Whether it be Pokémon, Yu-Gi-Oh, Magic the Gathering, or any other nostalgic theme of trading card game, the majority of us were exposed to at least one of these throughout our childhood.
With the release of Blizzard’s Hearthstone, many gamers are reliving his/her youth through this reincarnation of virtual card games, or simply branching out from an already-executed hobby.
However, an unfamiliar competitor has taken center stage among the fan-favorites of the genre to take a stab at creating an entirely new experience for card game enthusiasts. In my opinion, they’ve succeeded.
Interface
Equipped with a design background, I’m a sucker for aesthetics. That being said, I’d like to take a well-deserved portion of this review to touch on the absolutely beautiful artwork inside Conquest of Champions.
Pictured above, you’ll notice how clean and eye-catching the entire game looks.
Each button and design element throughout the client is crafted perfectly to exert player-friendly usability and, quite possibly, the least confusing interface I’ve ever used before.
(I’d also like to add that the color scheme and font choices are absolutely flawless).
Tutorial
After creating an account, and pressing “play,” to being my journey into the conquest, I was asked to chose one of three factions (explained in-depth below).
The tutorial consisted of 6 phases, each touching on a different portion of the game. I like that the tutorial was broken up into sections so that it’s easy to go back and re-learn a part I was struggling with, without having to re-play the entire tutorial.
Good, But Could Be Better
However, this feature is my only concern. Although this game is impressive in every other aspect, I believe that the tutorial was still a little too short, leaving me slightly confused and, to some extent, it abandoned me to learn for myself.
This game retains a lot of different aspects, and although the gameplay itself is not too complicated, there are a pretty extensive array of features I was still unaware of after the tutorial.
In short, the tutorial definitely needs to be extended in order for players to fully grasp each portion of the game.
Gameplay
It’s safe to say that I’m an avid fan of every facet of this game.
Besides the interface being one of the most user-friendly pieces of necromancy, the game itself is actually fascinating.
I’ve never experienced a game like Conquest of Champions before, in that I feel like I’m playing Chess, Hearthstone, StarCraft, and that random Chess Kombat mini game from Mortal Kombat: Deception (back in 2004) all mashed into one game. I know what you’re thinking, but it’s actually really cool.
Choosing Your Faction
Upon creating a profile, players must being by choosing 1 of the 3 available factions. Among these are the Stonehold (Dwarves and Constructs), Briarwood (Elves, Beasts and Treefolk), and Embercult (Demons and Undead).
I’ve noticed (from other reviews) that many players tend to gravitate towards their World of Warcraft faction, which held true as I chose the Embercult.
Each faction has a different set of class-specific cards, which I enjoyed because it added an aspect of exclusivity to the game.
They also had their own heroes to choose from (2 per class) which added another element of strategy to the game– even if you’re playing against your own faction, you don’t know if your opponent is using the same approach.
Leveling Up
Much like every other game, Conquest of Champions uses a leveling system based on how many games you play.
What’s interesting about this is that you receive card bonuses and rewards as you increase your level, adding another element of strategy outside the actual game board.
While you level up, you can unlock new cards, avatars, starter decks, gold, etc. What I enjoyed was that at the home screen, you are showed a preview of your rewards prior to actually leveling up, giving you motivation to get to a certain level.
Building a Deck
Using Hearthstone as a comparison, I loved how simple and easy the deck builder was to use.
When you mouse over a card in your deck (above) 2 buttons appear, allowing you to either view the card closer or remove it from your deck. When you mouse over a card in your collection, but not in your deck, the same buttons spawn, except to add instead of remove.
Unlike Hearthstone, Conquest of Champions actually allows you significantly more freedom while building your deck, allowing any number of cards from 30-100.
I wholeheartedly support this feature, since I’d rather choose how many cards are in a deck than adhering to restrictions.
The Game Board is Unique
Touching back on the chess comment I made earlier, I really loved the incorporation of this game board into a card game.
To win, players must destroy the enemy’s hero and his/her shrine. Rather than just a card game, now players are expected to move strategically around this board, while collecting minerals, building/destroying mines to produce minerals, deciding card value, and not forgetting to hack your opponent’s pieces to death.
Without going into too much detail, there are various spawn points for your monsters, mines, and other spaces throughout the game board for you to control that enhances your competitive edge.
I’ve never played anything like this before, with so many different elements to pay attention to. Not only do you have to build and harvest minerals in order to spawn creatures and use spells, but you can use them to draw more cards and add more action points to your turn. Action points allow you to move and attack.
With so much to learn, I was a little overwhelmed. However, I really enjoyed
Action Points and Minerals Vs. Mana
Having two separate methods of playing out a turn was a feature I appreciated.
Sometimes you just don’t want to play an overly simplified game, and the extra features and vast methods of how to play out your turn was a very nice breath of fresh air to games like Hearthstone, where a small child banging the keyboard has a shot as winning a few games.
The minerals are based solely on your ability to expand, build, and protect your mines, which is an exciting to stay on top of alongside fighting and destroying your opponents.
Action points stay at a static 10, but with enough minerals to spare, you can add an extra 3 to any turn, giving minerals that much more of a weight to your success.
Again, I love this extra element of complication and strategy, because anything can happen. One game I played where I killed my adversary’s hero within 3 turns. I thought I had it in the bag, but he came back and beat me simply because he sacrificed his hero to gain as much mineral control as he could and eventually overran me.
It’s a very interesting concept which was incredibly alluring to me. I wanted to just keep playing to understand which tactics worked best, which starting hands would work best, etc.
Is it Really Free to Play?
Actually, yes. The currency, gold, is actually a lot more accessible than you’d think, comparatively to most free-to-play games.
There are a multitude of quests on the side of your home screen, including daily quests and simple tasks such as logging in two days in a row.
Rather than give a certain amount a day, another quest appears as soon as you complete one, giving you an endless amount of opportunities for gold, leaving me with the very positive impression that Conquest of Champions actually isn’t out for your money.
While there are options to pay for extra cards, players who aren’t as financially fortunate are able to level up and gain card packs just like anyone else, which definitely earned my respect.
Strategy
Like I stated earlier, there are countless different strategies you can implement in one game, making Conquest of Champions extremely hard to get bored of.
At first I tried rushing in the opponent’s side of the board, treating the game like a tank-and-spank, and quickly realized that a little more planning and effort was required to not get absolutely dumpstered.
After I tried staying back and destroying my enemy’s mines I realized that this game really is all about strategy, and I enjoyed how challenging it was.
All in All, What Makes it Different?
I am so excited to say that this game is like nothing I’ve ever played before.
Besides the compelling graphics and interface, the gameplay is well thought out, and requires quite a bit of intelligence.
Each turn must be planned out accordingly, taking into consideration your own hand, as well as your opponents card-specific attacks and spells.
From someone who was going into this review assuming this game was going to basically resemble other online card games, I was very mistaken. Conquest of Champions is much more complicated (in a good way) which is balanced out by its incredibly user-friendly interface and easy to learn strategies.
My Only Suggestion..
The only gripe I’d like to reiterate is the too-quick tutorial at the beginning of the game. With an optional, extensive tutorial, players who are willing to take the extra time to learn the game a bit more would benefit greatly from a little more information.
Try it Yourself!
To find out more information about Conquest of Champions, which I would highly recommend, you can visit the game’s website.
Along with informational video and content, you can also download the game and try it out for yourself!
Good luck!
