Orions: Legend Of Wizards – Review

Our rating:

By: Orions: Legend Of Wizards

Version #: 1.0

Date Released: 2008-12-09

Developer:

Price: 1.99

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Did you grow up playing Dugeon and Dragons? Maybe Magic the Gathering was more your style? Either way Chillingo Ltd. has released a game that does it’s best to capture the glory of each of these games. Orions is a turn-based strategy card game. Sound complicated? It is a little bit, but it is definitely a unique type of game.

Orions is the first game I have seen that actually features three seperate gameplay screens. the first being the main map. You fly your airship from Orion to Orion (Orions are small islands) and fight the leader of that land to take over and claim it for your own. The second gameplay screen is within each Orion itself, when you enter an Orion you see the main building and all the land available for you to build additional buildings on. The final gameplay screen, and this is the important one, is the battle screen. When you attempt to take over an Orion you enter a card battle that is a lot like Magic and if you defeat him you win his land. Graphics are decent enough although the card effects aren’t extremely fantastic, they do the trick.

Gameplay itself can tend to get a bit complicated, even with the built-in tutorial, and reading all of the instructions…three times. The basics of the game is to pick a character from one of six elements: Fire, Water, Earth, Wind, Life, & Death. You can choose from different avatars for your character, and then of course name it. Three difficulty levels and three different map sizes make the game playable for even the most novice player. Once you’ve selected your character you can get started. The entire intent of the game is to defeat the enemy AI that is trying to do the same thing you are doing, which is take over Orions and defeat it’s opponent. The only way to truly defeat the enemy is to take over their home Orion (if you face the AI prior to obtaining his home Orion and defeat him he will simply respawn) and defeat him in a battle. Once you do that you win the game and get a trophy for whichever element you played. In between starting and defeating him however, is a lot of possible gameplay. Each day you can build a total of three buildings in each Orion that you control. Some buildings give you more resources, others unlock cards for you to purchase for your deck using the resources you’ve gathered. Also, you are only allowed to attack a neutral Orion (neutral Orions have a white flag, owned Orions have a green flag, and enemy Orions have a red flag) once a day, after one battle you will be too tired to continue and must rest for the night before continuing. Resting allows your opponent to complete his turn. After resting and moving on to the next day you are able to attack another Orion and build three more buildings in each Orion you control. After battling a neutral/enemy Orion you will gain experience points. If you gain enough to level you will be given three points you can add to either Strength, Intelligence, or Power. Strength increases how many hit points you have at the start of a battle, Intelligence increases the amount elements you begin with (more on this later) and Power increases how many cards you can have in your deck. If you don’t gain enough experience to level you will have the option to trade one of your cards for one of your opponent’s cards. This is a great way to gain access to a card you haven’t had a chance to build the building for yet.

Magic was a game built around having enough of a certain element to summon/cast the card you wanted to. Orions is the same way. There is no drawing in this game, you already have all of the cards at your disposal at the beginning of the battle. The catch is that you start out with a random amount of elements spread across all six types (the higher your intelligence the more elements you start out with). Summoning/casting a card costs element points, if you don’t have enough elements you will have to wait until you do in order to use it. As anyone can guess, the higher level cards cost more elements to use. Each turn you gain one element for each type, and there are a few cards that will actually increase your element regeneration as well. On your turn you are allowed to play one card, you can either summon a monster or cast a spell. The card must be placed in one of the five slots on the board, if you don’t have an open slot you can’t play a card until one of your monsters is destroyed. Monsters have summoning sickness on the first turn they are summoned (a few do not, this is specified on the card), but after that whenever you end your turn any monster in play will attack the card in front of it, if there is no card it will directly attack your opponent. Once your opponent’s hit points are gone, you win, and vice versa if you lose all yours you lose! Each element has advantages and disadvantages, some are better against other elements, some do massive damage directly to your opponent, and others can heal you or your monsters. Each monster is also unique, some have the ability to cast a spell on top of attacking which you can use anytime you want to, and can pay the cost to cast it. Each monster has a level (how many elements it takes to summon it), an attack and a health. Monsters don’t regenerate health at the beginning of each turn like they do in other card games, so keep that in mind. Orions features 70 different cards, and each has it’s own unique function or situation it is best for, and most of them are good for anytime. Do your best to mix and match and find out which cards work well together or compliment each other.

There are however, a few things to keep in mind when playing Orions, and they aren’t obvious things. First of all, when you play a card in a battle you lose that card forever. You can purchase more of the same card, or new cards in any of your Orions to replenish your numbers. When you open an element tap once on a card and a small number will float up, that number is how many of that card you have remaining in your deck, if you use your last one you won’t have it until you go and buy some more. This isn’t explained anywhere that I found, I just happened to start wondering why one high level card wasn’t there one battle but it had been before. Also, make sure you build three buildings in each Orion everyday! Collecting resources and building the required buildings to access cards is very important to keep your deck stacked with your strongest cards. The final tip I have to give, and this is the most important one, is that you can’t defeat your enemy unless you have control of his home Orion, or if you fight him and win AT his home Orion. Otherwise he will just respawn. Fortunately, this works both ways so that if you die and your home Orion still belongs to you, you will respawn as well.

QUICK TAKE

Value: High

Would I Buy Again: Yes

Learning Curve: Medium-Hard

Who is it For: Anyone who is a fan of Magic, D&D, or turn based strategy games.

My Likes: Everything! The game was extremely fun and well thought out!

My Dislikes: It was a tad complicated at times, but a few run throughs will easily help anyone understand it

Final Statement: Orions does a great job of meshing turn based, strategy, and card games all into one. It is very entertaining and a game that I will continue to play up until I have achieved all six trophies (so far only2), and who knows I may even continue to play it after that because I have heard promise of added cards in future updates.

Rating: 4 ½ stars