Mon Apr 23 2018
This app has been updated by Apple to display the Apple Watch app icon.
Optimized for iPhone X.
I’ve gotten a good number of hours’ entertainment out of this. It’s no Puzzle Quest but it’s fun in its own right. My one comment would be the dialog GUI style and sound effects feel unpolished. It starts out easy enough but does ramp up a bit in difficulty but it’s a good challenge and you have to save up for upgraded emblems, spells and potions. You really do need to pay attention to each monsters abilities and ensure you have spells equipped to counter them. The RPG element is lost since your whole group autolevels but you can buy spells and upgrades from towns. No IAP in sight which is fantastic. I would recommend this game to anyone itching for a puzzle adventure game that doesn’t annoy.
The gameplay is fine, pretty standard match-3. Around halfway through the game there is a HUGE wall, normally it took at most 3 tries for me to beat a boss, this level isn't even a boss and I've tried it over 20 times. There's not really any replay value of levels you've beat already, so the best way to level is to keep fighting the battle until you level enough to beat it which is annoying. It's also nearly impossible to get anywhere without a random ambush every step of the way, I get it there are monsters around, but it shouldn't take 15 minutes to get to the level I'm supposed to be playing. The story though... it's horrid, you know exactly what's going to happen, and the dialogue is about as bad as it gets. Period jokes galore, the angry leader who attacks everything on sight, the forgetful girl is also the greedy treasure hoarder, the noble knight, terrible mocking of one character for no real reason (maybe it's supposed to be funny). I quit reading the dialogue pretty quickly once I realized it wasn't getting any better.
A great mix of match 3 and simple RPG. Major props to the developer for going with a fixed fee for this app instead of the usual pay-to-win junk. Even the stilted story would be forgivable if it wasn’t for the flat-out awful jokes. I’m not easily insulted by much, but the jokes are just sort of mean-spirited and lack the funniness to redeem themselves. They leave me with that sort of awkward embarrassment for the sake of the person telling them. Like when you don’t want to be the one to tell the amateur comedian that they’ve crossed the line, so you just wait to see who will jeer at them first. Seriously though, an otherwise clever game. I’ll bet you could double your sales or more if you fixed that one problem. I’d love to recommend this game, but can’t in good conscience - not to friends, family and especially kids. I wouldn’t want people I respect to think I’m willing to look past the jokes.
It’s a fun game, great ideas incorporating with satisfying action that I found puzzle games are missing. But there are few thing that was really frustrating. -Traveling auto prompted battles. Is all cool because you can frustratingly back out of match every time it comes up which is annoying. But the part that’s frustrating is when a fork road goes into a only pathway with alerted “!” Bubble. Or any for this matter. You can’t physically get to a store to refill on things you did to continue the story prompt battle. So you have to grind. Grind. Grind. Grind. The same whatever area your stuck in. Until you level up. Annoying af. -Unclosed areas in menu. I notice if you accidentally forget to close, say the store. And click on menu.. well that all jumbos together into a confusing floating mess. You see both store, menu... or map with floating user potion/debuff which usually goes away. Annoying af. -Humor, I quit reading things because it’s pretty much 6th grade humor. Jokes about periods... If they don’t bother you, it’s a strong 4 stars. But after painstakingly losing to a long battle defeating multiple stages... you can’t refill your helpful items and annoying floating ui comes up... it’s annoying af. So it’s a 3 for me.
UPDATE: This is even more bizarre, there seems to be a theme of one of the characters (the healer) being a servant of God, and they make fun of her and make her out to be an idiot. Really? I am not one to believe in conspiracy theories and I don't believe there are legions of evil people trying to trash Christians at every chance, but this is kind of blatant and strange. When you add it up, it is just stupid - they have a kiddie game theme, the main character curses in very inappropriate settings and they have a character who is a "servant of God" who is always the one who they make fun of and treat like she is stupid. What is going on here? It is downright strange. Howard, the captain of the team curses non-stop! It is bizarrely out of place in such a juvenile setting. This is a cutesy match-3 rpg of sorts that is marred by its overly syrupy child-like animations and story-line and then it is filled with curse words that are inappropriate for young children. It is almost shocking because it is so out of place. Weird.
Like a lot of other gamers, I'm constantly looking for a decent mobile game to play during my commute and I always play for an hour or so then delete it. Most games in the App Store are just complete junk: in app purchases, free-to-play models where you have to watch an ad or share on social media to continue playing, or even force you to quit for the day unless you pay. This is the one I've been looking for. I loved Puzzle Quest 1 & 2 when those where on the App Store, but this is even better. The special attacks and combos really make for fun combat and the team-based gameplay mechanics are very well done. I highly recommend this game!
This is what mobile games should be like. It is simple enough to pick up and play any time and complex enough to keep playing for hours. Not only that, but there's no "pay to win" nonsense involved. No IAP. No advertising. Buy the game and enjoy it without any harassing pop ups to get you to rate them or buy junk. The only thing I thought should have been different was experience gained should apply in battle in real time. It's kind of strange that we have to complete the battle to have experience applied. The gold gets added during battle, why not exp? Overall, one of the best iOS games I've ever played. Great job! Please make more games :)
Seriously, game is a lot of fun, however, it does come with some gripes I have with it. What it boils down to is that the story seems very poor (so far). Some of the dialogue is pretty cringy, but I still come back playing because I need to complete my quests and the Tetris style gameplay is so addictive and impactful. When you line up a bunch and combos turn into even more combos it is a satisfying experience. I tend to not even look up at my characters and just focus on the puzzle and my health (which is upsetting because it has some okay attack effects). Gameplay is what makes me keep chugging in this game! Currently 6 hours in. Give it a try! Worth .99 cents😈
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