Marvel Contest of ChampionsThis app is free and can be quite addictive. It features several popular characters from the Marvel universe that comic book fans, fans of the cartoon, films or television programs will be sure to recognise. The game features many different elements that allow a user to essentially choose how he or she prefers to play the game.
I played this app game for roughly 7 or 8 months. The game has a lot of different features and there are many strategies for succeeding in the various areas of the content. I will create a few side posts to go over these topics, but for this post let's stick to the basic experience of playing the game.
I am going to divide the experience up into sections. The game have a Global Chat, Private Messages, Alliances, Alliance Events/Quests/Wars, Versus Battles, Story Quests, Daily & Event Quests, Crystals, A Shoppe, Mail, Duels, Masteries, Summoner Levelling, Champion Collection & Ranking/Levelling, Potions, Items, etc... But let's start with battle graphics, because this was one of the things that appealed to me the most.
BATTLE GRAPHICS: During battles you can select your champion to fight your opponent. Your champions have a few basic attacks, they can rush forward, dodge backwards, block and so on... However there are 3 powers that really show off the characters. You wont get the third power unless you use a 3 star champion or higher. Lower star champions only get the basic abilities, but even these can be fun to watch as they are specific to the character you choose. To the left you can see that a two star champion only has these first two abilities by the bar at the bottom of the screen that fills as you take and deal damage. The graphics are smooth during these and look much the same as when you are attacking in general. Like a normal attack these can be dodges and evaded as well.
The real gems are the third abilities that you get with higher star champs. When your third power bar fills you can begin an attack that is a separate cut scene and can not be dodged or blocked. Below are some of these scenes from various champions.
Once a battle ends you get a victory pose for the champion who won, be it yours or the opponent. Below are a few victory poses for some of the champions.
STORY QUESTS: Though I doubt many people actually read the dialogue for the story quests, there is a story that explains why all of these heroes (and villains and anti heroes) are battling one another. There are currently 4 acts of the story with a short comic strip between each act.
Within the acts there are chapters, and within the chapters there are several maps you need to complete to move forward. If you want the best rewards you will need to complete the maps by playing them multiple times, taking a different path every time in order to fully unlock it.
As expected, the first Act is fairly easy, the next one is a little harder, the third harder, and the fourth is currently the hardest, requiring a strong team to play. You will unlock more slots for champions on your teams as you level up. You can see to the left that the bottom team slot at this time was locked, limiting the amount of champions you could bring with you on a mission.
You gain rewards for every map you play, and full rewards when you complete the map at 100%. The same goes for completing a chapter or an act. The best rewards come from full completion but you will always get some rewards, even without 100%.
VERSUS/ARENA: This is where you can pit your champions against other player's champions. However, even though these are champions belonging to other players, they are still being controlled like the NPC champions from the quests. There is currently no way to battle another player live. This means you can still pause the battle as well.
You can do regular one on one versus where you can choose any of your champions and the game will randomly choose some other player's champion to fight against you. Winning the battke rewards you will a crystal.
Alternatively there are arenas that allow you to bring 3 of your champions and pit them against other player's teams of three (again, this is controlled by the game, not an actual player). The arenas usually offer up special rewards such as new champions. However, gaining enough points to win those champions is incredibly difficult and time consuming.
DUELS: If you see any other player you can click on them and choose duel, or view profile and then duel. This allows you to choose any one of your champions to duel their top champion (The champion used in their avatar/icon is their top champion). If you win you get a small reward. Most people only duel during events such as duel skirmish.
DAILY & EVENT QUESTS: Every day the daily quests are reset. They are like tinier versions of the story quests but you play them for specific rewards, and there is no dialogue. These quests are used to gather material to level and rank up your champions.
The event quests are limited time story quests that you have a specific amount of time to complete, then they are gone forever. They sometimes offer special rewards such as new champions or alpha catalysts which are used to rank up high star champions. There is even sometimes an event quests that allows you a chance to become a 'legend' in the game by being one of the first to complete it. Though these are rare. I only saw 2 of these such event quests within the time I played. You need to have a very strong team in order to accomplish this.
Event quests often give you the opportunity to see new champions before they are released or some champions that exist only for that quest. For example the M.O.D.O.K quest mixed up many of the champions giving them powers from other champions. These characters are not obtainable and only existed for the event quest.
ALLIANCES: An alliance is a group of up to 30 players who work together to complete alliance events, quests and wars. You are able to obtain more rewards by being part of an alliance, gain access to more content and gather things such as loyalty points which are only obtainable through being part of an alliance.
There is also an alliance chat that you can use to communicate with the other members of your alliance. It's a great alternative to the Global Chat which I will explain in a moment.
The main page of your alliance will have updates showing new champions and ranks achieved by your fellow team mates. These are only viewable by people within your alliance.
ALLIANCE EVENTS, QUESTS & WARS: Being in an alliance you will notice that there is always an alliance based event happening. These events range from levelling up your champions and opening crystals to duelling or completing story quests. Most of these events are not done 'with' the other members of your alliance, but alone. However, your score is gathered together with the scores of your team mates to earn rewards.
Alliance quests are like the story or event quests only you get to play with the other members of your alliance (And there is no dialogue). There are 10 users to a battle group, each with 3 champions, which is more than enough people to go every available rout on a map. You have to work together with your team mates to get through the map by taking down nodes for each other to move forward safely. It is a great way to practice team work. These quests last 24 hours from start to finish, but you have a separate pool of energy. Unlike regular quest maps, this one requires a 5 energy pool that is not linked to your main energy pool. There are also separate potions. Only alliance potions can be used in alliance quests or wars. I find this to be slightly irritating, honestly.
