[REVIEW] GUARDIANS OF FANTASY. Play or not to play? All you need to know review.

First of, if you're not a fan of games with VIP systems and P2W (pay 2 win), better stop reading now (or not, it's your choice). I'm honestly one of those. But a friend of mine told me that the publisher of the game, Game Dreamer Limited has a loose way of using the VIP system and isn't that harsh on non paying or casual paying players. Now that info is out of the way, lets continue with my review of GUARDIANS OF FANTASY.

LOOKS:

TREE OF SAVIOR. That's the first thing that will come to mind when you look at the game's graphics and overall feel. Characters are rendered in 3D while the environment is isometric, non moving top view. 50% of the screen is covered with controls, interfaces and buttons. All common in a Chinese developed mobile game. To be honest, it actually looks really good if you can ignore all the buttons that liters the screen (which I seriously doubt you can). Character designs, NPCs, and monsters are very well designed. 

GAMEPLAY:

Another common thing in Chinese developed mobile games is auto-gaming. Everything just needs one click to accomplish. From quests, equipment enhancing, casting skills / spells, grinding, instances, moving from point A to point B. Makes you wonder why there's even a virtual joystick and skill buttons when everything is auto.

There are 3 basic classes: WARRIOR, MAGE, ARCHER. Each of them can branch off to two different advanced jobs.

WARRIOR: A spear wielder or a shield / sword user.

MAGE: 2 handed staff or a shield / wand (or scepter) user.

ARCHER: Crossbow (that looks more like a rifle) or bow user.

Character customization is only limited to gender BUT in my opinion this is better than having a gender locked class which is becoming a common trend in mobile games and which I personally really dislike. Thankfully there's a FASHION shop where you can buy different costumes to make your character look unique to some degree. Game progress is quite simple.

Take on a quest > finish a quest > get better gear > enhance gears > finish instances > complete daily quests > take on special dungeons > contribute to faction and guild > repeat.

One would think that's quite a lot, but in the game EVERYTHING is laid out for you so if you don't know what to do next, there are menus in the game that will let you view what are the stuff you haven't done yet.

Guardians of Fantasy also has a FACTION. When you reach a certain level, you'll be given a choice to join either the FREE ALLIANCE (red) or the ROYAL GUARDS (blue). Once you chose a faction, you can't change it so choose wisely. In your faction you'll get to vote a player that will become the leader of your entire faction. And of course, because there are two opposing factions, there's a FACTION WAR that happens every 5 days (subject to change). 

Another unique thing about this game is the MOUNTS. Usually in other RPG games, mounts are there for transport and that's pretty much the only use for them aside for bragging rights. In Guardians of Fantasy, your mounts are used in the entirety of the game. You'll use them for travelling AND in combat. There are different kinds of mounts but some of them are for VIP members only. Go figure.

There's a bunch of INSTANCES in the game. If you're not familiar with Instances, these are game modes inside the game like gold dungeons, experience dungeons, etc. Aside from those 2, there's also gem dungeons, gear hunting dungeons, treasure hunts, and many many more.

GUILDS in Guardians of Fantasy are called FAMILY. The family levels up from member contributions and can gain special buffs. Getting these buffs requires items that allows a member to train that buff. Aside from that it also has a MARRIAGE system for couples. I have seen screenshots of the game that there may be a guild tavern. A personal space for guild members to mingle. I'm not sure just yet if it's really there. I'll update this post if it does have it.

VIP SYSTEM:

Like I said at the start of this post, the game has a VIP system. Players who are already familiar with this will tell you games with VIP systems are PAY 2 WIN. And I agree. The more you spend, the more powerful your character will get. One can argue that you can always grind to get good items, but a VIP system eliminates that by making really good equipment, mounts, items, etc become exclusive.

CONCLUSION:

Would I recommend playing it? As much as I hate games with VIP system, yes play it. Only if you just want to enjoy the game with your friends and you're not bothered with rankings. But if you're a competitive player and wants to dominate and come out number one, better get ready to spend a lot on this game.

