Earlier this week, I had the opportunity to attend a presentation given by the Berlin team of the Korean studio Com2uS. This European branch takes care of the localization of the games, but also the management of the community and the marketing operations in many languages, including French! Moreover, after an introduction in English, the majority of the presentation took place in French, even if the questions ended in English!
If you like to play on mobile, the Summoners War license will certainly not be unknown to you. Sky Arena is still a very popular game, even seven years after its release, and is able to attract new players thanks to the constant addition of content and activities. Lost Centuria, which I'm going to talk to you about today, is not intended to replace Sky Arena, but to broaden the audience by allowing other types of players to be reached, although of course regulars will also be happy. to combine the two, and thus be able to find emblematic characters of the universe.
The story is pretty simple: a big bad guy named Kadugan is out to take over the world and it's up to the friendly heroes to stop him. Clearly, this is not what makes the strength of the title, but rather its gameplay which combines several aspects, tested and approved by other successful titles. The concept is therefore quite simple: each player forms a team made up of eight monsters and three spells. Thanks to cards, following the usual system of creating decks, these monsters obtain powers, each linked to a cost in mana. Mana is automatically regained over turns. The key is direct damage, improvements, or area damage or negative effects. The objective is therefore to use his cards in the right order to maximize the effectiveness of the monsters and win the battle. Good control management is essential because if a monster is stunned, frozen or silenced, its cards will become unusable!
You should know that the monsters are all affiliated with one of the five elements: wind, fire, water, light and darkness. The first three face each other in a rock/paper/scissors system, while light and darkness are directly opposed. Of course, the goal is to use everyone's weaknesses, in order to maximize the effects (water extinguishes fire...). A counter system is in place, requiring you to press your cards and spells at the right time to reduce or even completely cancel the effects of an opponent's spell (the simplest example is raising a shield to avoid to take damage). The monsters are positioned in two lines, four on the front line and four on the back line. Of course, the big guys go in front, and the skinny healers behind, even if it's far from being so simple in reality! The eight slots are numbered, an order that is important because spells will target the first, the last, or the two closest... Five formations can be configured to switch from one to the other and adapt to the opponent, with for each a calculation linked to the mana cost and the estimated overall power.
Everything is won, cards like monsters, with a fairly classic principle of rarity (gray, green, purple/epic and orange/legendary). As the levels progress, it increases the life points, the attack points, or the defense points. The improvement of the cards is possible by having several copies of the same one, with an exponential difficulty (it takes more and more similar cards to improve them). Runes buff monsters, with a maximum of 3 per monster. Owning a set (3 runes of the same style, attack or defense, provides an additional bonus). To be able to do all this, in addition to the materials, you need a currency, which is recovered by doing all the activities of the game. Hard to say if it is necessary to go to the cashier to benefit from it, or if the activities in game are enough for patient players (because yes, of course, there are microtransactions and a shop).
Strategic and competitive, Summoners War: Lost Centuria is mainly oriented towards PvP, with matches lasting around two minutes (beyond that, monsters lose life every second, which quickly leads to the end of the fight) . To make matters worse, it is not possible to see the spells chosen by the opponent, just their monsters, which can lead to surprises! Especially since the players are put in relation according to the level, and therefore the teams which compete are of relatively similar power. You will have to know how to choose your monsters and spells carefully to win and above all, as I said above, use counters and controls to the maximum.
But PvE players won't be bored either, I think. Already, they will be able to send their monsters on missions (which last two hours on average, and which do not prevent the monster from remaining available for other content). These quests, which can be picked up at the mission office, allow you to bring back very useful materials to help your team progress, such as dust or mana gems. Otherwise, there are scenarios, which take you to discover the story, with unique rewards (no need to repeat these missions in a loop except to test a new formation) and the usual star rating. To have three stars, you have to win the fight, keep at least half of your monsters alive, and above all win within the time limit. Sociable players will be able to join forces with friends in alliances (= guilds) which bring together up to fifty players, with an internal chat. A system is in place to also facilitate the exchange of cards between players. Finally, daily quests invite players to return each day, with twelve short objectives (eight are needed to obtain the 100 gift gems). Finally, bonuses lead to returning to hunt the bosses of each zone with, as a result, daily rewards.
Visually very pretty, Summoners War: Lost Centuria does not innovate by its systems but offers a rather coherent whole which should keep its players occupied for a good while. My main reservation comes from the counter system, which requires having a good internet connection, and which risks penalizing the game between players from very distant regions of the world. The studio has assured me that the systems in place are able to manage the encounters in a good way, and that it is completely playable in 3G or 4G, it will then be necessary to see how the game behaves over time. Moreover, having often played this type of game in the past, I wonder about the renewal in the eternal race for power. Because, in the end, it comes down to the same thing: having the best team to increase its level of power, and climb the ladder of the league. It's fun at first, because it's all very fast, and the build-up is quick and obvious. But, often, after a few weeks of always doing the same thing and ending up needing a million units of a very rare currency to evolve by two poor power points (knowing that the next level will require even more), you get tired very quickly. Anyway, as far as I'm concerned. Now, the game has only just been released, so it's probably a good time to get started, while there's still room to be made in the sun!
The game is available on the usual mobile platforms:
- Apple App Store
- Google Play
