Clash Royale
Publisher: Supercell Developer: Supercell Platform: iOS Release: 2016 Players: 1 (Training), 2 (Online) Genre: Strategy / Action Rating: 8.3 \ 10.0: Great
Above is a match in Area 1, Goblin Stadium
It's been a long time since I've played a mobile game that wasn't a port of a preexisting title that I found to be not just okay or good, but great. Clash Royale is one of those rare games. Any mobile gamer is very likely familiar with the name of its Supercell. They're the developers behind the hugely successful base-building strategy games Clash of Clans and Boom Beach, both of which are often rightfully accused of being very difficult to advance in without paying for microtransactions.
This spinoff of CoC abandons Supercell's consumer-unfriendly format in favor of a more simple concept: Two players draw cards to place troops on the battlefield in hopes of getting them to their opponents side and destroying their three towers. These cards cost a certain amount of elixir which you can only hold onto a limited amount of at once and slowly regenerates over time. At the end of each three-minute match, the player who has destroyed more enemy towers wins. The match ends early if someone's primary tower is wrecked and goes into overtime if the game is tied, at which point the next person to wreck an enemy tower wins instantly.
After completing a very easy tutorial in which you battle against the A.I., you are given several cards to start off with and then must face others players. There are nearly 70 different cards you can collect and battle with including troops, buildings, and spells. Clash of Clans players will be familiar with many of these, such as the skeleton-summoning Witch, the Mr. T lookalike the Hog-Rider, the mighty cyborg-ninja known as P.E.K.K.A., and the fast-firing X-Bow. My favorite newcomers include the Musketeer, and markswoman armed with a long-range cannon; the Elite Barbarians, a pair of warriors that are stronger and speedier than the normal barbarians; and the Executioner, who is capable of hitting the same enemies multiple times by using his axe as a boomerang.
As with Clash of Clans, you gain trophies from winning battles and lose them when you're defeated. CoC's leagues have been substituted with ten arenas whose trophy requirements get higher and higher as you advance. Each arena has a variety of cards you can unlock from chests, which are also won from battle. This is where the free-to-play mechanics rear their ugly head; These chests contain cards and gold and take from three to 24 hours to unlock. If you collect enough duplicates of a card, you can upgrade it with gold. The higher the level of the card, the more duplicates and coins you need to upgrade it again. Upgrading cards earns you experience points, and leveling up increases the health of and damage dealt by your towers. These cards also vary in rarity; they can be common, rare, epic, or legendary. Rarity doesn't necessarily determine quality, but the legendaries tend to be the most unique. For example, the princess can attack towers from beyond their range, the Log is the only card that can knock back ground units, the Electro Wizard can attack two foes at once ... There are several other legendary cards, but they all possess qualities that more common cards don't.
It's worth mentioning that Supercell's traditional cartoony art style continues to charm, and the music, while not very varied, well suits the battles. The overtime music especially helps to make long-lasting matches suspenseful.
While "clan" may not be in the title, clans are still an integral part of the game. By joining one, you are able to request for cards every eight hours and donate unwanted duplicates in exchange for gold and EXP. You can also battle your clanmates for fun or for practice. If you ever want to test out a new deck, I'd strongly recommend battling a clanmate rather than the game's A.I. trainers which never seem to execute commonly used strategies and cannot properly prepare you for real matches. The most important part of being in a clan is participating in participating in the weekly Clan Chest event. Every week for three days, your clan must try extra and to desrtor towers in battle in order to level up a chest that opens when the three days are over. A frustrating aspect of the clan system is the lack of a global chat. This means that the only way to recruit people that you don't know personally is to invite
someone you see in a featured replay in the TV Royale section (or hope someone comes across your clan in the clan search.
One of the biggest challenges of Clash Royale is crafting a proper deck. Your deck is limited to eight cards that are shuffled at the start of each game and eventually cycle, and you can hold four in your hand at once. There are countless potential scenarios and statistics you must consider when making a deck, such as the average cost of the cards, how easily they can be countered by commonly used cards, whether they're able to counter other cards, and how many have low and high HP.
The game is fun and balanced for the most part, but sadly, no Supercell game is complete without pay to win elements. Users can purchase gems to pay for upgrades when they have insufficient gold or instantly unlock chests, as well as buy chests in the shop have a high chance of containing rarer cards. Because of this, I occasionally encountered players that were level 11, which requires an absurb amount of EXP, or who had level 3 legendary cards. To put this into perspective, I have played this game for dozens of hours and have only aquired four total legendary cards - two Miners and two Logs. Upgrading an individual legendary card to level 3 requires six.
Minor balance issues, frustrations , and mildy repetitive gameplay aside, Clash Royale is as well made and entertaining as a mobile game gets. Strategy fans will love it, and even if you dislike Supercell, it's definitely worth a shot.
