sent an invite to join one such corporation and was also immediately added to that corporation’s alliance (a conglomeration of corporations). Joining such groups nets you several advantages, not limited to discounts on equipment, hand-outs from your peers, and safety in numbers. Once you get a few of your corp’ies together in a “stack” (bunch of ships in one sector), you can strike-out into the black for more violent (and rewarding) encounters. Oh, and PvP. Yikes!

While the grey is simple and straightforward – fly around, blow stuff up, sell for credits – the black is more nebulous. This entire region is PvP flagged, meaning you’ll likely get mobbed by higher-level ships and obliterated if you don’t have sufficient backup. The NPCs in the black are also much more powerful, but drop higher level rewards. In addition to combat, the black is where your alliance’s leaders will be constructing garrisons – starport-like structures that allow you to repair and store alliance goods. Leaders can even use garrisons as virtual walls to keep non-alliance players out of your “yard” (area of black around your garrisons). Alliances can even create their own planets with enough resources, and terraform them using resources to provide universal bonuses for their underlings.

Stay On Target!

Interface-wise, TiB for Android isn’t anything to write home about… The map itself is a lifeless grid of octagons and ships are represented by simplistic icons stacked on the right of the screen. Fortunately, iPad users will benefit from a much shinier interface and better sound effects. Enemy ships are similarly stacked below your own, but are highlighted in red. Red bad. To attack an enemy, you tap the icon to open a list of options – one of which is attack. You can also long-hold an enemy to both attack and follow. NPC ships have an annoying tendency to jump from sector to sector during a fight, so AF (auto-follow) is a good idea. Once a battle is finished, you’ll pick up any loot that drops from the wreckage and hop to the next sector. Each ship has its own jump drive cool down, so you’ll have to wait a few seconds before jumping. If you’re set on a long-range destination, you can set the waypoint and let the drive do all the work for you.

This game has a steep learning curve, so be warned. An in-game help system is available, but is nothing more than an html-style manual. I spent a good deal time joining up with my corp’ies and hounding them with questions as we raided the galaxy. TiB sports a comprehensive chat interface with all the filters you’d expect from an MMO – universe, server, corporation, alliance, etc. but it requires that you flip from the map ui to a dedicated chat window. Expect to get shot at if you’re busy chatting.

Top-Off With Black Dollars

To-date, The Infinite Black has kept me hooked with the usual formula of slow leveling and saving for obscenely priced trinkets. The addition of a market is an added perk as you’re always min/maxing your ship’s gear and haggling with your alliance for better stuff. If you find that grinding isn’t your thing (it’s recommended to stay out of the black until level 10), there’s an alternate currency called Black Dollars that both drop randomly from NPC encounters or can be purchased using real-world money. Black Dollars allow you do purchase an additional fighter drone to make combat quicker, get a temporary boost in xp, buy rare ships (if you have tons of BDs), jump to your corporate garrison, etc. They also can be sold in-game for a pretty penny in a pinch.

The Verdict

If you’re a gamer with a penchant for the old-school vibe, give TiB a run for your money… actually, it’s free. Despite the cruddy ui and graphics, this game has a decent MMO structure and two additional servers planned to roll out this year. Note: I’ve written the developers asking when/if they’re planning on bringing the Android version up to par with iOS but have had no response. Try the two versions and you’ll see what I mean. Should you download TiB, expect hours upon hours of grinding with little in terms of distraction save for a smattering of corporate interactions. All the fun comes in the latter levels when you cap-out like the rest of the big boys.

Modern War by GREE

Video games are capable of stirring all kinds of emotions - such as sadness, anger, excitement and joy - but they also have a rather unfortunate tendency to trivialise things.

There's no finer example of this than Modern War, which takes the hellish nature of armed conflict and simplifies it to such a degree that it becomes little more than an exercise in chasing numbers.

In Modern War, you select a nation, build a base of operations, hire some troops, and generally inflict as much damage on your enemies as possible across several different global locations.

As well as taking on predetermined missions, you can also raid the HQs of other players, adding more cash to your reserves and improving your overall level.

War is hell

Modern War certainly isn't lacking when it comes to content - there are loads of different structures to erect and plenty of troop types and vehicles (land, sea, and air) to manufacture.

Naturally, these don't come out of thin air - you'll need cash and gold bars. Cash is generated by certain buildings (such as supply depots) and you win a chunk whenever you successfully complete a mission, but gold bars are slightly harder to come by.

You can buy more bars using in-app purchases, or bag free ones by partaking in promotional activities - standard freemium fare. You can get cash the same way.

Another commodity which is available for real-world monies is energy, which depletes whenever you launch an attack and recharges slowly over time.

Guns and glory

None of which should be surprising to free-to-play veterans - a developer deliberately slowing down the gameplay to tempt users to open their wallets is common practice these days, if not always a welcome one. What makes Modern War's setup a little less appealing is the vacuous nature of the gameplay itself.

For the most part, you're just tapping on the screen and watching dialogue boxes pop up. There's little to no skill involved, and outside of building up your army and allies (done by a code system not entirely dissimilar to the one used by Nintendo on its Wii and 3DS consoles) there's a very narrow scope for any legitimate strategy.

As long as you're willing to put in the time (and possibly cash) your advancement is almost assured - it's just a case of how quickly you get max-out your abilities.

As a result, Modern War feels little more than a grimly predictable stat-chasing exercise, designed to loot players of their money rather than provide any challenge or entertainment.

Although there are lots of units available and plenty of missions to keep you busy, they're so unexciting and mundane that unless you have an unshakable urge to collect every item and unlock every unit your interest is likely to wane quickly.