Yearly Archives: 2015

Cosplay Highlights: Soul Calilbur, League of Legends & more

Kick back and enjoy another OnRPG collection of the best in cosplay! As always, please visit the artists directly to show your support.


 Soul Calibur Cosplay : Tira vs Talim by Khainsaw & Dawn Zillie

 Soul Calibur Cosplay : Tira vs Talim by Khainsaw & Dawn Zillie


Arcade Miss Fortune Cosplay  by KawaiiTine

Arcade Miss Fortune Cosplay  by KawaiiTine


Bayonetta Cosplay by Shadow Cosplay

Bayonetta Cosplay by Shadow Cosplay


 League of Legends Popstar Ahri by Yan

 League of Legends Popstar Ahri by Yan


Jasmine Cosplay by raquelsparrowcosplay

Jasmine Cosplay by raquelsparrowcosplay


Bonus Round: Geek Art Spotlight

 Hellfire of a Ride by ChasingArtwork

 Hellfire of a Ride by ChasingArtwork

Point Blank Counter Attack

Point Blank Counter Attack is a free to play 3D mobile shooter being developed by Zepetto for Android. In Point Blank Counter Attack players can enjoy the return of Point Blank as an adventure game where they will get to play as different guardians, shooting down any foes that stand in their way. Fun battles await in Point Blank Counter Attack for those who are looking for a thrilling mobile gaming experience.

Features:

Numerous Guardians: Over 70 unique guardians can be used, each with their own battle style so you can select the right guardian for the right job!

Easy Controls: Simplistic, easy-to-use controls will enable you to gun down your enemies with ease.

Dragon Heroes: Dragon Girls Swimsuit Edition

By Jaime Skelton (MissyS)

Dragon Heroes Review

For all that mobile devices lend themselves to arcade style games, it’s a little surprising to see so few dominating the market. I can perfectly picture pinball, racers, and rail-shooters on a phone or tablet screen, yet I usually end up reviewing card games, match-threes, even turn-based RPGs. So when Dragon Heroes was suggested as my next mobile review project, I took one glance and thought, “Bullet hell? Sweet!”

Dragon Heroes isn’t as different as you might think from other popular mobile games, but its core gameplay is exactly what you could want from a shoot ‘em up. Let’s break it down.

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Core Gameplay

At its heart, Dragon Heroes is a fixed 2D shooter. Each stage of gameplay consists of waves of enemies which appear on screen in a set pattern, with the final wave being a boss fight. The active character is at the bottom of the screen. Movement is controlled by holding and moving a finger along the screen in a constant swipe, while firing is automatic. There are also a few additional features to this part of gameplay to make it a little more interesting.

Enemies have a variety of attacks and abilities. Each enemy has a single ability, from charging down the screen to casting bolts of magic. Some enemies also act as barriers to protect enemies behind them, and some can also summon more enemies onto the battlefield. While most enemies on their own are fairly harmless, in the right combination, enemies can be challenging. Bosses, meanwhile, go straight for the “bullet hell” attack scheme, launching several patterned attacks that require skill to avoid.

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Enemies will occasionally drop random power-ups as they are defeated. These power-ups include defense, offense, heals, and even summoned dragons with additional skills and attacks. Each power-up will last only a few seconds, but this duration can be increased with each level up using skill points. This skill point system lets players put emphasis on the power-ups they find most useful, or simply take a balanced route.

Instead of bringing a single character to a stage, Dragon Heroes uses a party system. Three characters (plus an optional fourth from your friends list) come along each battle. While only one character is active at a time, other characters can be switched to by tapping their portrait. Switching characters allows the previous character to rest up and regain some hit points. It also activates a special ability from the new character for a limited time, often a powerful damaging ability. Switches per stage are limited, and will happen automatically if the active character loses all their hit points. Building a good team is a must: each character has a leader skill and special activated skill.

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Character Progression

Unfortunately, the overused “card upgrade system” finds its way into Dragon Heroes. Each character is considered a “card,” and cards drop regularly from dungeons and can be drawn daily from the shop (both for free and with cash). Characters have a range of rarity indicated by their star value, and upgrading a character requires fusing extra cards onto them for experience. Yes, it’s an easy way to make use of extra characters and cards that aren’t needed, but it’s also a system designed to create an intense experience grind in later levels to keep gameplay ongoing. There has to be a reason to entice players to purchase experience potions, right? At the very least, the game’s cash shop currency (rubies) is plentiful and is rewarded for a variety of achievements and task completion.

