Ever since it released worldwide last week, CROOZ’s Card King: Dragon Wars (Free) has been gaining a lot of traction in our forums, so a few days ago I decided to dive in and see what all the hullabaloo was. At first glance it looks like a Hearthstone (Free) clone, with a similar fantasy theme and great production values. It’s actually quite a bit different, though, but not always for the better (depending on how you feel about free-to-play junk).
Yes, one of the biggest differences is the monetization model. Whereas Hearthstone is almost universally praised for having a fair and transparent free-to-play model, Card King has apparently gone in the other direction, loading the game with timers and multiple currencies and lots of potential for wallet-squeezing.
Now, before you write the game off completely, I have to say that after several hours of playing, none of it has really been a problem yet for me. The energy timer gets refilled every time you level up (which happens a lot in the beginning) so I’ve never been shut out from playing, and right now I have more coins than I know what to do with. The two other currencies, gems and fangs, have been flowing fairly steadily as well just from completing daily missions and whatnot.
The game actually kind of reminds me of a Puzzle & Dragons (Free) style RPG, with all the collecting, enhancing, evolving, taking allies into battle, etc. that is common in all those games. This will either be a good thing or a horrible thing depending on your proclivities, but personally I welcome it. Who wouldn’t want to level up their favorite Hearthstone cards a bit to get an edge on the competition? (Well, a lot of people, probably. But it was rhetorical.)
None of this matters one bit if the gameplay sucks, though, and I’m happy to report that it seems to be pretty great. The basics are that you can take five creatures (plus one friend) into card battles against the computer or real people. Each one has a different colored element associated with them (red for attack, blue for magic, purple for utility, etc.), and when you attack with any creature you’ll be given a card of their type to use.
It’s a cool trade-off dynamic, since often you’ll need to attack using a weaker creature just because you need some of their particular card type. The cards you get throughout the game are pretty standard things like giving one of your creatures a shield for a few turns or raising someone’s attack temporarily. It feels familiar while also sprinkling in some new ideas, and I’m excited to work out more of the nuances.
As I said, I’ve only played for a few hours so I can’t really give a final word on the game yet. I haven’t had a chance to dip into multiplayer (I just recently unlocked it) or the daily dungeons, so I have a lot to look forward to. The game seems really promising so far, provided you don’t mind a bit of free-to-play shenanigans. We should have a full review up soon, so until then be sure to check out the forum thread or share your thoughts on the game below!
