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[XBLA/PSN] Clash of Heroes: Puzzle-RPG goodness, imma chargin' my deer
Lunker
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Who: Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes
What: A fantastic turn-based puzzle/RPG hybrid that was one of the best DS games of 2009, and now has new life on the 360 and PS3 with online play.
Where: XBLA and PSN, for $15 / 1200 spacebucks
When: Right now!
Why is this a Might & Magic game: I don't really know, but it's such a great puzzle game that it doesn't really matter what the story is.
My love of Capybara and the original DS version of Clash of Heroes knows no bounds, and now it's out on XBLA and PSN with all-new 2D art assets and online play! Even if you don't care one whit about the Might & Magic universe, or the art doesn't really do anything for you, if you have any love for Puzzle Quest, Dungeon Raid or the slew of other puzzle/RPGs that have cropped up recently, you absolutely need to try this game.
I've described the game prior as a blend of the following:
Tetris Attack/Panel de Pon: You've got very classic match-3 gameplay going on here, but there's a large emphasis on chaining moves together into combinations of matches. Clash of Heroes is turn-based, so you have a limited number of moves per turn to methodically line up and knock out combinations. Create vertical sets of units to attack your opponent, and horizontal sets of units to build walls for defense.
Meteos: The game is set up as a series of 1v1 duels, and the goal is to knock out your opponent's HP. You do this by creating attacks, which launch up at your opponent's screen above after a set number of charging turns. Each different unit has different stats (attack, defense, charge time, special qualities, etc.).
Magic the Gathering: In addition to the conceit of the game being 1v1 duels, you can choose from a stable of characters and character factions, each of whom has different types of units. You can customize your "deck" of units to fit your playstyle, in addition to finding and equipping relics in the single-player campaign that give you bonus abilities.
It's an incredibly deep and complex puzzle-battling game with a decently sized single-player campaign, and the fact that there's online play fulfills one of the major wishes I had about the DS original.
Gameplay demonstration
So go buy it! And come play it with me! I picked up the XBLA version, but both of them have online play.
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Fun times.
My only gripe so far is I really don't like the red and blue selection squares. I feel they could have done something more thematically suited and with some visual affect that matches the polish in the rest of the game. This really is a minor annoyance though and I'm having a lot of fun without this being as overly fiddly as I find most unit management games.
I want to know more PA people on Twitter.
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/gaspode_t TwitPic: http://twitpic.com/photos/gaspode_t
Steam ID : rwb36, Twitter : Werezompire,
Has anybody compiled a list of all the unit/artifact/ability changes? The artifacts that were good for each faction were really different, and greatly changed the way you'd play... but there were a bunch of artifacts that just plain sucked. The Academy's Gauntlet needs to break at least one game rule to be cool, but hey, a lot of the artifacts are about breaking game rules. Some of the units also sucked for no good reason (2/3s of Academy's core units are terrible!), while others were somewhat outrageous (Unicorns....).
Also, the annoying anime art looks annoying because it looks like a less awesome Avatar. :P
Depends on the level, but there's usually a place where 'random' monsters spawn and you can hit B to avoid it or let the battle happen. I'm going to go out on a limb and say you're on the human campaign. Right when you get to the bar, you're given a crap load of high-level contracts with low level dudes. You're best off continuing the story then backtracking but if you don't want to do that, you can go back to where you had to 'dodge' the guards and random encounters happen there now.a
Most 'cave' areas have random encounters too should you not be stuck there.
When any unit is charging, it gains health/damage. Priest units (chicks with staves) while charging give health to your opponent's life. Angels (4 square large chicks with swords) while charging regenerate health to all friendly units. Not sure which you meant
In the beginning, you can go into practically any cave I believe and find random encounters. Just run back n forth.
Steam ID : rwb36, Twitter : Werezompire,
I just finished the elf campaign, and compared to the DS original, I have to admit that I like the pixel-art graphics better. I'm not trying to be indier-than-thou, but legitimately, the sprite art just had more charm to it, plus from a functional standpoint I think it did a better job of differentiating units, plus colors (the deer and unicorn both make it quite difficult to differentiate between blue and green). And the loading is definitely a step down from the handheld version.
The art is debatable and the story is pretty loltastic, but the core gameplay is still as fantastic as I remember! I agree that not a lot of the game is really described well at first -- I forget if it was any better in the original. Re: customization, don't forget that you don't have to use all three of the common units; I never bother with the sprites in the elf campaign, so I prefer rolling with two archers and the bear, along with the deer and unicorn as my two elite units.
Some other general gameplay tips that I can recall:
- In terms of defense, sometimes it's actually better to leave your common units idle rather than trying to create stacks to attack. E.g., if you're trying to defend against an attack next turn, and your bear units each have a toughness of 3, if you link them together I think they start with an attack power of 6 or so. This is less than if you left them un-charged (3 bears at 3 each = defense value of 9).
