Ladies and Gentlemen, step right up because our next competition is about to begin. On the left side of the field, the ever dominating, ever winning Alexis. And on the right side of the field, the mirror supreme, the one who could be mistaken for having a cue ball for a head, Dae Jim. And what a match it is going to be, won’t it? Yes, it sure is, after 5 straight on defeats for Dae Jim, he still believes he can win. But will he be able to now Tuck? I don’t know Carlson, but I can see a glint of belief still left in his eyes! Well, the sun is shining, so maybe luck is shining on him as well! Yes, people. This is how you could be narrating your own kind of battles with friends and foes alike, because in this game? You are the Overlord of your own minions. Hence the name, Minion Masters. A game that clearly has taken inspiration from games like MTG:O or DOTA. Here you build up a deck that consists of minions and spells. Each of these has a certain “mana” cost that is required before you can play it. So, want to find out what this crazy game is all about? Then read on my dearest readers, for this is your time! … Oh and by the way? Dae Jim lost… Again. Called me a cheater and all that, oh well!
- Simple Controls: Press B+A while simultaneously pulling the right trigger and left bumper while clicking the R button to go into the menu… No no no, nothing of the sort in Minion Masters. The game tries to keep your controls as simple as it can get so that you can have more time to watch the mayhem unfolding in front of your very own eyes, instead of you having to focus on pressing the right button at the right time. Which is a huge plus in my book? More and more games are trying to re-invent how games are being played, by introducing us to complex button combinations. No. That’s not necessary at all. Just keep it simple, especially with a simple game like this.
- Looks good!: I really liked the visual art of the game. The colors are vivid and the minions and their masters look unique. On top of that, you’ve got skins that you can purchase (sigh) to give your Master to make him stand from the crowd and show your worth (paying account!). Also, the visual effects are really done well. You really get that sensation of doing something impactful when you’re using your spells!
- Countless possibilities: First a short word about how the games actually work. Each different card has its own specified Mana cost. This mana cost is shown on each card on the top right of it. Mana is your currency that is needed to plop down your cards and your spells. So how do you get Mana? You don’t. Mana is something that refills itself and doesn’t need you to do anything to gain more. Next is Experience. This is an acquired value that is needed to level up your master. How do you do this? Kill enemy minions and hold the 2 bridges for you to level up faster than the other Master. Why would you want to do this though? Well, the more levels your Master gains, the further along your skills will unlock, of course, giving you a powerful advantage over the enemy Master. Now that we got that out of the way, let’s dive into why I said, countless possibilities. You’ve got multiple ways to win, as well as to build your decks. You’ve got combo decks, which means that your deck will hold multiple cards that will set pieces into place to summon one huge monster and will keep said monster alive. You’ve got Zerg decks (or zoo, depends what you want to call it), these are the equivalent of shoving your noodle in their face and keeping it there as long as possible. Of course, these are mostly weak minions but if you’re battling a Combo deck, they’ll have to adjust for this playstyle. You’ve got your balanced decks. These are ones that hold a bit of everything, but never an overwhelming amount of high cost or low-cost cards. They are meant to deal with everything and hope for the best that your tactical prowess will outclass the enemy. Add on top of that the different kinds of Masters for you to choose from. One will be able to deal a lot of fodder damage, being able to hold his own for a while against zoo decks, while others are more catered towards keeping their minions alive. This would mean that the amount of deck possibilities together with a tailored Master for that same deck, is quite big. And that’s just minion based. You can also Experience starve your enemy Master. This means just holding the bridges non stop and keeping their minions off of it. The longer you hold them, the faster your experience is acquired. Reached the final level and are over 5 minutes? Get ready for berzerk mode, as I like to call it. Because this is Minion Master ‘s way of saying. Okay, you both held out for too long. What does this do, you might ask? Well, mana just pours in at an alarmingly high rate which makes you spam all of your cards at an increased pace, even your big ones! Mayhem to be had for sure!
