That isn't to say it isn't a fun game. As mobile games go, this one is one of the better ones that I have seen and I gave it a bit of time to get a full feel for it. While the game itself is quite fun and will run on even crappy phones like mine, ultimately it ends up in the same place that so many other city building mobile games end up in where they try to trick you into spending money on the game.
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This game will be very familiar to people that have ever played any mobile games in that it combines the "match 3 or more" that was in Candy Crush and many others, it has city building aspects that are based on resources and time, and they also threw in a combat section that is somewhat like a variety of the collectible card game genre.
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The battle section of this game is where it really shines. Not only do you need to match the gems in a certain way to make the best possible attack, but you also have to consider the strength and weaknesses of whatever element you are up against. In the picture above all the enemies are green so you will need to match reds in order to do the most damage. If you use blue (ice, I presume) this is actually a weak attack. So there is much more to consider than just whether or not any of the available gems match up. you will notice that each of my own characters, on the bottom, have a color affiliated with them as well. Every time you match up some gems that is within their element, it charges up their mana and they will then be capable of performing a special move. Most of these are attack in nature, but there are others that are healing and buffs and debuffs.
It's all actually quite complicated and there are a lot of ways to win and lose.
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The city or base management side of it is similar to many other games like it that I have tried in the past. Your farms and mines get you resources that are necessary for upgrading units, buildings, well basically anything. Then there are storage areas that increase your maximum capacity of these things. It all works like you think it would and without keeping this upgraded to the maximum - and I have no idea what the max actually is - you will not be able to progress.
So far this game is actually a lot of fun, but unfortunately, just like any other "free" game out there, the honeymoon ends rather quickly.
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After a while the build times or upgrade times become outrageously long and as you would expect, you can completely bypass the wait if you just spend a few gems. Gems actually can be found in regular gameplay but if that was the only method you used it would take you many years to save up enough of them for them to actually be useful. I think it is a requirement in some countries that the acquisition of in-game currency must be obtainable by only playing the game. They have made this technically possible, but nobody is going to put in the time necessary for that to happen. The idea is that you open your wallet in order to continue playing.
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Also, as you get through the intro stages the only available places to go for fights end up being much more than your team can possibly achieve victory in and this is when the game advises that you spend time on upgrading your heroes and training them. This is an excruciatingly long process and of course, you can just bypass all of that and simply buy superhero characters for a few dollars.
There are so many elements of microtransactions in this game and it is the most that I have ever seen in any game to be honest. I NEVER engage in microtransactions because I hate them. However, by speaking to the people I know that introduced me to Empires and Puzzles, they spend around $5 a month on this. They know people that spend hundreds of dollars of month though and to me, that is just crazy-sauce.
The developers do a wonderful job of luring you in and teaching you the basics but after a couple of hours of gameplay you are going to quickly realize that the only way to victory in this game is to shell out real world money. I get it, they are a company and they have to make money, but as far as obvious pay-to-win games are concerned, this one is one of the worst I have ever seen.
Overall Opinion
This is actually quite a fun and nicely designed game. However, the maze of microtransactions ruins everything after the first couple of hours of play. I'd stay away from this one if I were you.