Marvel Contest of Champions Review - Avengers Assembled!

 

Marvel Contest of Champions is not just a game, it’s a commitment. A commitment that requires passion, energy, effort, and lots of time. You can’t just give it a try, if you’ve downloaded it, you’re hooked for months to come.

The game has the largest catalog of Marvel superheroes, interesting mechanics, social gameplay that isn’t overwhelming, and a game that can be played pretty much anywhere. It is definitely the best comic book-themed video game on the market. Marvel fans in fact find it the most successful Marvel video game ever. 

Marvel Contest of Champions was launched 6 years back and was an immediate hit. The game is still insanely popular and it hasn’t lost its community audience. This is primarily because of its regular updates. The developers launch 2 new champions every month. In addition, new quests and battles are introduced from time to time. 

As you enter the game you are welcomed with a short sequence of stills that try to depict the events that led us to this contest of champions. The stills are an art of amazing graphics. The storyline though is pretty basic, seems like just an excuse to make superheroes and supervillains get into a tussle. That is quite disappointing considering the number of great storylines a marvel themed game could have had.

We are in the role of a typical Summoner and we are tasked by The Collector to assemble a team of characters and champions. The tutorial will then take you to the crystal vault, where you will get your first heroes. However, you can only watch as a roulette chooses a hero for you randomly.

The game has the best touch controls for mobile devices. No buttons that clutter your screen, nor any hard-to-understand combinations. Tapping the screen anywhere in front of your character causes light attacks and swiping in front performs a medium attack. Tapping and holding shortly in front of your character performs a heavy attack, which breaks through blocks. Tapping anywhere behind your character will cause it to block incoming attacks. Swiping the screen towards or away from the enemy will cause your character to dash forward or backwards respectively.

Master the controls and keep moving forward. The Story Quests has different scenarios divided into Acts and Chapters. Chapters have different paths you can travel, each one with its own set of opponents and rewards. The difficulty of this mode comes because heroes do not replenish their health at the end of each fight, so you’ll have to analyze closely what lies ahead and plan your strategy accordingly. To replenish or heal your champion you pay or you wait. 

There are other single-player modes including Event Quests and Versus. Event Quests are daily quests that will give you more loot than others. While in Versus mode, you can compete with other players in online battles. Arena mode lets you play continuously without worrying about the quest meter. 

In multiplayer modes there exist battle drums, In this you choose a team of three heroes and fight against another team. The best mode to play with friends is Alliance mode. Alliances are groups of people that can help each other out and go to quests together. By helping your mates, you get Loyalty points, which you can use towards Alliance crystals. With these, you can upgrade your champion. 

The Strengths of Marvel Contest of Champions

What’s the motive for all this fighting? Well, here comes the best part. You get to make your Marvel Champion collection, which is either awarded or purchased. Marvel Contest of Champions offers the largest Marvel Character Pool. The game has over 170 characters from all the comics and movies ever made. You can upgrade them or obtain new ones without much fuss. 

Every character has their own personality, traits, moves, and abilities. They come in six classes: Skill, Science, Mystic, Cosmic, Tech, Mutant. Every class has an advantage over one class and similarly a disadvantage over one other. For example, Skill is stronger against Science but weaker against mutants. Too much to digest? No worries. The game identifies them with an icon and even tells you when an opponent has a class advantage against you.

The amount of content is insane for a mobile free-to-play game. It is a perfect adaptation of a  console-level game. The huge amount of content keeps you coming for more. The detailed development of characters, diverse modes, and beautiful locations make it a big hit.

This impressive amount of modes and deepness would be nothing without good gameplay. The gameplay is decent enough.  Battles are really fast-paced and fluid, as in any fighting game. Controls are smooth and responsive, and after a few fights, you’ll be able to master both attacking and defensive stances.

The energy replenishes automatically after some time. If you’re not investing, a good option would be to play for short periods. This would let the champions heal and replenish themselves until you come back. 

The Weaknesses of Marvel Contest of Champions

It does become pay to win in many places. If you’re not investing, you would be grinding your life away. The game runs a lot better on ios compared to android. It clearly prioritizes the companies that sponsor the game.

The game is a lot time-consuming, particularly the Alliance quests. It is not a game to play and move on. You’d be obsessed with making a great collection. It certainly affects your work and social life. It calls for time and purchases.

Champions are assigned randomly. So, if you’re aiming for a particular champion the chances are low. The newly introduced champions are the hardest to get. You’d have to go through grinding months of gameplay to finally land a new addition. In fact, getting a high star champion itself is hard. 

To defeat a few champions like Iron man and Hulk, you need to know special tactics. I highly recommend going through a review or watching a live stream to get a kick-start into the game. 

Youtube as a resource is great to tackle techniques for certain champions. As you progress to higher levels, there is a great amount of stuff to learn. 

The game lets you communicate with strangers online through a chatbox. Though it is just a means to socialize, the community gets toxic at times. It is important to always remember, at the end of the day, it’s just a game. 

Suggested Improvements for Marvel Contest of Champions

There should be an alternative way to replenish and heal your champions. The waiting time is unnecessarily long which frustrates most players. 

Marvel Contest of Champions has 3 currencies, ISO-8 class-specific currency, Gold, and cash. At times you are high on one currency and low on the other. The developers should add a concept of converting currencies. This is required since some features require a particular type of currency and even if you’re high on the other you’re still at loss.  

Some improvements in the storyline and mixing genres for the gameplay would enhance the experience. 

Combined with beautiful graphics, a great character collection, and interesting gameplay, Marvel Contest of Champions is one of the finest games in the Play Store, with a huge following and a broad community. If you like the Marvel universe and would like to see your favorite characters combat, then you should give this game a look.

Ratings: 4.4/5
Pros:

• Large catalog of champions
• A good amount of content
• Smooth gameplay
• Easy controls

Cons:

• Heavy storage  
• Battery draining
• In-app purchases

Screenshots 

Requirements:

CPU: Snapdragon 660 Octa Core 2.2 GHz or equivalent

GPU: Kyro 260 or equivalent

RAM: 4GB

Storage: 1GB

OS: iOS 9/Android 6.0 and up