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Characters also have equipment in the form of runes. The rune system is a seven-part sigil that encourages synergy between each element. There are four defense runes (forming the shape of a circle) and three attack runes, each with a specific shape. Runes are colored according to their element, and possess various stat boosts or skills. Synergizing runes grants what can be thought of as a “set bonus,” so it’s best to group like together. Runes can be upgraded with materials, and additional runes can be purchased in a store for gold.

Not directly related to progression, but I also should note one particular oddity: certain characters have costumes they can dress up in. Currently these mostly consist of swimsuits. Some of them are rather bizarre. To each their own, I guess?

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Extra Features

In addition to the campaign mode, there are a few other features available to play in Dragon Heroes that offer plenty to do with that energy bar.

To start off with, there are four daily dungeons available. Each focuses on one of four areas – gold, experience, heroes, and grade-up materials. There are limits on how often you can run each in a day, though the “keys” that allow you to run them do regenerate over time.

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The infinite dungeon challenges players to go as far as they can in a never-ending dungeon during the week, and rewards the top of the leaderboard. A special dungeon offers additional challenges. The game also supports guilds and PvP with an asynchronous arena. Between these events, and plentiful energy, you could theoretically play Dragon Heroes for hours before having to put it down.

 

Final Verdict: Good (3/5)

Dragon Heroes is undeniably fun to play if you’re a fan of shoot ‘em ups, but it has many flaws. Some of them, like limited character movement, are game quality issues; others, like the game’s unavoidably obvious mobile-flavored grind, can be overlooked. Outside of the gameplay in stages, Dragon Heroes has an uncanny resemblance to games like Puzzle & Dragons. Heck, even the brown and gold user interface feels strangely familiar. It leaves the game perfectly average: great gameplay with minor flaws is balanced out against poor free-to-play structure.

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The Breakdown:

  • Graphics & Sound (3/5): Dragon Heroes has a well-drawn anime style and bright visuals. Unfortunately the sound track is very limited and repeats tracks endlessly. The UI is also very bland and oversized.
  • Controls (4/5): Touch controls work great for a shoot ‘em up, with the one crucial flaw that the character can only be moved in the lower third of the screen (rather than full screen movement).
  • Features (4/5): The game system is time gated with energy, but there are plenty of game modes to offer almost endless play. The game currently lacks a co-op feature.
  • Customization (2/5): Characters are not truly customizable, outside of managing rune equipment and a few costumes. Party customization is varied.
  • Community (2/5): There is little community to speak of, and even the in-game chat is usually quiet. Guilds, however, seem open and helpful.

Camelot Unchained Reveals Pure Healer Archetype

The 9th class archetype has landed for CityState Games’ upcoming PvP realm combat MMORPG, Camelot Unchained, and it’s caused quite a stir. After the hardcore fans of the community failed to position their comrades to vote for it after many weeks, we at last have an overview of the intended look and feel for Pure Healers. Before jumping in though there are some key components and subtleties that makes these healers possibly more BSC (bat shit crazy) than any archetype revealed prior.

 

Camelot Unchained Pure Healers

Unfamiliar Functionality

Pure Healers are going to be VERY STRONG compared to what you will typically see a healer capable of in an MMORPG. However, they are also far more susceptible to being interrupted, and have less utility than most modern day healers to get themselves out of a jam. There will be penalties in terms of mobility or effectiveness, but the freedom to use heavy armor is a possibility too. This would likely be a matter of team/guild composition/intended purpose on the battlefield.

Characters can be wounded in individual body parts based on damage types they receive. CityState intends to give healers specialized UI for identifying this wounds efficiently so they can use their customized skills to focus their energy on that specific body part. While this may be a skill component system, a body part selection system, or something else yet to be revealed, it is indeed their sincerest wish to add this complexity to the process.

A veteran and skilled healer will stand apart from his peers because he has a giant skill bar and knows how to use it. Don’t expect to do anything more than slow paced field medic work if you’re rocking a 6 skill skillbar out there. A doctor that treats all maladies the same will rarely cure anything. It’s the same for Camelot Unchained healers.

