AVARIAvs

Review

On the main menu screen there’s Online (Battle via the internet or local), Fight players (in Split Screen or Bots locally), Settings, Quit Game, Learn to Play and View Credits. Selecting to play online will take you to your Profile Dashboard, where you’ll find your name, rank and experience points. There are also four tabs, starting with Play, which is where you’ll go for an online game.  You can choose either Matchmaking (to play against other people around the world, while earning experience points to climb the leaderboard), or if you don’t fancy playing for ranks, there’s Private Match, where you can still play against other players, but you’ll not play for ranks and you won’t gain any experience points.

The next tab is Stats (Matches Played, Turns Taken, Total Wins, Betrayals, Kills, Damage Dealt etcetera). On Leaderboards you’ll find two leaderboards, Global and Tournament, both detailing Rank, Player, Rating and Wins, and displaying the top fifteen players. And for Account, you can change the appearance of your avatar’s nameplate (you only have the choice of two to start with, but you’re able to unlock quite a few more through matchmaking).

After choosing the type of game you want to play, you’ll need to decide which of the six teams to play with. The teams are Tactician, Berserker, Mender, Guardian, Warlock and Sentinel. There are also two custom slots for you to create your own teams. There are four class types to choose from: Enoni, Servo, Mage and Mana Soldier, and each type has four characters. Selecting the first slot will give you the option of all four types; once chosen you’ll select the character you want.

Each character will have some details on their class, stats and abilities to help you make that decision, after which you’ll have your final option to make in Archetype. You will have the choice of two options here, and the options will be different for each class. Once you’ve selected your first character, you’ll go back to selecting the next, only this time you’ll only have the choice of three class types to choose from. After your second choice is made, you’ll then only have two options left to choose from. Once one class type has been selected it gets removed from the list of options (this is so you can’t have the same class multiple times).

After you’ve chosen your team and game types, you’ll be exported to the battlefield. Here you’ll be facing from left to right with your opponent's facing you. Details on both teams’ characters can be found above each team, and include things like your health, strengths, and which character’s move it is currently. In the bottom left corner, you’ll find your ability options; you have three choices, and a fourth for a secondary menu with a couple more options.

At the start of a round you’ll select the attack or defensive options of your choice, while also selecting your target. Your opponent will select their options at the same time as you. Once you’ve finished your selection, the battle will commence automatically for that turn. You will continue to battle until all three characters are killed on one of the two teams. While you fight, you may get some upgrades; when this happens you can select one of your abilities and increase its level and power.

You’ll find plenty of options in the Settings: Language (English, French, German, Brazilian, Russian, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Spanish, Korean and Thai), Audio (Volume controls from zero to ten for Master, Music and Sound Effects), Resolution and Graphics (Refresh Rate, Display Mode, V-Sync, Target Framerate, Anti-Aliasing, Texture and Shadow Resolution, Ambient Quality, Lighting, Depth of Field and Bloom quality, Post Processing and Lens Flare). Apply Settings and Restore Defaults can also be found here, and to the right of the settings you’ll find an image of an Xbox controller which shows you what each button does in-game.

I quite like the game, although sadly I’ve either found it hard to find players online, or I’ve had an error which then stops me from connecting to the online game. The error doesn’t happen all the time, but I’ve had it happen quite a few times (hopefully this and the low player count will be better in the future), so I’ve been limited to playing the bots. I’ve still enjoyed playing with each of the teams and making my own custom team. With the low player count I think the game would benefit from some sort of single player campaign or a best of three/five matches with difficulty settings when playing with bots instead of just playing one match, which is over too quickly. I will say that if you’re unsure about whether or not to get this game, keep an eye on the player count and maybe get it while it’s on sale.

Review written by Piston Smashed™ for Zeepond.com!