➤ Call of Champions, review 🎮

If you have a minimum of experience with multiplayer online battle arena, for MOBA friends, you will know that it is a genre with great tactical depth, both as regards the mechanisms that characterize the gameplay, exclusively competitive, and as regards the learning the skills of the various characters that make up the roster.

To win matches it is not enough simply to have a close-knit team: it must also be well balanced, made up of users who are familiar with their avatars and are therefore able to make the most of their abilities, also and above all with a view to the "growth" that takes place during every single game. In recent years there have been several MOBAs on mobile devices, and the reason is easy to say: the touch control system fits perfectly with the strategic ones in real time; therefore we are talking about a trend with enormous potential, especially if played on a tablet. Despite the excellent results achieved by some productions, what no one has done so far has been to "disassemble" certain characteristic elements of the genre to adapt the experience to a portable context, and this is precisely the challenge of Call of Champions, the new title developed by Spacetime Studios. Catapulting us into three-on-three matches of short duration, just five minutes, the game effectively eliminates the "growth" factor and even the traditional minions, immediately putting the specials of each character at our disposal. In short, everything and immediately, apart from the champions: for them, playing for free, you have to respect a tight rotation or put your hand in your wallet.

Call of Champions plays the card of immediacy to offer a different MOBA experience than usual

Call to arms

Once Call of Champions is installed, it is not possible to try the versus mode immediately, but first you have to do some experience with the bots and assimilate the game mechanics, however rather simple given the "slimming cure" carried out by the boys of Spacetime Studios. The map is small and the objectives are always the same, that is, you have to destroy the enemy towers until you get to their base, but the development of the action is different than the other MOBAs.

In the first place, as mentioned, there are no minions: their barrier function with respect to the attack of the towers is carried out by "spheres" that we can push onto a rail so that they take the blows for us while we take care of damaging the structures , hoping that in the meantime the enemy team is busy doing something else. There are basically two lanes, one upper and one lower, but a teleport function to the base is missing, eliminated due to the short distances and short respawn times. The lack of perks, coins and an in-game shop mean that the characters are immediately "upgraded", ergo you simply have to learn how their moves work to become competitive, and maybe pay attention to the best attack sequences to be able to inflict massive damage and stay alive. Unfortunately, the communication within the teams was missing, also because it would not have been possible to implement it, considering the characteristics of the experience, but on the technical front a good job has been done, in particular as regards the design of some samples, which is rather original. What is perplexing is the combat system, a bit too slippery and inaccurate, at least on the iPhone (we imagine that on the iPad the situation can be better thanks to the larger screen), as well as the aforementioned cuts to the gameplay, which reveal the limits of a production thought probably for the only novices of the MOBA genre. It should also be added that in terms of monetization, the game perhaps dares a little too much, fixing - as previously mentioned - the definitive unlocking of the characters at rather high prices.

Comment

Tested version iPhone (1.0.2) Digital Delivery App Store Price Free Resources4Gaming.com

7.0

Readers (7)

4.0

Your vote

Call of Champions plays the card of immediacy to offer a MOBA experience different from the usual, much simpler and lighter, but precisely this concept ends up limiting the ambitions of the game. By entrusting the depth of the gameplay to the sole specialization with the champions (moreover expensive, wanting to unlock them) and their moves, in fact an important outline is missing, perhaps not always ideal for the mobile sector but certainly able to add character and facets to the product. The end result is certainly a pleasant title for those who want to get closer to the genre, but which after a while reveals all its limits, especially if you compare it with the best MOBAs available for iOS and Android.