If deck-builders like Hearthstone and Magic: The Gathering depart you chilly, you’ll be glad to know that there are less complicated and extra accessible methods of constructing a deck than the standard CCG or RPG routes.
Guardian Chronicle takes the core deck-building idea – buying items with totally different skills and utilizing them to create balanced groups – and applies it to the gloriously arcadey tower protection style.
There are many items – or Guardians – to gather and level-up, loads of tiers and kinds to handle, loads of busywork to do between rounds. However the fight itself is unusually quick, frenetic, and addictive.
It really works like this: you’ve bought a camp to defend, on the finish of an extended, snaking trench. Monsters march alongside this trench in waves, with bosses thrown in too, and it’s worthwhile to maintain them again for so long as you possibly can – or a minimum of, longer than the opposite man.
The battlefield is split up into segments, into which you’ll be able to drag your Guardians everytime you’ve bought sufficient Lanic – the sport’s power system – to deploy them. For each monster you kill you earn a bit extra Lanic, which means you’ll at all times be capable of get Guardians onto the battlefield so long as you’re killing monsters.
Guardians seem randomly in a line throughout the underside of the display screen, and the one on the entrance is the one you deploy.
At any time when you may have two Guardians of the identical sort and degree on the display screen, in the meantime, you possibly can fuse them collectively – however as a substitute of changing into a better tier model of the identical Guardian, they change into a tiered up model of the following Guardian in line.
This clearly has main tactical implications, since totally different Guardians do totally different jobs and, for those who’ve been taking part in correctly, they’re the place they’re for a cause.
You quickly study that it’s not at all times greatest to go for the tier improve right away – although fusing Guardians additionally helps you to change the composition of your defensive array in helpful methods typically, similar to when a boss is heading in the direction of a weak part of your defenses.
Guardians are available 4 differing types – defensive, attacking, assist, and development – and there are dozens to gather. You’ll be able to have 5 in every deck, plus your Grasp, and 5 decks in complete, supplying you with loads of scope to construct decks for each conceivable scenario.
The Good
The Good
Guardians Chronicle is extra accessible than most deck-builders, and that’s straightforwardly a great factor so far as we’re involved. Whereas all the same old style parts are there, similar to summoning, claiming rewards, incomes achievements, finishing quests, levelling characters up with gold, and so forth, the primary occasion is the quick, sharp tower protection rounds.
Every match tends to be pretty shut, too, supplying you with loads of motivation to drop again into the foyer after a defeat, level-up every little thing which you could, see what rewards you’ve bought ready for you in your inbox, tweak your deck, and bounce again in for an additional attempt.
Guardian Chronicle isn’t fundamental by any means, nevertheless it leaves you to find its depths at your individual tempo, as you poke round in search of methods to tip the scales in your favor.
By the point you end up memorizing the relative deserves of Aqualop versus Icing, you’re prepared – and you bought there at your individual tempo.
As such, this may be an amazing gateway sport to the card-battling world.
The Unhealthy
The Unhealthy
Like numerous smartphone technique video games earlier than it, Guardian Chronicles suffers from restricted display screen real-estate. Nonetheless spindly your fingers, and nevertheless eager your eyesight, it’s powerful to maintain monitor of the Guardians you may have within the subject when the motion begins to warmth up.
In desperation, we ceaselessly resorted to only holding a finger down on a Guardian to see whether or not a fusible counterpart would gentle up, which undermines any illusions we had about our tactical supremacy.
The shortage of single-player can be a downer. Whereas we had been at all times capable of finding a sport in each Aggressive and Co-op modes, for those who can’t get on-line you possibly can’t play the sport. It’s arduous to see how that’s a great factor.
The Verdict
The Verdict
Guardian Chronicle is a promising prospect for those who’re a tower protection fan, or a comparatively informal technique gamer looking out for a recent tackle the style.
There’s a pleasant, brisk rhythm to Guardian Chronicle’s gameplay, and it may be very troublesome to place down when you’re simply an improve or a reshuffle away from victory.
It won’t attraction to die-hard followers of Hearthstone and Magic: The Gathering, however for those who’ve by no means seen your self as a deck-building fanatic this could possibly be the sport that proves you unsuitable.
There are 4 lessons in Guardian Chronicle – protection, assist, assault, and development – all with totally different specialties. Attacking guardians are highly effective however uncommon, so protection guardians will make up the majority of your preventing power. Assist and development guardians assist the opposite sorts, with development producing Lanic that will help you deploy extra guardians.
To thrive you’ll not solely have to place your guardians with care throughout battle, for example inserting items that sluggish enemies down close to their spawn factors, adopted by assault or defence guardians, however you’ll additionally want a stable, well-balanced deck.
Every deck has 5 slots, and you may have as much as 5 decks saved. Guardians, in the meantime, come to you thru summoning and opening chests. You’ll get gems, gold, summoning tickets, and extra by finishing quests, bagging achievements, and so forth.
The opposite technique to get gold is by taking part in rounds, and you may spend this on upgrading your guardians and your masters.
The routine of alternating between tower protection rounds and doing the all-important reward-claiming busywork and managing your deck provides Guardian Chronicle an gratifying rhythm, and rounds are so fast that it’s troublesome to withstand leaping in for an additional go.
There are some minor niggles, such because the small measurement of the items on the display screen, which might make it troublesome to work out what’s taking place when the battle heats up. We ceaselessly discovered ourselves holding a finger down on guardians simply to see whether or not a matchable guardian was accessible as a glowing beacon, because it wasn’t straightforward to inform at a look.
And the shortage of a single-player possibility leaves you on the mercy of the servers everytime you desire a sport. We by no means encountered any issues discovering a companion or an opponent, but when you end up offline for any cause you’re caught.
However that’s not a deal-breaker. So long as you’re on-line, it’s arduous to be disillusioned with Guardian Chronicle. It’s free, enjoyable, intuitive, addictive, and deep sufficient that it’ll quietly hold you busy for a very long time.
