Since my device is unable to handle War Robots Remastered, I dabbled into other games. One of the ones that I tried was Strike Royale.
For those familiar with Brawl Stars like me, Strike Royale would be an easy pick-up, having similar style game modes. To those who aren’t familiar, it’s a fast-paced 3v3 action game. The win objective depends on the game mode. There’s the usual team deathmatch, X-item collection, and base defense. Unlike Brawl Stars though, Strike Royale has an escort mode where you’re tasked to move a cargo towards a specific location.
After some weeks of playing, I’ve listed some of the things that I liked and didn’t like.
THE GOOD:
CHARACTERS AND CUSTOMIZATION OPTIONS
Personally, I like the way the characters move compared to Brawl Stars. I can’t blame Brawl Stars though for sometimes feeling slow as it’s really a slower-paced game anyway. Heroes can be bought too and you don’t have to get lucky and get them from chests.
Each hero has one unique ability aside from the ultimate. In Brawl Stars, you need to get a gadget from a chest before you get a unique ability aside from your normal shots and ultimate. As you can see on the screenshot below, there are three buttons aside from the normal attack button.
Aside from unique hero abilities, you also get to choose a tactical gadget to further augment your setup. I guess the game kind of got it from the usual MOBA skills. Players can choose from an array of gadgets that provide Healing, Shield, Damage, Brush Detection, Cooldown, Reload, or even short invincibility.
Another layer of customization can be found on the Chip system. It’s similar to League of Legend’s and Arena of Valor’s Rune system. For some players, this would be a turn-off since this could turn the game into a grind-fest. The good thing though is you automatically get ALL the chips in the game. The downside is you’d have to level them up if you want to maximize their potential. Still, I feel having all of them unlocked from the get-go is a great help to players.
FREE-TO-PLAY FRIENDLY
As previously mentioned, Heroes can be easily bought with Gold (the basic currency) or Hero Shards. The game is very generous with gold that I was able to buy most of the heroes, even those purchasable by shards that I no longer have any use for Hero shards (which is a downside for me as I have no use for Hero shards now). In three weeks of playing four to five games a day, I only have 6 heroes left to unlock. I have enough gold to unlock two of those, but the other four are unlocked either by topping up (top-up bonus), spinning Gacha, and through an event (not sure if I got this one right). Of those four, only one is a meta choice, I believe.
Special weapons can only be purchased to further augment your hero choice. Each hero has access to a gold weapon and an ultimate weapon. Both of which add a small bonus damage plus a special passive that boosts a skill, adds damage, or gives extra ammo clip. I think of it as an Aghanim’s of some sort. Gold weapons can be bought with Gold weapon shards that can be gotten through daily quests, events, and achievements. Ultimate weapons can be bought with Ultimate weapon shards or could easily be obtained in certain events. As a matter of fact, I’ve gotten three Ultimate weapons through events in my casual gaming sessions.
HERO BALANCE
Personally, I find heroes to be very well-balanced. I’ve seen complaints about a certain artillery hero, but I believe that hero strengths can easily be counteracted by their weaknesses. Heroes are categorized into Tank, Fighters, and Shooters, and I feel they’re like Rock, Papers, Scisssors. Shooters are the usual glass cannons and can be quickly bursted down by Fighters which play like assassins or bruisers, while Tanks can usually survive bursts from Fighters and can reverse the tide of battle depending on how one plays a Tank hero. Team composition still plays a huge factor in games and a well-balanced team can destroy DPS spammers.
MULTIPLE GAME MODES
The game features multiple game modes. Skirmish is the traditional team deathmatch. Sabotage is similar to Brawl Star’s Heist, where the objective is to destroy the enemy core. Rogue is like Brawl Star’s gem grab, where you need to gather energy bars and hold onto them for a certain length of time. Escort is where you try to “push” a cart to a certain point. Unbounded Skirmish has multiple objectives and you gain points by killing neutral camps, controlling an area of the map, and killing enemy heroes.
Aside from these modes, the game has an Arcade mode which has a number of rotating games, depending on the day of the week; Coop mode where you team up with players to kill waves of insectoid monsters; and Extreme Battle mode, which is a regular survival type game.
THE BAD:
LOW VOLUME OF PLAYERS
For a game that is good, I am surprised by the lack of players. To speed up matchmaking, you could end up playing with bots to fill in for missing players. This could sometimes lead to bad experiences, although there are times that bots play even better than humans, so I guess you could call it even. Still, it would be good if the game picks up in popularity, so you’ll get matched more with human players rather than AI.
CURRENCY
Aside from the regular gold, the game has coupons, which can be used to open gacha for Chips; shards for hero and skins; and other sorts of shards for weapons and chips. Honestly, I got confused at first by the amount of currencies. Gold can only be used to buy heroes and once you get all, you’ll have no use for it. The same goes with shards. I just wish there is some sort of a way to exchange resources, so you won’t have tons of them lying in a pile that you won’t use.
SKIN STATS
Similar to Mobile Legends, skins provide 2% damage boost. Although this would seem miniscule, this is a turn-off to some players since between two players with equal skills, that 2% would still be an advantage. I guess having an option for skins that could be purchasable by gold could solve this at least.
GRINDINESS
I mentioned earlier the grind factor that could be associated with Chips. I believe that could be a turn-off too for other players. Also, Heroes can be leveled up to 10 and I guess some players won’t like this either. Still, getting a hero to level 8, is just a breeze.
FINAL THOUGHTS
“Give the game a try” is all I can say. Even with the occasional bot matches, I find the game fun and could be casual and competitive at the same time. It’s sad that such a fun game has low player volume, and if you like the game, share it to your friends so that the community could grow.
The Omniscientist 