Heavenstrike Rivals Release, Review

Heavenstrike Rivals, a game for Android and iOS about which we posted a while back, was finally made available to everyone yesterday. Described as "a cool mix of Tactical RPG and Trading Card Game," Heavenstrike Rivals (or Leavenstrike Ribalds) is free-to-play with in-game transactions and a PvP mode. From now until March 4th, players will have double the chance of obtaining "extra rare" and "legendary" units.

Well, given that it's free to play after all, I decided to check it out for myself. Let me first say that the coolest thing about this game is the wonderful art design for the Heavenstrike Rival's many units.


(My rarest unit is apparently last year's Corn Palace Queen)

The game is very accessible. Computer opponent difficulty increases gradually, with a soft learning curve to start. Combat basics are pretty easy to pick up, and battles, while not brief, don't tend to take too long. The game's story advances a few sentences of dialogue at a time, inserted between campaign battles, but you'll be spending most of your time on a 3x7 grid.


(I'm the guy with the festive scarf)

While the Heavenstrike Rivals seems simple at a glance, there's a surprisingly large amount of tactical options available. This is in large part due to the wide range of units available, whose usefulness can vary considerably depending on which other units you have on the grid and each unit's location relative to the others. Due to the fact that the units available to you each turn are selected randomly (the card game aspect) from a team of up to 15 units, even repeated battles against the same opponent tend to feel fresh. Tides can turn quickly in battle as well: if multiple units are defeated in one turn, you have that many more mana points for summoning new units.

That isn't to say there are no kinks in the system: in the three hours I've played, I've had two half-minute freezes and one crash. The folks over at Square Enix and Mediatonic are continuing to work out bugs - as well as add content like the "daily quest" - on a regular basis.


(Alright then.)

The icing on the cake is that Heavenstrike doesn't (at least not yet) harass you about spending real-world money. I have to say, Heavenstrike has definitely hooked me. It's simple enough to sneak in a quick battle any time, but with enough complexity - I haven't even gotten into items, training, or promoting - to make a unique game experience. I recommend it for anyone - even a relative newcomer to the genre like myself - who wants a tactical mobile experience that captures Square Enix's recent (delightful) mobile art style.

Source: Square Enix Blog