Pokemon with fusion mechanics and a really interesting combat system, nicely animated.
Good learning curve while plodding through thePokemon with fusion mechanics and a really interesting combat system, nicely animated.
Good learning curve while plodding through the scenarios, guided by a somewhat chatty quest. Your summoned fighters (monsters) are a wild mix of monsters and manga characters, works surprisingly well.
There are lots of things to do - scenariaos, later dungeons, lots of events, arena fights, guild fights, a PvE challenge. Especially on starting difficulty, players are showered with rewards and energy kickbacks, there are rarely limits to playing.
Attribute advantage (wind>water>fire>wind) is the first thing a player learns and uses, later light and dark join the mix. Monsters have up to 3 active combat skills and maybe a passive or team bonus. Single target, aoe or chained; ressurection and heal; buffs and protection or debuffs and dots, lots of options to chose from. A well balanced team supports each other and will rip unrelated monsters apart.
The player always attacks, enemy monsters are controlled by the AI. Even attacking can be done on autoplay, with the player focusing targets if need be. Beware the AI is somewhat dumb when using AOE spells or ressurections; some fights with very distinct tactical ideas must be handled manually.
After reaching the volcano in the middle of the map, the player steps down into the valley of grind. Level monsters, level food to fuse your monsters to the next star level (6 in all, and the 6th is really tedious while you're weak), grind essences to awaken your keepers, grind runes (which make all the difference) to equip and improve your monsters, grind scrolls of different quality to get chances for better monsters, grind guild and arena fights to use their better shops.
Monsters have different minimum stars, where they first appear. The best and rarest are natural 5 stars, but there are enough moderate and farmable alternatives to build a good team. The (fusion) star system keeps level numbers small (max 40), but masks that each star also equals several levels of base strength. Unlike pokemon, where I usually train what I want to use, the fusion system also makes players fatten tons of fodder monsters, just to upgrade the team. More grind.
The game can be played successfully without spending. Use friends' monsters once a day to boost your rewards and reach; currency and event rewards are freely distributed just to keep players busy.
But this cannot conceal that the late midgame and endgame is just grinding and more grinding, more expensive and with less energy kickback on hardest difficulty. Currently a bug randomly crashes the game when starting fights, eating energy and even one of three guild fight markers. Still, 5-10 crashes a day (=missed or lost fights) are just annoying for a heavy player in grind mode, which explains the relative quite even after 2 weeks without a note.… Expand