I'm still currently playing the game so if you guys are wondering who am I in-game (not its not my usual IGN, Cylux):

IGN: Unspoken

Server: Faith

Guild: Dustiness

PLAYSTORE LINK: GUARDIANS OF FANTASY

[REVIEW] Build your very own castle, defend it from invaders and conquer the world in CASTLE REVENGE

Published by Incuvo SA, in Castle Revenge, you are a humble lord with a simple castle. But one day, the evil Lord Grayson laid siege on your home. You were able to fend off the attack so now you only have one thing in mind: Revenge.

But that's not that easy to achieve. The goal of the game is to build your castle and conquer other player's castle in an effort to expand your land and become stronger while gaining resources to do so. It's like Clash of Clans only instead of an isometric view, its platform. Mana and gold are used to upgrade and purchase stuff with rubies as premium currency. Your castle can be built in so many ways, and the facilities can be arranged however you want.

Laying siege on other players is very simple and is played like an angle shooting game much like Angry Birds minus the pull back to launch (you have a shoot button). And like angry birds, a physics engine is present. Destroying a castle makes its parts fall and bounce off structures while debris fly off everywhere.

• Build and manage your castle
• Fight with other players and Lord Grayson himself
• Conquer the map and reclaim your land
• Directly control your attack and wreck havoc with realistic physics destructions!
• Develop new types of projectiles for your catapult
• Be a king, become a hero!

Castle Revenge is available to download in the Playstore and is located in the Early Access section.

DOWNLOAD LINK: CASTLE REVENGE

[REVIEW] Crush your enemies with your very own designed tank in SUPER TANK RUMBLE

Published by STOVE and developed by Smilegate Megaport, Super Tank Rumble lets you assemble your very own unique tank and pit you against other players around the world too see who is the number one tank designer as well as fighter.

GAMEPLAY:

The game is quite interesting and the core gameplay is quite simple: make your tank from your  very own design and battle against other players. The game gives you different parts, from wheels, to chassis, and your cannon / weapon, up to different colors and designs like camouflage and cartoon eyes. You can practically build any type of tank design you want as long as you have the parts you need and want. Parts can be unlocked by game progress and leveling up. in PvP and in campaign mode, destroying the enemy tank is the goal. 

CONTROLS:

Controls is quite simple. The left side of the screen provides you with movement controls. move left or right and to adjust your cannon angle. The right side of the screen is where the attack or fire button is located.

SHARE YOUR DESIGN:

Super Tank Rumble has a unique system where you can share your tank blueprints to anyone, and in turn you can download their blueprints as well.

Super Tank Rumble is available to download in the Playstore located in the Early Access section

DOWNLOAD LINK: SUPER TANK RUMBLE

[REVIEW] God of Attack is a endless tapping game with RPG elements

Published by Daerisoft, God of Attack isn't your normal endless tapping game where you just tap and tap until you get a certain amount of gold to purchase some new upgrade. It actually has RPG elements, a story behind it, and instances you would normally find in a full fledged RPG game.

The main means of attacking is still tapping of course. The usual shenanigans an endless tapping game is there like, hiring new allies to help you with your sore fingers, buying and upgrading new equipment which actually changes the look of your current gear, some of the usual stat boosts, and so on. Character designs are very cute looking and well designed.

What sets this apart from the others is that it has instances like Dragon Hunting, Rescue Dungeons, Castle gate Breach, a training dungeon, and a bounty quest. I'll be honest, the cute chibi characters is what made me wanted to play it.

God of attack is available now on Playstore. You can download it here---> GOD OF ATTACK

[REVIEW] War of Rings: It's so generic, it's not even worth it

I've been seeing this game getting promoted in Facebook and in Youtube so I got curious about it despite everything about the trailer constantly screaming "I'm a generic Chinese knock off of a Chinese knock off of another Chinese knock off game with a VIP system". War of rings by Ujoy is a new mobile 3D MMORPG with elements you've seen in hundreds upon hundreds of Chinese knock off games.