Ups
Strategic gameplay
Great visuals and music
Tons of cards to collect
Clans are very helpful
Downs
Microtransactions mess with balance
Recruiting clanmates is difficult
Mildy repetitive gameplay
ESRB: N/A Content: N/A Price: $0.00 (Download)
This spinoff of CoC abandons Supercell's consumer-unfriendly format in favor of a more simple concept: Two players draw cards to place troops on the battlefield in hopes of getting them to their opponents side and destroying their three towers. These cards cost a certain amount of elixir which you can only hold onto a limited amount of at once and slowly regenerates over time. At the end of each three-minute match, the player who has destroyed more enemy towers wins. The match ends early if someone's primary tower is wrecked and goes into overtime if the game is tied, at which point the next person to wreck an enemy tower wins instantly.
After completing a very easy tutorial in which you battle against the A.I., you are given several cards to start off with and then must face others players. There are nearly 70 different cards you can collect and battle with including troops, buildings, and spells. Clash of Clans players will be familiar with many of these, such as the skeleton-summoning Witch, the Mr. T lookalike the Hog-Rider, the mighty cyborg-ninja known as P.E.K.K.A., and the fast-firing X-Bow. My favorite newcomers include the Musketeer, and markswoman armed with a long-range cannon; the Elite Barbarians, a pair of warriors that are stronger and speedier than the normal barbarians; and the Executioner, who is capable of hitting the same enemies multiple times by using his axe as a boomerang.
As with Clash of Clans, you gain trophies from winning battles and lose them when you're defeated. CoC's leagues have been substituted with ten arenas whose trophy requirements get higher and higher as you advance. Each arena has a variety of cards you can unlock from chests, which are also won from battle. This is where the free-to-play mechanics rear their ugly head; These chests contain cards and gold and take from three to 24 hours to unlock. If you collect enough duplicates of a card, you can upgrade it with gold. The higher the level of the card, the more duplicates and coins you need to upgrade it again. Upgrading cards earns you experience points, and leveling up increases the health of and damage dealt by your towers. These cards also vary in rarity; they can be common, rare, epic, or legendary. Rarity doesn't necessarily determine quality, but the legendaries tend to be the most unique. For example, the princess can attack towers from beyond their range, the Log is the only card that can knock back ground units, the Electro Wizard can attack two foes at once ... There are several other legendary cards, but they all possess qualities that more common cards don't.
It's worth mentioning that Supercell's traditional cartoony art style continues to charm, and the music, while not very varied, well suits the battles. The overtime music especially helps to make long-lasting matches suspenseful.
While "clan" may not be in the title, clans are still an integral part of the game. By joining one, you are able to request for cards every eight hours and donate unwanted duplicates in exchange for gold and EXP. You can also battle your clanmates for fun or for practice. If you ever want to test out a new deck, I'd strongly recommend battling a clanmate rather than the game's A.I. trainers which never seem to execute commonly used strategies and cannot properly prepare you for real matches. The most important part of being in a clan is participating in participating in the weekly Clan Chest event. Every week for three days, your clan must try extra and to desrtor towers in battle in order to level up a chest that opens when the three days are over. A frustrating aspect of the clan system is the lack of a global chat. This means that the only way to recruit people that you don't know personally is to invite
someone you see in a featured replay in the TV Royale section (or hope someone comes across your clan in the clan search.
One of the biggest challenges of Clash Royale is crafting a proper deck. Your deck is limited to eight cards that are shuffled at the start of each game and eventually cycle, and you can hold four in your hand at once. There are countless potential scenarios and statistics you must consider when making a deck, such as the average cost of the cards, how easily they can be countered by commonly used cards, whether they're able to counter other cards, and how many have low and high HP.
The game is fun and balanced for the most part, but sadly, no Supercell game is complete without pay to win elements. Users can purchase gems to pay for upgrades when they have insufficient gold or instantly unlock chests, as well as buy chests in the shop have a high chance of containing rarer cards. Because of this, I occasionally encountered players that were level 11, which requires an absurb amount of EXP, or who had level 3 legendary cards. To put this into perspective, I have played this game for dozens of hours and have only aquired four total legendary cards - two Miners and two Logs. Upgrading an individual legendary card to level 3 requires six.
Minor balance issues, frustrations , and mildy repetitive gameplay aside, Clash Royale is as well made and entertaining as a mobile game gets. Strategy fans will love it, and even if you dislike Supercell, it's definitely worth a shot.
Ups
Strategic gameplay
Great visuals and music
Tons of cards to collect
Clans are very helpful
Downs
Microtransactions mess with balance
Recruiting clanmates is difficult
Mildy repetitive gameplay
ESRB: N/A Content: N/A Price: $0.00 (Download)
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