Review: Might & Magic - Clash of Heroes

Puzzle Quest + Pokemon

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CHOICE PICK

9.5

The Good

Fun and addictive match-3 style puzzler gameplay * Great variety of units * Each unit has its personal stats - different HP, strengths and limitations and unique abilities * Hero spells and artifacts add a whole lot to variety and strategy * Rock-paper-scissors concept makes gameplay very exciting * Each of the 5 factions are balanced enough * Very long campaign mode * Pleasing anime-inspired artworks

The Bad

Some characters' hero spells are more useful than others *  Lack of creativity in side quests * Lack of online multiplayer is sorely missed

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At its core, Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes is a match-3-same-colored-units style puzzler. It’s a concept that isn’t necessarily very complex, but fun and addictive enough to continue pulling in the audience through the years as illustrated by the scores of similar games which have come before Clash of Heroes, including the critically acclaimed Puzzle Quest. But what sets this new Might & Magic spin-off apart from the crowded puzzle market is the surprisingly immense depth of strategy offered by the card battler elements built around the core gameplay. Add in a RPG-style story progression and a lengthy campaign mode and what you have here is a unique puzzle-strategy-RPG hybrid – and one of the most intelligent DS productions ever.

Let’s get this off first. Clash of Heroes isn’t simple to grasp at first glance. Thankfully, there’s an elaborate tutorial section to get you up to pace with the basics of the game. A typical battle has you and your army of units on the lower screen and the opponent’s, on the upper screen, both facing each other. Matching 3 same units of the same color horizontally forms a defensive wall while stacking 3 together produces a battle formation which advances upwards on the opponent after a certain number of turns. Forming more than a pair of battle formations with the same unit and same color in a single turn achieves the link attack bonus which causes the affected formations to become slightly stronger. Likewise, if you stack a battle formation that’s exactly the same as the one below it, you attain a fusion attack which causes both formations to fuse with each other to produce a new formation that has twice the health and damage of the original formation. As there’s only a very limited number of moves you can make per turn, Clash of Heroes calls for some very strategic unit placement. A few clever moves could form rows of wall and materialize a handful of battle formations in a single turn – this is especially important when facing off against bosses which have an insane amount of health and a damage output which is equally matching. There’s a very satisfying level of intensity when the objective really is to achieve the most defensive and offensive advantage over your opponent in a single turn as the one who will win the battle is usually the one who manages to be able to quickly finish charging his or her battle formation and attack first.

Being able to attack first is only one part of the equation though. With the introduction of card battler elements, Clash of Heroes delves deeper into tactics than every other DS game. Think of Clash of Heroes as one part Pokemon. Each of the 5 factions here has a great variety of units, and each unit comes with each own HP, strengths and limitations. There are a few similar units between the factions, but ultimately, each of the 90% of the units has their individual unique abilities. Say for instance, a particular unit attacks by throwing his spear over the opponent’s formations so its attack will not be weakened by enemy units which are in his line of sight. Another one has the ability to freeze opponents for a certain number of turns while another’s able to dismantle an opponent’s formation. Even stronger ones absorb the opponent’s units’ health to make its attack more powerful while more defensive-minded players will be sure to take delight in units which heal other friendly units or even your character. All these different stats build up into a very exciting game of rock-paper-scissors where there’s a counter-attack for every attack that your opponent decides to execute. Additionally, there’s a hero spell that can be casted once the spell meter fills up from dealing damage to your opponent or sustaining one yourself. There are a total of 10 varying hero spells spanning across 10 characters from 5 different factions. Some hero spells are offensive while some are more defensive. More tactics come into play when you consider the varying artifacts which can be equipped pre-battle. These artifacts provide you with either a one-off or persistent benefit such as starting a battle with a generous 5 moves for your first turn and empowering all your units to have double the health and damage at the expanse of your character’s very low HP respectively. All said and done, there’re plenty of options for whichever playing style you prefer.

