Hello everyone, and welcome to the week! It’s time once again for our look back at the noteworthy updates of the last seven days. Between straggling Lunar New Year updates and Valentine’s Day updates, the App Store is a very colorful place at the moment. Not every update is connected to those events, though, and I think I’ve found a nice little variety bag for you to check out. Of course, you can keep an eye out for updates yourself by participating in the TouchArcade forums. This weekly summary is just here to fill you in on the things you might have missed. Let’s dig in!
Dungeons of Chaos REVAMPED ED., $5.99 Just when you think a game might be done, the developer goes and adds a bunch of cool things in a new update. This new version adds set bonuses to the game, so wearing certain pieces of gear or putting certain items together will give an extra bonus. These items are marked with new prefixes and suffixes to make it easy to see which thing goes with what. There are also some new multi effects, which are special statuses created by mixing objects with certain statuses together. If you don’t play the game, that might sound like minor stuff, but it adds a lot of interesting complexity to how you gear up.
Respawnables - Special Forces, Free The Respawnables always make a pretty big deal out of the yearly Carnival event, and this time is no exception. There are special challenges going on each and every week during this event, so make sure to check in to enjoy the colors, sounds, and excitement that players have come to expect from The Respawnables during this festive season. Get your masks ready and get to it!
SEGA Heroes: RPG Match 3 Games, Free Hey, I’ll give SEGA credit: they’re listening to feedback on SEGA Heroes and are actually making a lot of adjustments that benefit the players, a difficult balancing act while trying to make a profit on the game, I’m sure. This update adds the characters from Crazy Taxi, Phantasy Star, and Jet Set Radio to the Survival Mode as potential opponents, as well as making some changes to the daily events to make them less restrictive in terms of which characters can be used. Accordingly, the difficulty in those challenge events has been adjusted since players can now bring in a wider array of characters. I really like this change as I no longer have to level up and rank up every character just to join in on all of the events.
Fire Emblem Heroes, Free Has it really been two years since this game first came out? I guess so. As you’d expect, Fire Emblem Heroes isn’t being quiet about reaching this landmark occasion, and this update is largely centered around that celebration. You can log in right now to receive a special castle design gratis, and tons of extra orbs are being given out for the next little while. This update also adds a new item called the Dragonflower which can be used to further strengthen your characters. It’s been great to see this game come out as such a success for Nintendo, arguably their only genuinely huge mobile hit that uses an existing IP.
Minecraft, $6.99 Sure, these days Minecraft updates are pretty minor most of the time, but it’s nice that the development team keeps on adding to a game that they could probably just leave alone without any ill effects on its sales. This update adds some new flowers to the game, Lilies of the Valley and Cornflowers, and also gives players a bunch of new stairs, slabs, and walls to build with. More stuff to build with is always quite welcome, and the new flowers help bring the world to life just a little bit more.
Candy Crush Saga, Free Well, it’s another update for Candy Crush Saga. And as usual, King’s update notes have pretty much nothing distinctive in them whatsoever. That means you get the usual new pack of levels, which have become such an expected drop that even the publisher can’t be bothered to come up with any reason to care about them beyond ringing the chow bell. But you know, the game keeps on making money by the bucketloads, so I’m not sure they really need to do anything other than continue pushing levels until the Sun itself burns out.
Marvel Contest of Champions, Free If you like the X-Men, this update may be of interest to you. The latest storyline surrounds the Summers brothers and their connection to Mr. Sinister, and the latest upshot of that sees Mr. Sinister join the roster as a playable character. Honestly, I’m not a big fan of Mr. Sinister, but hey, he’s certainly an iconic part of the cast and has some potential as a fighter. The rest of the update concerns Lunar New Year celebrations, an update to Alliance War matchmaking, a new Alliance Quest map, and some bug fixes for Darkhawk, Ghost Rider, Gwenpool, and more.
CSR 2 - Realistic Drag Racing, Free Honestly, I’m kind of surprised by the longevity of the CSR Racing series. When it first came out, it was kind of treated as a bit of joke due to its simplified mechanics. Yet here we are, years down the road, and it’s one of the longest-living mobile racing franchises. This update delivers the last chunk of the Legends expansion. The theme this time around is German muscle cars, including the LB Mercedes-Benz C 63 AMG Coupe Black Series, the LB Audi RS 5 Coupe, and the LB BMW M3 GTS in new paints and liveries. The Ferrari 488 Pista Spider may not be German, but it’s new to the game and indeed video games in general, so that’s cool. This update also includes new events, more new cars, and the usual bug fixes and performance improvements.
Merge Dragons!, Free This is one of those quietly popular games that hangs around in the top revenue charts without being noticed by a large segment of mobile gamers. It’s cute and easy enough to play, so I can see why it’s making bank. This update brings a Lunar New Year Event that sees Turtle Dragons and Deer Dragons added to the game, along with a special Valentine’s Day event and eleven new levels to play. Apparently there’s also a new secret level, too. Good luck finding that one, I guess. Or just wait for the method to show up on a wiki or something.
Pocket Build, $0.99 Pocket Build is just the gift that keeps on giving when it comes to no-BS building games on iOS. This latest update adds a ton of new items to the game. Over 80, in fact. These include new paths, ruins, props, plants, and more. The update also adds Rampage, albeit in a beta form. Apart from that, you get a bunch of bug fixes for everything from giants not dancing properly to the dragon’s fire sometimes not affecting the world. For its on-going efforts, I’m happy to give Pocket Build yet another coveted UMMSotW award. Keep up the good work, devs!
Subway Surfers, Free Sure, why not check in on the Subway Surfers for the last entry of today? Looks like the kids are on their way through Italy this week, with Venice being the specific point of interest this time around. Collect carnival masks, unlock the Gondola Board, and add Marco the boat boy to your team. There’s also a special Sweetheart board up for grabs in honor of Valentine’s Day. Well, isn’t that cute? I feel like we’ve seen most of this stuff in Subway Surfers before, but I could be wrong on that one. Either way, goodies to grab so get to grabbing!
That about wraps it up for last week’s significant updates. I’m sure I’ve missed some, though, so please feel free to comment below and let everyone know if you think something should be mentioned. As usual, major updates will likely get their own news stories throughout this week, and I’ll be back next Monday to summarize and fill in the blanks. Have a great week!
