Hello everyone, and welcome to the year! It’s time once again for our look back at recent noteworthy updates, this time going back two weeks because I was a lazy bones. As usual, there isn’t a whole lot of update action happening around the Christmas and New Year holidays. Developers presumably take time off just like any other humans. But we do have enough to fill out an article, and that’s just what I’m going to do. 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 go for it!
MARVEL Future Fight, Free It came in a little later than the other Marvel games, but Marvel Future Fight has its Spider-Man: No Way Home update available. It adds a new No Way Home-inspired uniform for Spidey, along with some new comic-inspired uniforms for Kingpin and Black Cat. Kingpin gets his Tier-3/Potential Transcended form added, and some new Dispatch Mission chapters have been put in. Head to Sector 11 and Sector 12 to see how much damage you can cause.
MARVEL Realm of Champions, Free Marvel Realm of Champions also updated in the last couple of weeks, but its latest version has nothing to do with Spider-Man. Instead it sees the return of Skaar, and you’ll have to muster your strongest team to try to take him down. This update also makes some improvements to Alliance Social, parties, and some UI bits. A few characters have been rebalanced, and some bug fixes have been implemented. The usual works, really.
AFK Arena, Free Away From Keyboard Arena, the Best RPG for Busy You, is back with another update. That means it’s new hero time, probably. Yes, yes it does. A new Wilder hero, Astar: The Brilliant Flame, is here along with an associated Bountiful Trials and test play event. There’s also a new game mode called Temporal Rift, a new skin for Saurus: The Risen Warrior, some extra events, and balance adjustments. You’ve got to keep things balanced, friends. Like that knifey thing Thanos gave to Gamora.
Mobile Legends: Adventure, Free As good a time as any to bring in some games we haven’t really looked at before, I suppose. Mobile Legends: Adventure is a popular idle RPG that spun out of Mobile Legends: Bang Bang. Seems like an amusing game if you’re into that sort of thing. This update features a new Legendary skin called Thunder Tamer, plus some extra gifts for those who drop some cash on the game. Perhaps most importantly, there are new chapters in the Campaign. You can now play all the way through Chapter 65. Battle on! In an idle sort of way, of course. Don’t strain yourself.
Toon Blast, Free Here is our obligatory free-to-play matching puzzle game update for the week. Hey, it’s our first obligatory free-to-play matching puzzle game update of the year! And it’s Toon Blast. Old reliable Toon Blast. When Shaun is looking for games to fill out a sparse list… there you are, Toon Blast. With your fifty new levels. Your theme that may or may not have anything to do with anything in the actual game. Snowy Days, it is? Sure. Lots of snow around these days, it’s a good enough theme. Yep. Our trusty pal, Toon Blast.
Star Traders: Frontiers, $6.99 The Trese Brothers don’t seem to take time off, even during the holidays. So yes, there is an update for Star Traders: Frontiers. We’re at the point now where most updates for this game address things that are pretty deep in the weeds, and that is the case here. Some balance tweaks, some UI improvements, a few adjustments to the script, and some fixes. Many of these changes may be nearly invisible to you, but they will make for a smoother, better experience. It’s nice that the developers are still updating the game and publishing detailed notes to go with those updates. May they and their games live long.
Cytus II, $1.99 Speaking of great developers who support their games way past release with great updates, how about that Rayark? Like many of Rayark’s other games, Cytus II just keeps on growing as time passes. This latest content drop involves a tie-up with Arknights, bringing Amiya to the game complete with ten songs from the Arknights soundtrack. You can pick up the character, her songs, and her story content together as a $9.99 IAP. A buck a song is pretty fair, I’d say.
Pokémon GO, Free Pokemon GO may not be the phenomenon it once was, but it’s still going pretty strong. The latest update adds the new Postcard Book feature, which allows you to save memories from locations you or your friends have visited. All you need to do is pin the Postcard to your Postcard Book and it will be there for you to chuckle over in your old age. Or at least until this whole thing is shut down. I don’t think that will be for quite a while, though.
Angry Birds Dream Blast, Free I’m not sure, but I think this game is also making its Best Updates debut. I could be wrong, though. I have trouble telling the various Angry Birds spin-offs apart. Anyway, this is a winter update. There are some cool winter-themed levels with themed power-ups and a special new avatar you can get. This perhaps could have qualified as our obligatory free-to-play matching puzzle update for the week, but I don’t know if I really consider this a matching puzzle as much as a popping one. Like Tsum Tsum. Well, a debate for another week.
Phoenix 2, Free This update is a couple of weeks old now, but it’s such a good one I really can’t just let it be. You get three new missions to complete every day, each with a different level of difficulty. You have to complete at least one to avoid a demotion, while completing all three will earn you a promotion. Reach a high enough rank and some Specialist Missions will be available to you. Aside from that, four new ships have been added to the game. That makes a sweet one hundred ships in total, which is wild. Other than that, it’s just a few fixes and tweaks. That’ll do to earn it the very first coveted UMMSotW award of 2022.
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!
