We’re pretty big fans of fantasy games over here at Bolt3, given their time-honored penchant to be batshit crazy. (See also: everything about Age of Mythology.) There aren’t that many truly great fantasy games for mobile devices, though, unless you’re rocking the latest Android smartphone and have ten bucks or more to shell out. For most of the unwashed masses, the best options are hunks of freemium nonsense that make Mass Effect 3 look like Mass Effect. What’s a sorcery freak to do?
Enter Summoners War from Korean developers Com2uS. It’s freemium, sure–the usual energy and premium crystal junk is still there–but it doesn’t prevent you from enjoying the game for hours. And we do mean enjoy. You start the game off as a magical monster-summoner with your own floating island, which is totally baller, and must then use mystical scrolls to summon said beasts to battle for your own wizardly purposes. There is nothing about that previous sentence that is not radical to the max.
There’s even a pretty neat storyline, something that most freemium games sorely lack. It’s not particularly deep–there are some mysterious bandits running around and disturbing spirits, and that’s not great; also wizards get into formal duels every day for some reason–but it’s there, which is the important bit. The battling system is not especially original, either, since it’s really just a Pokemon elemental setup with only five elements, but it still manages to have some nuance. More importantly, there are boatloads of monsters to summon, train, and finally Awaken into angelic monsters of pure light and goodness that can stomp all over your opponents’ frail little bodies.
Even better, Summoners War doesn’t make you pay for more energy every five minutes. There are plenty of ways to earn energy back during fights or by completing missions. Of course, Summoners War is also a battery killer writ large. In addition, it requires a persistent data connection, which means we can’t play it during most of the time we have set aside for mobile gaming (that is, on the train to and from work). But still, it’s a real monster of a mobile game–pun definitely intended–and for $Free, you can’t really ask for much better.
For more on Summoners War tips, tricks, and hacks, check out the unofficial Summoners War Guide.