The random generated name for a bad ass looking warrior is Pearly. Seriously?

You only get to choose from 2 characters with fixed gender, fixed class, and fixed design. You can't change hair design or anything. Inside the game you get to experience what you've experience, again, a very familiar setting for these kinds of games that the Playstore is littered with. It has a full auto mode, where you get quests, just watch your character finish a quest then repeat. The usual wings, mounts, guilds, PvP, transformation (we've all seen this in Chinese RPG games), and of course the "easy money for developers" VIP system that makes a high spending player absurdly over powered (OP) that there's no chance for free player or even the average paying gamer can reach, no matter how much you grind.

Despite myself obviously hating this game, there's some unique mechanics to it like the the rings that you need to collect. These rings will grant you new skills and powers as well as stat boosts.

There's also a trade system for equipment and items which you can freely sell or buy from anyone.

And to make it more auto-everything, there's even an OFFLINE mode, where you can leave your character to grind, close the game, launch it after a few hours, and then check if your character has level upped or looted a useful gear.

To be honest, this might be appealing for gamers who usually doesn't have time to play RPG games and just doesn't have to time to grind because of work or some more important reason. If you're interested in the game I'll leave a download link below.

DOWNLOAD LINK: WAR OF RINGS

[REVIEW] Infected Zone: Zombie Survival is text based zombie apocalypse RPG game worth playing.

With all the high graphic games that are coming out left and right, it's nice to go back to these text based RPG games from time to time. Infected Zone: Zombie Survival is a text based zombie RPG game that has been recently launched in the Playstore and is published by Loco Game Studios.

THE GAME:

Infected Zone lets you play 4 characters each with different backgrounds and stories to tell.

• Claude - An ex soldier with a lot experience in different kinds of firearms.
• Masako - A femme fatale special agent (complete with the skin tight latex suit) who specializes in melee weapons
• Sofia - A popular student before the zombie outbreak happened.
• Bonu - A former illusionist. He's very proficient in lock picking.
  

Each of them have different story lines but the goal the same: survive. The game starts you off in a ruined building. This will serve as your home and base of operations. Your base can be upgraded by building stations that help you to survive such as a workbench to craft weapons, a laboratory, a bed to sleep in, and many more. Every character has different stats:

• Wounds - affects your maximum HP
• Infection - deducts HP per hour (works like poison)
• Fullness (hunger) - affects health regeneration
• Vigor - affects the fatigue which in turn affects crafting and battle
• Mood - affects mental health, quality of sleep, and health regeneration
• Health - your total health points

The flow of the game is simple. Equip your character with items that will help you survive, like a baseball bat to smash zombies with, or some shurikens to use as a ranged weapons against hordes of enemies, dead or living. If you're all set, it's time to explore the map. There are a variety of events in the map such as meeting other survivors and areas to explore for possible loot. From time to time you get events that will give you different choices. These choices will affect your whole story and overall flow of the game. Combat is fairly simple. Once an encounter has started you just need to choose what actions to take like shooting an enemy or waiting for them to get close for melee combat. Going into certain yields loots and supplies. Some you can straight up open but others have some puzzle elements to it which is really good. Adding this gives the game more challenge.

As the game progresses, you'll need to learn to use your resources wisely, make the right decisions, and ultimately survive the zombie apocalypse.

Infected Zone: Zombie survival is free to download. Link below.

DOWNLOAD LINK: INFECTED ZONE: ZOMBIE SURVIVAL

[REVIEW] Stellar: A new puzzle strategy game with a mix of sci-fi RPG elements.

Published by Laudonauts Ltd. been playing this game for a few days now and it's actually quite enjoyable. It won't break any barriers but it's a good game to carry around on your device if you need to kill some time.