Fortunately, there’s some really impressive work in maintaining a balance between all the factions when it comes to battle despite the huge variety of units and strategy – something that could easily have gotten lost in the hands of a less capable developer. No one faction is more powerful than another and each one is as enjoyable to use as another, and it isn’t long before you start exploring and discovering the different number of tactics that can be employed by a given faction. As there are only 5 types of units that you can take into a battle, there’s a need to decide which setup skimps more towards your playing style. There’s so much to the unpredictability of the rock-paper-scissors concept and Clash of Heroes does well to maintain the element of surprise by not revealing what units your opponent has chosen until the versus screen. Of course a bad guess and setup could send your army packing home early but instances where you couldn’t intelligently counter-attack your opponent are rare. Unfortunately, some characters’ hero spells are more useful than others.

Another gripe I have with Clash of Heroes is how luck is sometimes necessary for victory. You could choose which units to take into battle with you but there isn’t a way to decide where they would be placed on the screen when you call your units onto the battlefield. A normal unit takes up a slot, while Elite units take up 2 and Champion units take up 4. Bad unit placement could leave you with disorientated units which take too many turns to turn into a formation or poorly placed Champion units which take up too many slots or start to feel cumbersome because they are preventing you from forming a formation with other units. Players who like to horde gold and prevent losses to expensive Elite and Champion units may sometimes find rebooting the game and restarting the battle the best course of action. Of course as annoying as bad unit placement sounds, a stroke of good luck could see your units lined up perfectly so it works both ways.

Backing the entire gameplay is the very long campaign mode. As you progress through the story, you will get to play as the 5 factions, each playing in a different environment ranging from the lively woods to the beautiful sprawling cities to the world of the undead. Your playtime as each faction culminates into interesting boss battles where another dimension of strategy is applied – timing. Some bosses move around the screen and it’s necessary to predict the boss’s next course of action so that your formations would not be needlessly wasted into attacking air when the boss dodges. Pleasing anime-inspired artworks and dialogue bookend each faction’s story as you gradually uncover an intricate but nefarious plan to unleash demons on the living world.

I took 27 hours to complete the entire game, managing to finish about 80% of the side quests. There’re some units which I did not manage to unlock in the campaign mode though so your playtime could depend on how much gold you want to get or artifacts you want to unlock by completing the side quests and how many bonus units you want to uncover. Between battles which require precise timing to hit switches simultaneously and those which involve opponent units which are constantly shifting, there’s enough variety in the core battles. Puzzle battles are even more challenging, demanding that you make a specific number of moves to eliminate all the opponent’s units in one turn. One gripe I have is the lack of creativity in the side quests. Side quests are almost always about earning gold and the most useful application I have ever found of side quests is their ability to allow my character to level up quickly. And make no mistake, you will be doing lots of leveling up in Clash of Heroes because the bosses here are brutal and nothing less than a maxed out character with maxed out units will do.

Beyond the meaty campaign mode, there’s multiplayer. Online is sorely lacking so local play will have to do. Luckily, I had chances to try out the game’s multiplayer and it’s so addictive that I could go on playing this game forever.

Final comments
This is Puzzle Quest. This is Pokemon. That’s the best description for Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes. The match-3 style puzzle mechanic is at its best here, offering varying defensive and offensive effects depending on the way you match the 3 units. And then Pokemon shows up. There’s a huge variety of units with different stats, each with its own HP, strengths and limitations. All these stats build up into a very exciting rock-paper-scissors concept in a game of attacking and counter-attacking. Add in hero spells and artifacts and the variety skyrockets. There’s some great effort done in maintaining balance between all the factions though there’re some minor quirks here and there. The campaign mode is very long and there’re quite a number of different scenarios where you could put your strategy to good use. The lack of online multiplayer is a bane but that should not stop you from experiencing one of the most intelligent and deepest DS puzzle/strategy/RPG creations yet. Or maybe the best since this is essentially the DS’s last year before the 3DS takes the limelight.