Mabinogi Duel: G2 Era of Dragons -- an excellent F2P mobile CCG

Wow.  This is some mobile CCG!  Great art, unique cards, deck designer is good, plays well, good strategy.



And bouncing boobs, can't forget those.

Only a few downsides on this awesome game: f2p constant reminder, premium currency, some confusing UI & events, etc.

I wonder if Korea uses lots of coupons, as they are abundant in this game?

Tips:
I'm still a newb, but I've observed a few things of note.
- Try to do the Advanced Challenge daily for both Daily Mission and Draft.  That gets you 5 crystals and "a" card -- however, if you win you get 5 cards to pick from and can spend 6 gems for another pick, so you could wind up with 5 new cards for 30 gems, which is a deal!  Normally boosters cost 30 gems for 5 random cards, or 999 gold for a single.  Of you gather cards this way, you can decide if you want to spend on the cards or pass.  *This is my main way get 3-5* cards.*
- Deal with the Cat Merchant, but don't take his first offer unless you like it.  You can tweak the deal a lot.  Occasionally its a good deal, but often he wants to take a very good card in exchange for junk, so be careful.

I haven't read the boards or gotten too deep in the 'meta gaming' yet, so that's about it.  My current 2 strongest Decks feature a red dragon & a barbarian, but the White deck with a hero that stops people from attacking is my strongest.

I wonder how long I will play Mobinagi?  Join me!  Find REkzkaRZ & we can swap cards!

Magic Puzzle Quest (& Marvel Puzzle Quest)

Ooooh, a new Puzzle Quest!  And it's a blend of Magic: The Gathering (ie MTG) and Puzzle Quest! Made by D3 (makers of Marvel Puzzle Quest) & Wizards of the Coast!  What could go wrong?

This was my thought as I dloaded Magic PQ, somewhat concerned that it might affect my addictive daily playing of Marvel PQ.  Well, I now doubt that, despite the fact that I think Magic PQ is a 3-4* game on track to be a 5* game.  But Marvel PQ already is a 4* game, IMO.

The Good:
Lots of Plainswalkers, lots of cards.  Deck building mechanic.  CCG.  Strategic play.  Looks very nice.

The Bad:
10 card decks?!?  Really?  Meh!  Plainswalkers get first weak power at Lvl 2, next at Lvl 14?!?  Tiles in match-3 game look very similar (esp Blue & Black), esp when a 'support tile' is in play.  While art looks great, not much animation here.  Lots of cards, but can be hard to know what's going on, and I haven't found a 'recap' / log button to see what opponent's action was.  And lastly -- this is an F2P game w/2 currencies, and despite getting both just by playing, clearly the emph is on spending real money for premium currency to buy boosters.  (And I won't be spending anything, most likely.)

My Tips/Tricks:
I'm a newb, but I'm a veteran MTG & Marvel PQ player.  I will likely update these as I play more.

1 - Spend your currency well.  I dropped 50 crystals (premium) to add all Planeswalkers (PW's).  Rationale: the game is new, and I can see their costs soon jumping.  Also, when new PW's arrive, I'm sure they will also cost.  And for deck building, you can't play cards that don't share a color w/your PW.  Sure, I like Green, but also like 'em all.

2 - Get an early booster or two, but then start saving for the rates.  I didn't want all my cards to be 'standard', but my first 2 boosters didn't offer much of anything interesting.  Oh well.  (Update:  got my main Blue PW to Lvl 14 &  bought a few more boosters & got a Black Mythic card.  Frustrating.)

3 - UI Tips:
3a - Deck design is on the Planeswalkers menu.  And, if you are new to Magic, there's a Quick Update option which has the AI do it all for you.  You can also empty  your deck and yoi can Autobuild it with the AI. Not bad!
3b - Support Tiles - to distinguish between your Support Tiles & opponent's in play, the counter will be on that player's side.  The color is the color of the glow (this took me forever to figure out).

4 - Card Selection - During play, check your hand frequently (ie every round!) & strategically rearrange cards.  Also don't forget to use your PW's powers, even if they suck.  And don't mana-charge up Support Cards that need creatures w/o 1-2 creatures in play.

5 - Cards cycle during play -- you can only have 3 creatures at a time.  Reenforcement is when you play two of the same creature.  If you have 3 creatures in play, reconsider swapping out a monster until the last minute.  Reenforcement of creatures in play is generally better than swapping them out.  Also, you can fully charge creatures and hold them in your hand.

I wish I had more tips, but if you post yours I will happily include them here (and in my gameplay!!).
Thanks!  Happy Holidays!

Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes - Electronic Arts' F2P P2W collectible combat game -- and it sucks

I really want to love this game: I love Star Wars, Jedi Knights, the Force, Lightsabers, Yoda, etc.  But this Star Wars game is disappointing -- just like all the other mobile Star Wars games (KOTOR the exception).

Gameplay is too simplistic: make your 5x light side and 5x dark side team, move them through pre-set levels for loot -- upgrade components, training bots, shards of other characters, either of 2 currencies, experience points (for the player level), and watch dull repetitive animations endlessly repeat in actionless (ie dull) combats.  There's also a PVP option which is automated, not interactive.

And thats the "game".

There's also a Store where people will spend real money on premium currency, or premium currency on "card draws".

And then upgrading -- you can upgrade to your heart's content!!  Add meaningless gear to heroes to upgrade stats (which you cant see) and enable abilities which are level based.  And later (at level 28?) you can enhance abilities with more loot items.

But you don't really guide/change the characters development, what you do is choose which characters to group and which to advance.

Can you tell how disappointed I am in this game?  Yep.  5 star potential, but 2 star implementation.  So sad.

Does ANY of this material actually connect with Star Wars?  The characters & combat backdrops are Star Wars -- and thats it.

All the rest of this is simply a rehash of the uninteresting unadventurous free-to-play formula: a store front surrounded by upgradeable virtual junk with multiple currencies in effect.

Now that I've ripped the game a new one, I can say that the game is attractive, not too slow loading, and unnecessarily 3D (ie the 3d has no relevance to the game).  After hours of playing, I would suspect some finer strategic aspects become more relevant.