Healers will be reliant on crafters for full effectiveness just like any other class. This likely means heading to town to rely on crafters to make the best beakers, runic stones, and heal boosting armor/robes to maximize your strengths. No free pass or coddling just cause you’re a special snowflake support!

Finally ranged healing is intended to be incorporated into the same physical projectile PhysX system impacted like everything else in the AIR system. This means there will be no hiding behind keep walls or heal botting allowed in Camelot Unchained. Healers will need line of sight and proper positioning to land heals at a distance, and there will be chances of heals failing due to external conditions. While this is VERY much a concern and topic of heated debate among backers, Mark Jacobs has made it clear that he will be going forward with this plan until testing in beta proves it unusable otherwise.

Now that the BSC part is out of the way, we can jump into the classes!

 

Arthurian – Physician

The physician is an unusually high risk character in the normally safe and organized Arthurian ranks. Between an above average hindrance from heavier armor and inventory, and a healing system that favors close range, this class is not going to be for the faint of heart. Physicians must find the safe pocket in battle to get up close to their allies to heal them, or chose to utilize their potions at range for a lower effectiveness.

The physician benefits greatly from proper planning. Their greater potions off limited charges, making every choice in an extended conflict carry weight. The more potions they bring to battle, the greater utility they’ll offer to counter a wide range of maladies. Plus their ability to sip their own potion for lesser effect prior to using it on an ally means that the wider the range of potions they bring, the more powerful they themselves will become.

While typical potion based classes in other MMORPGs tend to come with poisions to counter enemies, they don’t currently plan that for this class. You’ll have enough on your mind to keep your realm alive to be worried about poisoning your foes on top of it!

 

TDD – Empath

Empaths absorb the suffering of their allies to push TDD beyond their natural limits. This comes at a cost as an Empath under constant strain to reduce suffering will begin to take on greater burdens than they can bare. This makes the Empath both the most powerful healing archetype, as well as the one most vulnerable to interference from the enemy.

Curing wounds is mere childs play to an Empath as they can literally absorb an allies’ wounds into themselves, lessening the effect for themselves. Once their allies are wound free, further healing begins to rebuild the Empath’s own constitution as well. If an Empath has time to get established, they’re even capable of summoning a Simulacrum copy of themselves to draw health out of to fuel their magic rather than sacrificing their own blood and health.

Of course this self sacrifice becomes dangerous when the pressure is on. Empaths low on HP become less effective at healing their allies until they have time to recover. Those that take on more wounds than they can purify will begin to suffer and deteriorate badly after an extended duration. Masterful micromanagers will be needed to fully utilize the full skill ceiling of this intense class.

 

Viking – Stonehealer

A staunch defender in stark contrast from the typically forward rushing offensive classes of its realm, the Stonehealer offers safe harbor for hit and run characters to pull back to for a breather. In typical Viking fashion, they scribe Norse runic symbols into stones to enable healing magics, with a heavier lean towards AoE effects than their rival realm counterparts.

Stonehealers operate best when they’re able to stay locked down in one location for extended periods. Like the Empaths, they’re able to summon an Odin Stone as a sort of healing turret to channel their most powerful magics through. The longer an Odin Stone stands, the greater their power becomes. Yet enemies can destroy the Odin Stone to do direct damage to the Stonehealer, not to mention Stonehealers tend to be easier to disrupt than other healing counterparts.

A Stonehealer on the move can still maintain support by directly tossing their rocks at allies in one of the most unusual methods for healing ever seen in an MMORPG. When the writing is on the wall and retreat is necessary, a Stonehealer can even pick up their deployable to recover blood and gain a boon effect to help them through the rough spot before they’re able to establish a new healing locale.

 

For the full class tease, head over to the archetype reveal page on the official site.

HeroWarz

HeroWarz is a top-down action MORPG developed by A.Storm and published by KOG Games. Featuring a ton of unique characters and abilities, HeroWarz paves the way with a unique style all its own.

Features:

Unique Heroes: Choose between a wide array of characters, from brawlers to gunners, wizards, samurais, bikers and much more.

Tons of gameplay modes: With a duel mode, Team Deathmatch, open world exploration, dungeons and even a MOBA mode, there’s something for everyone.

Fast leveling: Got a few minutes to kill? HeroWarZ’s leveling curve is fast and easy. Players can gain tons of levels within a simple coffee break.