- Free-to-Play: One thing ‘s for sure, this game’s free-to-play tactic works. Never did I have to wait longer than 5 seconds to find an opponent. Another big + point here is that cards are quickly and easily won and gained. Making it fairly easy to amass a certain set of good cards. Of course, the game kind of shoves the microtransactions down your throat by giving you lucrative deals and all that. But, if you’re not intending to fork over a lot of money or play this game for long? It’s really not worth it in my opinion. But still, I do like the fact that the game’s free-to-play*. It’s still good a couple of good laughs and games, won’t you say Dae Jim?
- Various Game Modi: For a F2P game, there’s actually quite a bit of Modi for you to choose from. You’ve got your standard 1v1 or 2v2. Where you battle in regular games. There’s the 1v1 draft, which is the same as before but not with pre-built decks, you buy-in to a game and get to choose from a pool of cards as to how your deck is going to look like. Each draft will be different. The higher you get in a certain draft, the better your rewards will be. But lose 3 times, and you’re out of that draft run, and you’ll have to buy-in again. Then you’ve got the Expeditions where you travel across a landscape, defeating enemies along the way until you get the final rewards of that Expedition. Then there is mayhem! Which pits you against your enemy in a regular battle … Or does it? Because each week new rules will dominate this mode! And lastly, there’s the Solo challenge mode. Where you can test your prowess against an enemy AI. Boy this is a lot…! I truly got to commend BetaDwaft for delivering such a jam-packed game to everyone. There’s actually more in this game, then in some of the other Paid variants of this genre… A soft clap, just for you, Beta!
- Insanely stale… Fast!: At the same speed that my enthusiasm came for this game, as quickly did the feeling of being boring and mindless creep into my being as well. Sure the battles are fun and visuals and music is nice and all. But… There is little to no challenge here. Spam your units, keep the bridges for quicker point acquisition. And kill the other player. That’s it. And yes you could say you can always do the other modes… But those result in the same thing as well. It’s always the same. You may twiddle around with different decks, but that doesn’t do much other then switch up the games that you’re doing. It all boils down to: Overwhelm the other player by applying zerg strategies, and win. Nothing more and nothing less. Skill has got little to nothing to do here if you’ve got any of the broken combos that Minion Masters has.
- Third Lane: The territory that your battles will be taking place, consists out of a river and 2 bridges. But the thing is, that these 2 lanes cause jams. If your opponent has the same amount of minions on the field, they’ll continuously be canceling themselves out at the middle of the bridge. Another weak point of this is that you can just mindlessly spam your units without too much strategy. This is a strategy based game! A third lane would really break this fact wide open, and bring strategy into the game.
- Broken cards: Minion Masters minions exist out of 3 kinds of tiers. Throw away fodder, good cards and broken. The broken ones are cards that are so powerful they can easily swing the battle into your favor and roll right over your enemies. Sure you could still take them down, but the amount of resources that you’ll be pouring into these is way above what other cards need. Having one of these on the field is annoying already, but if the other guy has more then one in his or her deck? Yeah… Good luck getting a win. It’s practically impossible then!
- PAY. TO. WIN!: Being a card-game enthusiast myself, I am fully aware of the joys and benefits of having a deck that has the best cards or combos in a game. Sure, for yourself this will feel amazing. For others that are doing the F2P (free to play) strategy, not so much. I was doing this game on a F2P basis, seeing as it is for a review that I’m doing this. Now I got to say that I did luck out on some of my chest openings. So much so that I did get a few decent cards. With these, I wrecked other F2P players. And then I came across my very first “I forked over oodles and oodles of cash to assemble this deck” kind of player. With a deck that was one big combo, I was destroyed in just minutes without anything I could do. There was no counter, there was no clever play. Nothing. This was not helped by the fact of course that some of the cards that this guy was using were broken and had a huge power spike, unlike other cards that I’ve seen. And then it hit me. This game was never meant to be played as a free 2 play game. Sure you can be skilled, and eventually luck into decent cards, but by that time you’ll have dabbled in buying some tokens to unlock some cards already. Sadly enough this might be what will ward a lot of potential players off.
Developer: BetaDwarf Publisher: BetaDwarf
Played on: Xbox One X Also available on: PC
Alexis spent 4 hours destroying hopes and dreams, one victim was our very own Dae Jim.. hehehe
Achievement difficulty for 1000 Gamerscore: 10 – 20 hours.
Perfect for: Gamers who are looking for a break.
Xbox Game Store link: Click here
