Gems of War

Hiya!

I wasn't sure at first whether I should write about this game or not but since I've really enjoyed it for the past 50+ hours I decided to give this a try. For a simple "match 3"-game Gems of War is really complex when you get deeper into its gameplay.

 In Gems of War your task is to unlock different kingdoms, help the characters in every kingdom's storyline and level up your cards. The actual gameplay is quite simple. You have your main character plus 3-4 cards (4 if you choose not to play with your character) that have their own health, attack power, shield power and magic. Your objective is to beat the enemy cards by matching gems. Every card has its own element/colour and by matching gems of certain colour you add power to your cards. Once a card's element bar is filled, it can unleash its special power onto the opposite team. Some cards are meant to defend but most cards afflict damage or status effects on the enemy cards. Of course, the most straight forward way to victory is matching skull gems, that causes damage worth your first card's attack power onto the first card in line in the enemy deck. Be sure to match all 4+ gems on your turn - you get extra coins, an extra turn and if it's a colour you already have in your deck, extra power to your cards!

 Let's talk about the cards. You acquire cards through opening chests or completing a storyline. At the end of a storyline you get the card of the character involved in the story (for some reason they all want to join you on your quest after finishing the job). For instance in the picture above, the epic purple card Atlanta is a storyline card. Anyways, depending on the level of the chest you get cards of different levels and other neat stuff like souls (used to level up cards) or rune stones (used to unlock card abilities). The best way to acquire keys to open chests is of course to sacrifice yourself to micro transactions. I have to admit I paid 5€ to get myself a cool new outfit, coins and keys. But you get gold keys (the lowest kind) through gameplay and higher level keys by using treasure maps. By using a treasure map you enter a mini-game, where your goal is to match coins, that through re-matching turn into more valuable items, small pouches and chests. After the game ends you get the coins plus all the cool stuff that were inside the chests (originally mere bronze coins). Some of these chests may include keys and the more valuable the chest is, the more valuable the keys.

 Here comes the fun part - you can level up pretty much everything. Your cards, your character class and kingdoms. By leveling up your cards they become more stronger but there is always a limit. Once you hit the level limit for a card you know that you need to ascend the card by combining cards of the same kind. For instance having a rare Banshee and combining it with 5 more you get an ultra-rare Banshee. The stats of the card increase a little and so does the level limit. You can level up your character class as well and the effect is the same as with the cards - your stats increase. You get new classes through playing the main storylines. So far I've been content with the warrior class that you begin with. On top of that you get a new weapon for your character once you play 250 or so games with a certain class. I like the weapon you get from the warrior class, which inflicts ( that's for me at the moment, your weapon grows in power when you increase you magic stat) 10DMG + the attack power of the chosen enemy. I forgot to mention that while the cards have their own special ability, your character has weapons of certain colour which you can change to your liking. Last but not least by leveling up your kingdom you get more coins. You can choose your own home kingdom where the other kingdoms pay tribute which size depends on the level of that particular kingdom. Coins are especially useful when you're in a guild. Guilds have different tasks that can be completed by paying coins. When all the coins have been gathered for a task every guild member receives a neat prize.

Let me talk a bit about my current deck, which I think is pretty decent. So I already talked about my own character and its weapon, that is quite useful. Second in line I have the Berserker that gains power from blue and red gems. It's special power is doing 3-8DMG to your chosen enemy, while the card itself takes 2DMG and attack power increases by 4. Since my Berserker has leveled up and gained more magic power, the special power does around 8-14DMG at the moment. My third card is my favourite, the Sacred Guardian. It does 2+MAGIC DMG (=8 for me at the moment) to the chosen enemy PLUS, the card's shield power increases by the same amount. So if you use your Sacred Guardian a lot in a match, you can have a tremendous amount of shield power at the end of the game. For that reason the Sacred Guardian is usually my last card if I'm in a tough battle. My last card is the one I'm leveling up at the moment since I only got it recently. The Infernal King is my first legendary card! It was also the final boss of one of the story lines I played. Its special power is quite complex, extremely powerful but on the other hand it can also turn to your disadvantage. The Infernal King deals 13 damage to all the enemy cards, split randomly. On top of that it changes all green gems into skulls and, brown gems to red. So the ideal scenario is that you get skull matches inflicting damage on the first enemy, and 4+ match of red gems, allowing you to continue with an extra turn. On your extra turn you match possible skulls, causing even more damage and hopefully there's no cards left when the Infernal King is finished torturing the enemy team. On the other hand, you may not get an extra turn and skull matches, which probably means there are dozens of free skulls on the field and the enemy gets to match them on their turn. Which has happened to me sometimes but it's not too serious in playing the storyline - the battles aren't too difficult on normal difficulty. It's a whole different story in PvP. Those battles can be brutal and nearly impossible to win if you make a mistake like blowing the special move of the Infernal King.

 

And what I hate about this game? GOBLINS. I hate it when I start a PvP battle against someone, think that it's gonna be easy since they're a bit below my own level, and when I enter the match they have a goblin team. The different goblin cards have their own special moves but what they all have in common is they get an extra turn after activating the move. So if you're against a Goblin, a Goblin Shaman, a Boar Rider and a Goblin Rocket and they ALL have their special powers ready, be ready to end up in deep shit. Sometimes I just close my eyes, wait for the enemy goblins finish what they're doing and hope for the best - let my Sacred Guardian be alive. So to all of you playing with a goblin deck - I hate you. 

 

 I have gotten bored of the game couple of times already but I still think that Gems of War is very addictive. I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys a bit of strategy and RPG, and is looking for a "match-3"-game other than Candy Crush. The PvP system was recently updated and even though it's still not perfect, it is a clear improvement. On top of that it's completely free so you won't lose anything but your time if you stay clear of the micro transactions. So go there, find yourself a nice guild and start matching those gems!