The game mechanics are a bit confusing at first but easy to learn. Your role in the game is a rogue commander. And your task is to recruit heroic characters throughout the galaxy that will fight alongside you. Each hero has unique skills and traits which you can upgrade. The game play is strategic puzzles. You take control of a fleet of ships that serves as a puzzle piece. connecting them in certain shapes and specific colors will result in them merging together to make a more powerful units. To win, you need to destroy the enemies mother ship and to do this, you need to outsmart your enemy and gaining the upper hand using your wits and of course, your powerful ships with the help of your heroes. The game offers a variety of modes. Campaign mode where you can progress through a variety of stages and uncover the story behind Stellar, and the live PvP mode where you battle with other players in real time.

The game is fun. I enjoyed the puzzle type battles and how your tiny ships become bigger and stronger. The designs are great and the story isn't that bad. It's not that immersive but the PvP mode is quite challenging specially if you're up against some really good players. Like I noted before, it's not a game that we could expect to sky rocket in the Playstore rankings, but I could say they're going in the right direction with their games. There are still plenty of features that are coming soon in the game and I really do hope it would attract players. With all that effort put to a simple game, they deserve it.

Features:

• Real time player versus player
• Collect and upgrade fleets and characters
• Master your skill with strategic gameplay
• Endless fun with a diverse cast of characters and retro space

DOWNLOAD LINK: STELLAR

[REVIEW] Lead your civilization from the stone age to the modern era with Keep Kraft.

Published by ZQGame Inc (Pocket Knights, Dragon Blitz), Keep Kraft lets you lead your very own civilization from nothing to a modern thriving and powerful one.

In its core, the game play is resource management. Effective planning and and wise decision making is the key. It may be simple at first, but as you progress and your civilization grows bigger, the mechanics become more complex, like learning new technology, building more complex structures, and gaining an army as well as evolving and entering new eras. I found myself starting a new game again and again just to learn the right way to manage my resources.

FEATURES:

• BUILD a thriving city from the ground up
• UNLOCK powerful new technologies and gameplay features
• MANAGE a complex economy of raw materials and crafted items
• BATTLE at land or at sea to win rewards and expand territory
• ASSIGN jobs and APPOINT leaders to maximize efficiency

Keep Kraft is out now in Playstore under the Early Access section. It's a good game to pass the time and this is one of those games where you can check it every now and then, spend 5 minutes managing stuff, log out and go on with your business.

PLAYSTORE LINK: KEEP KRAFT

[REVIEW] Soul Knight: A hidden gem that comes in a small package.

Soul Knight by Chilly Room is a retro pixel animated shooter game that boasts simple controls and yet, is seriously entertaining. Indeed, I only downloaded this as a side game but I found myself playing it more and more back when it was still listed in the Early Access section of the Playstore.

The game is basically a dungeon crawler. You can choose from different characters with different special abilities. For instance, your first character, the knight, has an ability to dual wield weapons. You can unlock the other characters either by saving up gold or buying them as IAP (some of them are IAP exclusive like the vampire and the crusader). 

I gotta say, that's one nice looking lounge, even without decorations *hint hint*

Controls are pretty simple. you have a D-pad on the left side of the screen and your use weapon, skill, and switch weapons are on the right. The range weapons are auto-aimed. A cool thing about this game is the multitude of different weapons you can use and collect. Ranging from a basic revolver, bows, shotguns, sniper rifles, machine guns, even up to plasma cannons, and insanely enough, a toilet plunger. There's also melee weapons, like your basic sword, all the way to a light saber.

As you progress through the game, you'll encounter different kinds of enemies and bosses. Progressing through the stages and defeating enemies unlocks upgrades for your room that gives stat boosts for your character. You can even unlock different pets.

Dungeon Boss

Soul Knight is a great game. And it seems like I'm not the only one who enjoys playing it. It already has one million downloads within it's short time of being officially released. Whether you're trying to find a side game or trying to find one just to kill time, why not try to give this one a shot.

PLAYSTORE LINK: SOUL KNIGHT

[REVIEW] Heroes Arena. Here comes a new challenger to Mobile Legends.