- On the other hand, when you have elite and champion units, try to get them charged as fast as possible before the enemy attacks them; no matter their toughness rating, if they get even scraped by a single point of damage when they're idle, they are killed and you lose one from your total stock. This also means you should try to break through defenses and take out enemy elites/champions before they can get charged.
- Linking and fusing are a huge boon. Linking is when you create attack stacks that will end at the same time (the "charge time" numbers match), and you can do this with any unit so long as they're the same color. So if you have a green deer charging with 2 turns left, and you can line up 3 green archers (1 turn charge time), wait until the next turn: the deer will go down to 1 turn left, you stack your archers, and they'll link to the deer. But to link, the colors have to match; charging 3 green archers and 3 blue archers in the same turn doesn't give you any attack boosts.
- Fusing is kind of hard to do in the elf campaign, since your units have such short charge times; it's easier in the human campaign, as units are slower to attack but are stronger and have more defense. These have to be the same color and the same unit type, but you can also fuse elite units (which is awesome). I don't know if you can fuse champions, but that shit would be crazy!
- Don't forget that you can delete your own walls to create space and make unit chains. It's also the key to solving the first puzzle battle! Sometimes making too many walls will be a pain in the ass, since you have fewer units to attack with and you'll start to shrink your field of play.
Good bye crummy sprites! Hello slow but powerful bears!
Steam ID : rwb36, Twitter : Werezompire,
After i unlock some of the units in campaign ill be up for some multiplayer (on xbox).
Nintendo ID: Pastalonius
Smite\LoL:Gremlidin \ WoW & Overwatch & Hots: Gremlidin#1734
3ds: 3282-2248-0453
Their special ability lets them jump over a single wall. You can move them like any other unit, meaning if they're on bottom of the screen you can click and drag it. It's 2 units long though so if there's only 1 'space' left you won't be able to move it to that square. In order to use them, you need to drop 2 of the same color basic unit behind them. Deer colors can be difficult to tell apart so make sure it's the right color.
There should of been a tutorial or something for that when you first get them.
There is, and the fact that I can click and drag means I no longer hate them. If you "erase" them to make space, they die. So I had Deer I couldn't use just sitting there endlessly. The fact that I can click and drag changes things by far.
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/gaspode_t TwitPic: http://twitpic.com/photos/gaspode_t
Godric's campaign does feel a little more difficult in this version; I feel like they toned down how strong spearmen were, which is probably better because they were pretty bananas (they get first strike, so as long as you're not going against a wall it's pretty easy to rip through an entire column).
Did they nerf spearmen? If they did, it's not significant. I recall them being charge 3 in the DS version with weak defense (2) and that seems to be the case here. The spear artifact that gives them first strike against walls is amazing. I pretty much exclusively used 3x spearmen + that artifact for campaign. Anything that wasn't a charging champion/elite, stacked wall, or idle champion dies. Very powerful when linked/fused.
Unicorns were nerfed incredibly hard. I pretty much don't like any of the sylvan champion/elite units. Deer are alright but everything else was nerfed (unicorn, druid, dragon) or sucked anyway (treant ;[). The wraith for the undead was nerfed really hard too. It's like 15 damage at rank 1 or something ridiculous. It's not even worth using. The death knight is so much better now though. Pure zombies + poison artifact + death knights is incredibly strong.
I'm on the demon campaign now and I wish they buffed some of their units
Ghosts make the first one not that hard, but I really can't figure out how to get through the three titans versus nerfed elf one. Go grind all units? I know I must have done this once before, since I finished the DS version, but any advice would be appreciated.
I thought that the Haven side had two of the most fun artifacts in the crown that allowed you to reinforce for free, and the Dwarven Hammer that allowed you to delete walls for free. The amount of free action that those gave the slow-charging Haven units really let you feel like you were building up a huge army that your opponent just had to stare at in terror.
The huge nerf to Wraiths sounds a little much. Or maybe they just really want to make sure that you play Wraiths with the Spider Cloak, and turn them into a total all-or-nothing strategy.
What's the change to the death knight? In the original he was one of the champions that had no special ability and just big dmg, I think.
I just hope that they did something to make you want to use the Demon side's champions. Between the Nightmare's, the whip artifact that makes them charge at full power, and the Sorcerors, I never wanted to use the champions.
Unicorns and Druids were the way to go for me in the DS one. It's pretty hard to hit all the champions with more than 2 rounds of attacks before they attack, so the next best thing is to stall them with Druids and get up a Unicorn shield. If you could get two Unicorn shields going at once, whatever actually makes it through is going to be much, much weaker... except that in the HD version, I don't know how much the unicorn shield has been nerfed (it was nuts in the DS version!).
Yeah, crown is still around but dwarven hammer is out. Crown is still a solid choice, but linked spearmen are just a FORCE. You basically have to treat them as mini-elite units and the normal tactics of dealing with small units (walls/idle units) doesn't work unless you stack those walls. Very annoying to deal with.
