Astral Wars is a unique take on a multilevel wizard dueling game, offering both single and multiplayer modes for magic duels. After an initial training period, you can either work your way through dueling school or cast out into the Astral plane to fight your way through goblins, orcs, mummies, harpies, and a host of other bad guys with spells such as Lightning Bolt, Mana Flux, and Meteor Shower. With four "grades" to progress through and an infinite variety of enemies on the Astral plane, Astral Wars promises challenging and adventurous fun.
How does it work?
The first thing to do is create your avatar; a selector offers control over everything from eyes, ears, and mouth to skin tone and hair color. Enemies in Astral Wars appear on islands, and to engage them you simply tap your way from island to island. Once a duel is engaged, a rune wheel shows all the spells you can cast, and you must draw the appropriate pattern for each spell. Upon winning a duel, you are usually presented with an object such as an article of clothing that offers a powerup like additional health, mana, or a spell casting ability. Some levels require you to duel all the enemies present, while others simply require the defeat of a main boss.
The entire framework of Astral Wars is interwoven with a story of a young magician matriculating in a Wizard's school and progressing through the various levels of the school. The game offers a great learning mode cleverly disguised as an entrance exam, and then each of the grade levels offers progressively harder challenges for the developing witch or wizard. The Runes and magic items discovered throughout the game become more powerful, enabling more powerful offensive spells and providing greater protection with defensive spells.
Is it contagious?
Moderately so. The game suffers from a few minor drawbacks, most crucially of which is the inability to see an object's attributes, such as what spells it enables. This information is available in a roundabout way by looking at the Parameters screen, but toggling back and forth is a real pain, and achieving a combination of the proper items to cast the max number of spells is virtually impossible.
The game also contains some poorly translated English snippets, so there is occasional confusion on how to use a particular spell or what is the objective of a level. Most elements of the gameplay are self explanatory, so this drawback is more of an irritation than an impediment to gameplay.
Despite its shortcomings, Astral Wars successfully combines the Wizard Duels of Harry Potter with the grand adventure of Lord of the Rings, so aficionados of either series will likely find engaging gameplay waiting for them. There is a free lite version to try out, so there is no need to commit to the paid version until you are hooked.
Happy dueling!
Category: Games
Developer: Oleksii Surdu
Cost: $3.99
Download: Astral Wars
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