Wars are like alliance quests but instead of taking 3 champions each to fight a pre-set map of NPC enemies, you are pitted against another alliance who uses their own champions as the defenders on the map. Each person who engages in war needs at least 8 champions. 5 of these are assigned as defenders to defend your base from the other alliance. Each player also has 3 attackers they will use to try to defeat the other alliance's defenders. The alliance that accumulates the most points wins. Though everyone gets rewards for participating. The more wins your alliance gets, the better the rewards you will receive.
GLOBAL CHAT: If I could give just two pieces of advice for this game it would be this...
*Do not create a name is that highly feminine.
*Avoid Global Chat.
Global chat is just oozing with spam, thirsty individuals, inappropriate conversation, trolls, scammers, etc. I can not express how bad it is, honestly. I would not want anyone under 14 to be reading that chat room, and that is being generous. Parents: Please make sure your child is safe online, especially when it comes to this application.
Here are some examples below. And these are not even the worst of it. You can click the images to enlarge.
PRIVATE MESSAGES/FRIEND LIST: You can add invites to people as well as block them (Thank goodness). If you block someone you can not see anything they type anywhere. However, you can not send private messages to people unless you add them as a friend.
One down side to the private messaging system is that it does not keep the chat log for very long. If someone sends you a message and you don't read it for a few days, it disappears. This is a feature that I wish they would consider changing. There is also a maximum amount of people you can have on your friend list. It used to be 25, but fortunately they have raised the max a bit recently.
MAIL: The game will often send you in game mail to let you know about new events, send rewards or let you know about maintenance. If you are invited to an alliance or are sent a gift, those invites will also be sent this way. However, users can not send mail to each other for communication. That is what the private message system is for.
CRYSTALS / SHOPPE: Crystals are where you get champions and items generally. Different crystals have different items inside but they work like a gacha. What you get from the possible items associated with the crystal is random. Crystals come from playing the game and winning them or collecting shards to create a full crystal. Crystals can also be purchased from the shoppe, as can the shards, gold, credits, a gifting badge and a conversion badge. Credits being one of the many forms of currency in the game. Credits are used to purchase crystals, unlock masteries, purchase mastery items or portions. Gold is the more common form of currency which is used to level and rank champions. The conversion badge converts certain items into other types and the gifting badge allows you to gift crystals and potions or mastery items to people. It costs credits every time you gift and you can not gift champions.
SUMMONER LEVEL & MASTERIES: Your summoner level is gathered through experience which is gained by playing the game. It is separate from the level of your champions. Your level can be seen next to your avatar at the top of the screen. Taping this takes you to your profile where you can view your masteries. Every level you gain gives you one more point to spend on masteries.
Masteries come in three types. Attack, Defence and Utility. There are many types of skills you can add to your champs through masteries. The masteries your choose are added to any champ you use.
LEVELLING/RANKING CHAMPIONS & WHAT STARS ARE: Yes, the game is a bit complicated with levels within levels, it's a bit like inception. First there are star ranks. Whatever star your champion is, it can not be changed. You can have the same champion multiple times only if each one is a different star. Meaning you can have a 2 star Antman and a 3 star Antman. However, you can not have two 3 star Antmans.
After the star rank you have your champion's level. Using ISOs you get from quests or crystals are used with gold to level up your champions. The experience you earn from battles affects your summoner level but not the level of your champions. After you max out your level you can rank that champion up using catalysts and gold. You can then max out their level again, rank again, etc. However there is a max for each star. The higher the star, the higher you can keep ranking and levelling.
ITEMS & POTIONS: You may have noticed me discussing different items... Mastery items, ISOs, catalysts... There are also boosts you can use on your champions that give them more power for a limited time. These items are obtained through quests, events and crystals. Each item serves a different purpose and I honestly wish they would simplify the system to include less items.
Potions for health and revive exist in multiple categories. There are Alliance potions and regular potions. Alliance potions are exactly the same as regular ones, but can only be used in alliance quests and wars. The regular ones can not be used in alliance quests and wars. The health potions have different levels that heal different amounts of health. They also have team heals or single champion heals. Revives are the same, single and team revives exist. Revives also have various levels that revive your champions with a different amount of health.
CONCLUSION: I realise this review was a little all over the place but there are so many parts of this app, and I didn't want to write a book. As I stated earlier, I will write some more posts specific about the individual sections to go into more detail.
The graphics are nice and the fight system is fine. I like the events and the story. I am a big Marvel comic fan so I enjoy getting to create teams of my favourite characters. I also like how the events often correlate with what's going on in the Marvel cinematic, NETFLIX and television world. I think that is really fun. That being said, there is a lot I don't like too...
I do not like how over complicated everything is. I think it could easily be simplified so you have one potion set that works wherever you need it. I would like less kinds of crystal shards and less kinds of items and less levels of catalysts. The system needs to be more user friendly. I also don't like how pop ups to spend money constantly show up. There are more money based updates than not and I always find that to be a turn off. the system basically works the way many apps are going where you can spend a lot of money to gain your rank faster than those working hard and grinding in the game. Not to mention the Global Chat needs to either be removed or moderated heavily.
It is a fun game, especially if you play with friends, but it does end up being time consuming and frustrating. There are also issues with bugs quite often. These are all going to lower the overall score I give to this app.
I would also like to see them add more female characters to the app. They have great female heroes such as Spider-Gwen, She-Hulk and Black Widow. They have even recently added Thor (Female). I hope they balance out the playing field a bit in the future. I would love if they added Lady Loki, Psylocke, Black Cat, Mystique, Clea, Squirrel Girl or Wasp.
- Free
- Category: Games
- Updated: May 10, 2016
- Version: 8.0.2
- Size: 505 MB
- Languages: English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Turkish
- Seller: Kabam Inc.
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