Plants War: DotA or LoL on your phone!
Confession time… I must admit that I actually very rarely buy games for myself. I’ve only seemed to buy outright bargains and the Kairosoft Pocket series games. Even when testing games I try and imagine the user doesn’t want to spend a cent first. On top of this I don’t think I’ve ever done any in-app purchases… but this has finally changed… I’m on the brink of shelling out for Plants War! Read more to find out what we thought about this smash hit…
Gamplay: This is like DOTA (Defense of the Ancients) or LoL (League of Legends), in otherwords it’s a blend of a RPG (Role Play Game) with a RTS (Real Time Strategy) Game. So you select a character and you instruct it to run around to kill the creeps which come towards you. Your aim is to prevent your base from being overrun and also destroy the enemy fortification. On a periodic basis each base will spawn enemies which will head straight into battle. Most of the game is centered around your hero who has special spells and can level up. If you’re nearby when enemy units are killed then your experience points will increase. As you go up in level then you’ll be able to select spells to unlock and your health and magic points will increase too. This is the core aspect to winning – your fighter needs to become stronger to tip the balance of the war.
So what’s so stunning then? Well it’s all fabulous 3D with all the thrills that you would expect from a desktop point and click game! It quite literally has all the full feeling of playing a DotA game whilst also being cute and fun. Admittedly it’s not the only game like this and I don’t think it’s the first either. But, for me it’s the first I’ve played which I’ve not been able to put down… it really does have that wow factor for me. Eventhough it crashes all the time on our Samsung Galaxy SII test device, I still love playing it. In fact it Force Closes so much that I’ve just become accustomed to the game regularly bombing out. Anyway… back to the graphics… visually it really does it for me. Not too much detail, and just enough character imparted into all the little minions. Overall there are cartoony 3D heros which are cute and yet also feisty. The casted spells all look very fancy and it looks like you’re inflicting pain on the receivers!
How about the sounds? The music is very majestic. It’s perhaps the first time I’ve properly been dazzled with such triumphant music which is also appropriate for the game. It just stacks with the theming to deliver a cracking game. Sound effects go with all the actions ranging from the menu button clicks to the in game destruction. Unfortunately, the sound effects regularly stopped whilst we were playing on the Galaxy SII. It didn’t fully stop us from playing, but it did remind us of how important sound effects are – a game can feel really hollow without sound to give feedback.
Gut Feel: It’s probably pretty clear that I thought that this was a stunner… but it’s probably also because I’ve liked these games ever since I played DotA back on Warcraft III. On the grander scale there is an element of repetitiveness about the game. (You pretty much dash in and out to level up and eventually you trounce the enemy by overwhelming them with a larger accumulated force.) To a casual player this probably sounds really dull. But for those who give the game a chance (probably those who like the cutesy characters), then they’ll come to realise that the unlockable heros and plants are what mix up the gameplay. There is a very subtle strategy in the game which can make you think carefully about whether to use ranged heros or close combat strikers and how to assemble your army. Additionally, there are special summon spells which can help you call for more units. Guess what though… they cost “leaf” credits – some of these are given to you as you progress through the game, but to properly enjoy using these leaves then you probably need to use your credit card.
So did we actually buy anything in the end? Ummm… no… not yet, but as per our comments, this did crash several times on us. It’s fairly demanding and doesn’t work on our old HTC Desire test device. But the game is available on the AppStore, so if I have time I might just play on an iOS device (sacrilege I know) and buy credits. However, having said this it seems like it’s possible to get very far in the game without spending any money – completing up to level 30 on all three difficulty settings seems quite possible at the moment.
Any downers? Well… the movement interface combined with the lack of a landscape view can really be frustrating. But if you have tablet then that should mitigate this problem.
Rating: 4/5 Plants War is an absolutely whopper of a game. Eventhough it crashed on us multiple times we still loved it – yes it was that good! For something that is pretty much free, anybody can easily try it out to see if they enjoy it.
[Apologies, as this is the main reason why we’ve been slightly slow on the reviews lately! I blame Plants War… ]
Plants War Promotional Youtube Video
(Check it out, it’s quite epic!)
Plants War Tips from Android Games Review:
- Although there’s a statistic tracker which logs how many times you die, it doesn’t really have any bearing on any of the achievements. So don’t feel too bad about dying. However, if you do die then consider restarting the round. Whilst you’re away from the battle field you’ll miss out on valuable experience points.
- Ranged fighters are generally the best heros to use because they can fight from a distance and avoid being exposed to the front line fights. The close combat fighters are more fun but take care not to get sandwiched without an exit route.
- Don’t spend any money until you really need to. That means that you keep hording your cash for ages.
- If you are thinking of spending money: Quick Leafy and Spear Leafy are pretty similar in destructive ability but Spear Leafy is safer because he’s a ranged fighter. His attacks can also inflict damage on multiple units but most of the time this is difficult to do because his range isn’t large enough to reach the enemy ranged units.
- Eventually your hero will be outmatched. At that point you want to invest in the plant units. So far we’ve only purchased the expensive Flameshooter and the very cheap Tree Protector. These two are sufficient for smashing through most armies. But we’re considering testing out the Poison Shooter at the moment (over a purchase of the Elite Leafy).
- We’re at a juncture where we think we’ll need to commit to one unit to upgrade his stats whilst also purchasing the reinforcements summon spell. Ultimately we think that the reinforcements spell must be a regular purchase eventually…
Developers: Gamevil (pronounced Game-ville… not Game Evil)
Plants War QR Code
(Click on the image or scan the barcode with your Android phone to goto Google Play)
