Call of Gods: Disappointing Climax
By John Gallagher (Zastlyn), OnRPG Journalist
Call of Gods, free-to-play browser game designed by KoramGames, is filled with constant moments of “if only.” The game has some very good ideas and a fun premise. However, it falls short in the actual execution aspect of those ideas. When the game begins, the player is allowed to choose between human, elf, or undead heroes. There is some slight player vs. player content that is determined by the race you choose, but it is mainly an aesthetic choice. The game has three main components: castle development, army management, and the battle system. The former two are detailed, unique and fun; however, the battle system is a big disappointment in a game that calls itself a MMORTS.
Call of Gods is a game that will keep you busy. The player has to manage multiple heroes’ stats, skills, and equipment, as well as their respective armies. It is also necessary to manage the castle and its vast array of buildings and upgrades. Everything in Call of Gods is upgradable, from the amount of units you have to those units’ attack and defense. Your castle will quickly become a familiar sight. At the castle, the player can construct buildings to gather resources, such as stone quarries and lumberyards. The player can also build battle units at the castle, as well as manage unit upgrades. Each building has multiple levels of upgrades – for example, an upgraded mine will produce more stone per minute. An upgraded barracks will add new units to add to your army. Buildings sometimes take up to 30 minutes to complete, but it is not necessary to keep playing while they are under construction. Players do not need to sink many hours into this game in order to have fun with it.
You’ll be here a lot.
When the player is not upgrading every possible thing in their castle they will be obtaining quests in the main world via a series of point-and-click screens. These quests are the main ways to level up the heroes recruited from the tavern. The player starts with a free hero, but it is possible to upgrade to a maximum of seven unique heroes, given the player has enough patience for the necessary resource collecting. Every hero has his or her own equipment slots, customizable skills and specialties, such as archer units or front line warriors. These quests consist mainly of killing certain units in pre-determined battle areas and automatically collecting the item in question. One unexpected difficulty in questing is understanding some objectives. Due to some bad translations, it is sometimes necessary to re-read an objective in order to make sense of its broken English. No quest was ever unintelligible, but it detracts from the overall game experience to have to read sentences such as “I do not care if you are enough brave.”
Point and click never looked so pretty.
The final aspect of the game you will become very familiar with is the battle screen. The battle system in this game was a big disappointment. After all the work the player does upgrading their armies and heroes, when it comes time to battle you can only observe. The battle system in this game is automated with a very simple set of rules for the AI to follow. In order to get closer to the enemy units move up predetermined “rows.” If there is no enemy within reach they move forward. That is the extent of the game’s battling A.I. Due to this battle style, ranged units dominate the battlefield, never having to move and taking potshots at a slowly advancing enemy every turn. Each battle takes between 20 to 50 seconds. However, in order to complete most quests the player is required to fight the same enemy upwards of 6 times. That’s minutes of just watching your precious armies slowly winning the battles for you. It is a big letdown after the build-up of micromanaging your army’s composition.
Sadly, all you can do is watch.
Call of Gods has a good build up that never really reaches its climax due to the poor implementation of the battle system. It has great visuals, fun micromanaging, and tons of upgradable stuff that would have you coming back for more, but it all doesn’t mean much when battles are simply not fun.
Gameplay: A mixed bag of fun army building and a bad battle system hinder its gameplay greatly: 6.0.
Sound: A constantly repeating background theme with merely decent sound effects hurt this score: 6.0.
Replay Ability: With three different races, this game has a lot to it, if you have the patience: 7.5.
Graphics: The graphics are quite good, but there some stiff battle animations: 8.0.
Overall Score: The presentation is nice, but the lack of strategy in a strategy game hurt its score greatly: 6.5.