I've been playing Mobile Legends on Android since it's season 1 launch. It's been a roller coaster ride to say the least with improving game play tomorrow then a sudden barrage of endless bugs the next. I'm not that addicted to it as I was before and that got me back into my old habit of lurking around the Playstore and APK sites to try and find some new games to play. And that's how I found Heroes Arena.

Heroes Arena, just like Mobile Legends is a MOBA game for Android and iOS. It features almost the same modes you'll find in your generic MOBA and a little bit more. One thing I noticed is that it's somewhat a mix of the two biggest PC MOBA titles: League of Legends and DoTA 2. If I was to put this in layman's term:

Mobile Legends = League of Legends

Heroes Arena = DoTA2 + League of Legends

THE GAME:

Compared to Mobile Legends, Heroes Arena looks fantastic. Character models are great. Something we got used to seeing in PC MOBA titles. Character animation is is a lot better than Mobile Legends. Most skills have their own unique animation. And speaking of skills, Heroes Arena gives you the traditional 4 skill set instead of the 3 you get in Mobile Legends. The maps looks are similar to LoL's recent map changes. Main lobby interface is a bit confusing at first but it's easy enough to understand. You earn gold, runes, special skils, and other materials by opening chests. Every once in a while you get chests that are free to open but you need to wait for their timers to finish. You can also get chests from winning matches. These too also have timers on them. You can instantly open one by using gems. Purchasing a hero will give you two modes of payment: By gold or by gems. One thing I found lacking is the background story of the Hero roster. People like to know the stories behind the characters they're using making them liking it more (or not). Another thing that's missing is the in-game chat. You only get a set of shouts and calls but you're unable to send a personal message although you can edit those pre-set messages to suit your needs while in a match. A real time chat system while in a match is something the game really needs.

THE MAPS:

The game provides you with different maps to play in. There's your standard 5 vs 5 map, 3 vs 3 map, and even a 1 vs 1 map. There's also the single lane 5 v 5 map.

RUNE SYSTEM:

Just like in League of Legends, you get a rune system that you can customize for your heroes. Whether you want them to dish out fast attack speed, or a huge life steal bonus, or a tough as nails setup if you like a tank role, or maybe a glass cannon class that deals huge amounts of damage with magic type heroes. It's really up to you and the rune system can create hundreds of possible combo builds.

VIP SYSTEM ON A MOBA GAME:

To my surprise Heroes Arena has a VIP system. A lot of my gamer friends know I HATE games with VIP systems cause majority of those are just cash hogs trying to earn quick a quick buck from their games and making big spenders too OP. Seems it's not the case for Heroes Arena. You do get a VIP status but it doesn't really make the player over-powered. You gain a lot of gems (premium currency) and gold, some runes, and a hero. All of these a non-paying player can get by playing as much as they can and winning of course. Luckily MOBA games are based on skill, not on how much you spend on it.

IN-APP PURCHASE:

Heroes Arena actually has cheaper IAP than Mobile Legends. Their hero package is around $4.99. That's only have of Mobile Legend's package which practically has the same contents.

"Don't mind me. Just Hunting a dragon. With playing cards."

PROS:

• Game looks great, character models looks awesome, and animation skills are eye catching.
• Lots of maps to play in, with deep strategic game play.
• You get the traditional 4 skills instead of 3.
• Game runs great and is fully optimized for android and iOS.
• Game has graphic settings you can adjust for more smoother game play.
• In-App Purchase are surprisingly more cheaper then Mobile Legends.
• Dedicated region servers.

CONS:

• VIP system on a MOBA game makes you think if this will be balanced or not in the future.
• Still has a lot of bugs to fix.
• Servers are pretty stable but you get the occasional lag from time to time.
• Team balancing is a bit wonky. 
• For some reason half of the rounds I played, I always end up with a teammate that's AFK or moves like an AI controlled character.

Heroes Arena is free to download in Playstore and App Store and is published by UCOOL.

PLAYSTORE LINK: Heroes Arena