Addictive Gameplay & Rigged Artifacts
GAMEPLAY:
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+ Innovative concept
The game is ingenious in being a perfect a mixture of Strategy, RPG, Tetris and Trading Card game. Despite so many properties, the core gameplay is never overwhelming. The player will be able to understand the entire concept within the first few hours, yet without ever doubting about its depth.
+ The combat is extremely varied
Instead of letting you fight the same fight over and over again (which sadly did happen only at the last chapter), the game constantly introduces new and refreshing battle objectives to accomplish. Even your unit roster never stops updating throughout your journey across 5 different chapters. Each chapter features a different race, the refreshing feel of being able to play 5 different races each with unique properties will keep the player entertained nonstop.
"I will stop after the next battle." ...
- Broken Artifacts
Artifacts act like equipments. The player will only be able to equip one of them at a time, and they seemingly pretend to be options. Unlike so called "secret units", which possibly were meant to be "better than the average", artifacts appear to be treated equally. The player however will soon find out this is certainly not the case. Some artifacts are so overpowered it is a mystery how they made it through an entire remake (Spider Cloak, King's Crown, Celerity Ring etc...). Or rather, some other artifacts are completely useless and hence will never be equipped even once. The sad part is the makers did do the balancing concerning these, yet still failed noticeably.
- Useless units are useless
Much like the artifacts, some units are relatively so bad they might end up staying at 0/800 EXP until the end. IMO at least, each race features units that are just better than other ones in most situations.
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PRESENTATION:
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+ The HD drawings are sharp and good looking
+ The script is a delight
- Story is predictable
Personally, I did not expect much and do not care about it. It seems fairly obvious story was not meant to be put on focus.
- Music is only medicore
The player however will not even pay attention to the music because he or she will be too busy being pulled in by the gameplay.
- Jezebeth got ditched
True story.
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LASTING APPEAL:
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+ 30 Hours campaign
More like 30 hours of nonstop entertainment. This game easily puts most games that cost trice as much to shame. It should be a noble example showing that no fancy 3D graphics and voice acting are needed to make an awesome game.
+ Multiplayer will be very, very interesting
I was unable to test the multiplayer yet, but I am confident the competitive multiplayer will reveal even more delicious bits of the game.