Preview: Realm of Alters

What is Realm of Alters

Realm of Alters is a turn-based card game that is based on card sacrifice. On itself, an annoying mechanic, but each their own preference. It prides itself on being free to play and the diverse amount of cards that can be played to generate resources. But let’s just say it isn’t always like that.

How I spent my time

Honestly, the first second I opened the game, I was happy that I own a GoXlr mixer. The music in-game is set to 100% of your current volume and can only be changed once you get past the first level. So everyone who plays will put the volume lower after this painful experience. I commenced looking for a way to full screen the game, which has impressive scaling as it turns out! So my following actions were mostly exploring the store and playing the story mode. Here I realized I was playing a mobile port of a game. You need to drag cards around as if you play with a touch screen. You have to long on press cards to see their abilities. Each of these would be fine if you wouldn’t use “stamina” to play the story—a popular mechanic for mobile games, implemented in the past few years. Every time you play a battle, you use stamina. You generate energy every x amount of time. So if you want to play this game for a few hours, you need to purchase crystals with real-life money to replenish this. Every other item in the store and home screen is heavily tailored towards young kids who have their mom’s credit card attached to their phone. You can buy emotes, card backs, daily card packs, tickets, daily specials, icons.

Okay, store rant aside, it’s time to finish my talk about the story mode: The story is lackluster, and the AI is buggy and not too smart. When you are about to lose, the AI tends to stop its actions, so you have a chance to come back. I even experienced the AI crashing, forcing me to concede the game to continue to play (costing me stamina, of course). When I tried ranked PVP, I noticed that the only server they had available was Asia. This resulted in some obvious delayed actions, which infuriated me even more. The sample deck Mecha was an excellent addition since it’s decently strong. Still, you will notice very rapidly when you are facing a player with more constructed decks.

Conclusion

The game might be Early Access, but the microtransactions are fully there. These games have a special place in my heart. They are fully designed to have your kids spend money every day on virtual cosmetics and cards. Hence they don’t have an exact value idea. I would go even as far as placing it just below Raid Shadow Legends for those who know that game. If you want a fun tailored game, I would stay away from this card game and try other alternatives like HearthStone or Legends of Runeterra.