By Zach Goodier
This is an Android game that involves actively completing
quests and collecting cards, all in the hopes of building the strongest
"decks" you possibly can.
These decks consist of sets of up to 5 cards that allow you to compete
with the rest of the player community for top spots in the rankings. You can also pay money in exchange for
currency that can be used in-game to purchase premium card packs in order to
obtain many of the rarest cards. While
you are never forced to purchase these card packs, if you want any real hope of
getting that extremely rare card you're looking for, then you'll more than
likely end up having to cough up the dough in order to get them, but even then
there's no guarantee you'll get the ones you want, so you'll have to be ready
to keep coughing up for them.
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| [Fallen Angel] Lucifer has never looked better, in my opinion. |
Now for the cards themselves. The
cards have 3 basic types: Man, Gods, and Demons. These types don't really have any special
relationship to each other, although many cards tend to base their abilities
around boosting or limiting stats for a particular type. The cards are well made in terms of providing
quality artwork that you would enjoy.
While the artwork is more akin to anime and manga than real life, the
detail put in is on par with what you would expect of well-drawn anime
characters. Cards have various rarities
and attack and defensive power, and not only do they all have individual
abilities that can turn the tide in battles, but they can be evolved to make
them even stronger. On top of your evolution
system, they include an "enhancement" system that provides even
further capacity for improvement in your cards.
Enhancing involves sacrificing cards to boost another's
"maturity." Higher rarity cards can be enhanced to higher levels, but
you don't want to wait for a cards final form to enhance it, since max-level
cards used during evolution provide 10% of their attack and defense instead of
the standard 5%. For all the details on
the enhancement/leveling system, visit the Rage of Bahamut wiki page.
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| Here's a sample of how cards can be evolved. |
Players also can take part in events that Mobage holds
regularly, including special quests with cards rewarded to high ranks, and
"Holy War" type events, where players in an order can join a battle
against another order in order to earn points and climb the ranks. These events are always coming out, so
there's a lot of fresh content to bring you back.
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| One of the card sets released involved an "Alice in Wonderland" theme that had some limited-edition cards, like Alice here. |
Players can also participate in a "Bazaar" system
that allows you to join a marketplace that allows you to buy and sell cards to
other players. The going currency is
"Holy Powder," which is hard to come by, but you can get with premium
card packs or for completing chapters in the story quest. If you plan to get a really nice card,
however, you will be saving up for years or spending a lot of money, most likely.
Once you get the hang of things, you can spot good deals, and they are
definitely out there. However, a lot of
players will just keep putting cards out at high prices, hoping someone finally
buys it. I would recommend browsing
around a bit to get an idea of what a card's value is so you don't waste
materials buying an overpriced card.
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| ODIN'S BEARD!!! ...Oh wait, apparently Odin shaved it for this picture. |
Overall, Rage of
Bahamut is an entertaining game for you to participate in during your free
time. While this game definitely wants
you to spend all your hard-earned money on it to get ahead, you don't ever have
to in order to fully participate. My
main reason for discouraging people spending money is that while you may get some good cards in the premium
packs (it's always a gamble), they grow somewhat obsolete once the event they
are released for is over. They have
abilities that tie into the event, but once the event is over their ability
only qualifies in a reduced capacity.
For example, a rare card may give "big boost to damage against
*insert event boss here*/ medium boost to damage against regular
bosses." Obviously, the card isn't
useless after the event, but there is always pressure to keep buying. I would recommend you just pull out your
phone 2 or 3 times a day when you have a break or need to kill time and you
should rank high enough to earn premium card packs without having to pay for
them. Sure, it will likely take a while
to get any good cards, but you won't have to pay for them. While I would definitely recommend this to a
friend, I still have to caution you against getting sucked in by the pitfalls
of the "free to play, pay to win" mechanics the game puts forward.
Also, you get bonuses for referring players to the
game. Mine is "dfp32559," so
tell them I sent you and we can both get some nifty bonuses, like rare cards
and you can eventually get an "SR card," which is hard to come by.
Good:
-Entertaining
game for when you have some time to kill.
-Cards
are beautifully drawn, with plenty of anime-inspired character designs.
-Events
keep you coming back to enjoy special cards and quests that keep the game
feeling relatively fresh.
Bad:
-"Free
to play, pay to win" mechanic means that while you can jump in for free,
the game is always pressuring players to start paying for new cards and items.
-It's a
mobile game, meaning that while the cards have nice illustrations, there is
little else visually to draw you in.
Scully
Rating: 8.5 out of 10