Also a quick tip for people playing: Idle units will (generally) absorb more damage than charging ones. Example, say you have 4 skeletons in a row and could delete 1 to make a formation. If the opposing side has an already charging formation that'll attack next turn, you'll absorb more damage by *not* making a formation. 4 skeletons at level 5 = 12 points of durability. Charging skeletons start at like 6? I think.
Spider cloak got nerfed too. Instead of just draining 75% of your health, it actually lowers your max HP by 75% so no more 'uber vampire' nonsense. Probably for the best.
He absorbs enemy charging formations (at random) for 5 points of damage (at level 5 IIRC). Over 6 (?) turns charging, this gives him 30 more damage. Zombie poison + artifact already deals 6 damage a tick (and STACKS for every zombie formation that hits) and you can shut down your enemies big stacks like nobodies business. You get 2 death knights charging with zombie poison spread around and it becomes stupid hard for the enemy to do anything besides make walls.
Kind of but not really
Game has the same addictive factor for me that Puzzle Quest had. Swore I would get through Dead Space this time around, and now it's back on the shelf until I'm done with this.
Loading times are horrid and long. walk out of a map, get mentally sidetracked while the game loads, and then when I appear I walk right back out of the map again
Game is fantastic. Can't wait until I have all my heroes and units maxxed out. Then I can go play online and get my ass kicked there.
Still learning stuff, love the trial and error curve. I think I finally figured out the game during the last Elven fight, and now I'm handed all new units to work with.
IIRC, in the DS version the unicorn protected the entire front row -- now, they only protect the two columns adjacent to the unicorn. They're still very powerful as a defensive wall, but you have to just place them more effectively now. Plus, the knights for the Humans don't automatically start with their full HP/attack value, but instead they have a shield that protects them from all damage up to half of their max HP. (There is a new artifact that does give knights their "full HP on first turn" ability back, though, so combining that with their new shield is pretty bananas!)
Actually, your single-player experience and levels don't carry over to the multiplayer -- it levels out everything in terms of HP and such, although you apparently have to find the single-player artifacts and each faction's secret unit before you can use them in multiplayer.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OszBB74KnBI
More questions (haven't got my console with me, so I can't play the game
- Is the Spider Cloak attack bonus still 100%?
- Is Anwen's arrow still strong enough to pull BS wins with the Phoenix Feather?
- Have they done something, ANYTHING to make the non-Gremlin core units of Academy worth using?
- The Demon side's core units were an interesting mix, but eventually I found that I was always using 3x Hellhounds. Any changes to them?
- Can the Academy's Gauntlet pick up walls that aren't exposed in their column? If it could do that, I think it would be really cool, but it couldn't do that in the DS version, and consequently it sucked.
- Is there more incentive for the Elves to use Pixies? Both of the elf heroes had powers that I almost always used right away, and so I never used Pixies.
Sad to hear that the Demon walls still suck.
Removal of the dwarven hammer is also unfortunate... it was awesomely powerful, but in the face of lunacy like the Spider Cloak, it felt perfectly fine.
1- It's less, I want to say 75% but it might be 90%.
2- Nope. It's broken up into 3 arrows (1 per row) now and it's damage might be nerfed some too.
3- Unsure as Mortal Kombat has interrupted my last chapter play of this game :[
4- Imps don't drain mana anymore, they explode in a small aoe which I found pointless. I used 2x hellhounds and the horned demon (mostly for it's 3 defense and higher attack).
5- See 3 :[
6- Their base damage is lower but their damage based on magic has increased a lot. I still ended up going 2x hunter/1x bear
I disagree about Aiden's walls and spell, by the way; he's the most offense based character in the game, and shouldn't really have walls in the first place. Having them really makes things difficult, especially while you're trying to get as many Nightmares as possible charging. His spell is perfect for that; makes room to move, and clears the enemy field a bit.
One piece of advice if anyone else gets stuck the same way -- I missed an artifact in Aiden's campaign because the Bounty Hunter failed to indicate he needed to talk to me one last time.
I find it funny that it's clearly still adapted for a tall screen rather than widescreen, but I guess rotating everything by 90 degrees would have forced them to redraw all graphics... but it would have been worth it, imo, and would have made me buy the game a second time for multiplayer.
Hey, I repped the game pretty hard when it came out on DS.
If you're building walls for any reason other than extra turns or clearing out a color jumble, I'd argue you're playing Aiden wrong. He's got the weakest walls to discourage you from using them the way you've been trained to do. You will probably make a few if you've got an eye for combing at all, but you're doing so to make more units/make room for reinforcements, and getting to clear those out with an offensive blast was really welcome.
I don't think I really worked that out on the DS version, either; after two characters where walls were a huge part of the playstyle I just kept stubbornly making them. But this time around I focused on ratcheting up the damage done, and had a much easier time of it. The megapimp demon in the bar (with a succubus on either arm) is that damn hard for a reason; he's showing you how effective all out attacking can be with demon units.
Love this game; wish they'd make an iOS version.