Rage of Bahamut

Rage of Bahamut App for iPhone
     Remember trading card games?  Maybe you never forgot them to begin with.  This is a virtual trading card game.  Collect, trade, and build strong decks to battle your friends, and defeat your foes.
     I'm not one for card games, but I have played many in my youth.  Munchkin, Lunch Money, Magic the Gathering, Animayhem, Sailor moon, Pokemon... Yes, I'm a bit of a dork.  And no, I don't lay them anymore.  However, this game looked rather interesting to me, and I thought I'd give it a try.
     Let me start by saying that the artwork in this game is spectacular.  They have a really spot on team of artists working for them.  Clearly the cards are not all drawn by the same artists.  Each artist seems to have their own style and flair that they add to their cards.  It's really fun to collect them just for the eye candy.  But wait... you can also use them to play the game?  Amazing...
     There are 3 denominations to choose from.  Are you on the side of the gods?  The demons?  Or are you with the humans (man)?  Don't worry too much about the cards having denominations.  You can use all of the cards, despite your denomination.  But remember that if you do use cards that match the side you chose, you'll get better stats.  It can really help in one on one battles.
     Myself?  I chose the side of the gods.  Why?  I have a thing for angels, fairies, unicorns and other such whimsical creatures that happen to be on this side.  The demons has succubus, demon dogs, skeletons, vampires and such.  Man has knights, hunters, thieves, gypsies, dancers, princesses and other such human type creatures.
     Basically there are 2 ways to use these cards.  You can battle other players using your "ATK" stats.  Battling will diminish these points.  You'll have to wait for them to regenerate after a battle, before battling again.  You can also choose to use an item to replenish your stats instantly.  The more wins you have, the higher your ranking with the other players.  Some Orders (Guilds) require a certain level of commitment to join.  A good win loss ratio would help you with this.  When you win a match you receive Rupies (Coins).  The amount differs based on the battle and how well you did.  How high a level you were compared to them.  And how much coinage they happened to have on them.  You can also choose to battle for treasures.  In which case you could win a special treasure if you win the match.
     The other way to get ahead in this game is to go through the quests.  You can defeat random bad guys fairly easily.  As long as you have the stamina to attack them, you beat them.  When you defeat a certain amount you'll find a treasure chest.  Inside is a card or a treasure (or Rupies).  I personally try to get every possible reward for each section of the quests before moving forward.  I'm always afraid I'll miss out on something important if I just speed through the quests.  Just remember to keep track of your stamina.  Unlike the battle option, questing uses stamina points.  And the further you go into the quests, the more stamina it's going to take to proceed.
     Questing will raise your layer level.  this does not affect your card levels or stats.  What it does is allows you more attribute points.  These points can be placed in DEF, ATK or stamina.  many people try to level quickly by getting their stamina up to 100 first, before doing anything with the other 2 stats.  If you auto assign your stats it will level them all evenly.  As for me, I tend to have each state evenly spread apart.  Stamina has the most points.  Then attack (Since I start many battles), and lastly defense.  I don't get attacked very often, but I have enough there to use my defense deck.
     Your defense stats are what get consumed when someone battles you (They initiate).  You do not need to be present for this.  It will use your assigned defense deck.  If you haven't made one it makes one for you.  Don't worry, it's usually a very good deck.  It bases it off of the points the card requires, as compared to the points you have.  And the highest defensive stats per card.  What it doesn't take into consideration are abilities.  Which is why it might be wise to start creating your own decks, once you have a large collection of cards.
     If they defeat you, they'll take some of your coins, and you tack a loss onto your score.  If they lose, you get a win and some of their coins.
     So how do you improve your cards?  Leveling them via "enhance" and evolving them.  I will recommend that if you intend to evolve a card, do 'not' enhance it until the evolution has been maxed out.  When you evolve a card that has been enhanced, it's level goes back to one.  This undoes all the work you put into leveling it.  As a card is evolved the character drawing will change slightly.  Some cards more so than others.  The more rare cards generally have a greater change in appearance via evolution.  Leveling a card does not change it's appearance, only it's stats.
     To evolve a card you need multiple versions of the same card.  You can evolve a card 3 times (4 stages total).  once it hits it's final evolution it will be maxed out for evolution.  This is when you need to begin enhancing it's stats.
     To enhance a card you use cards you don't need or want.  they can 'not' be the same card as the one you are enhancing (IE you can't use a hobbit lad to enhance a hobbit lad).  You'll come across a lot of extra junk cards you don't need or want during your questing.  These are very useful for enhancing your cards.
     There are other ways to receive cards.  you can choose to pay real money.  if you do this you'll receive rare and higher cards only.  No small fries for paying customers.  However, I'm not one for paying for game items.  Are you the same way?  Good luck has smiled upon you.  You can also get free card packs.  Once a day when you log in you'll get a free card pack with a single random card inside.  You'll also get friendship points.  You can use these points to buy friendship packs.  Each pack has one card.  These cards can be any level of rarity.
     You can also gain friendship points through adding fellows (friends) and when people you invite to your order decide to join.  As well as once a day when you tweet about the game via the app.  When you tweet about it for 10 days you'll even get a free rare card!
     Your leader card represents your account.  It is the card image everyone will see at the top of your profile and the battle screen.  When you begin playing, your leader is your first card.  However, you can change this whenever you like, once you have more cards.  Your leader card will also be your card during quest boss battles and will be the attack you use during quest mode (Succubus leader cards make your attacks look like tiny hearts.  A Dryad makes your attacks look like leafy vine whips and so on).  This is not necessarily the card that will be used during battles against other players or during limited time event bosses.  Your leader card does not need to be part of your chosen deck.
     Let's talk briefly about orders.  You can choose to either create your own or to join someone else's.  I'm not much for guilds and such so I was originally going to skip this business all together.  However, they have special events that give you extra rare cards and items for being in a good order.  I found this reason to be good enough for me to create an order.  I was able to single handed get my order (Which at the time was just me and 2 inactive users) up to the top 8000 orders in the event (Just using my own stats), in 3 days.  Because of this I'll end up getting some special items from that event.
     They have events fairly often, so keep an eye out should you decide to start playing this game.
     Because I love the artwork in this game so much, I'm going to put a few pretty cards below for you to look at.  This will give you a basic idea of what the cards look like.  Remember, any image can be clicked on here to enlarge it.

     When you complete the tutorial in the beginning of the game you will have the chance to add a promotional referral code.  This code will award you 100,000 Rupies and a rare card.  This will be your only chance to enter this code.  You can not enter it later. When prompted type in: "hon48766".  Once you have your card and coins you'll be able to share this game with your friends by using your own promotional/referral code.  Then they can also get free coins and a rare card.  Spread the love around!
     I really enjoyed this game more than I initially thought I would.  Just be careful, it can be a bit addictive.  I would recommend this game to anyone who likes trading card games, enjoys art or mythical creatures/fantasy gaming, or anyone just looking for a fun free game to pass the time.
    Now, I generally add suggestions to my reviews, that could be implemented to improve the app and gaming experience.  This review will be no different.  There is one issue I have with this, that really bugs me.  There is no audio in the game.  No music, sound effects... Absolute silence.  So one might think "That's fine.  I'll listen to my music on my iPhone while I play my app"... Wrong.  Any audio you have running on your device turns off when you select this as your active app.  So you have no choice but to sit there in complete silence or find some other source of music or background noise via your tele or analog radio.  Please fix this, app creators!  It's such an easy fix, and would improve the experience.
Rating: 4/5

• Free
• Category: Games
• Size: 6.6 MB
• Languages: English, Japanese
• Seller: Mobage, Inc.
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