What Is Hearthstone?
Hearthstone is a free-to-play card game from Blizzard, the creators of Starcraft, Warcraft and Diablo. The game's setting is inspired by the Warcraft universe, which makes sense considering that digital card games are (way) cooler with a little magic. Isn't that right, Magic the Gathering? Anyway, if you've played Magic then you already pretty much know how the game works. You can buy packs of cards in the in-game store for 100 coins or about $1 each, but you can also earn coins to purchase them by just playing the game.
As for gameplay, it's pretty much a simpler and easier to pick up version of magic. A match consists of two players and their heroes, which come equipped with unique special abilities that can be used in a pinch. You draw a hand from your deck, and you have cards that you can play as long as you have enough mana crystals in that turn, which are shown in the bottom right of the screenshot over there. Mana crystals also replenish automatically each turn. There are also two different types of cards- a deck consists of spells and minions. As you probably know already, a spell is a power that can be used to heal your hero or your minions, and a minion is just a card that resembles an entity, which have differing abilities and attributes from each other. For example, there's a minion type called taunt, which basically means that any of your opponent's minions must attack that specific minion until it's dead. Each minion has a certain health and attack rating, which shows how much damage they can deal out in a turn and take before they're killed. One quirk with the minions is that they cannot attack the turn that they're played, but another special type called charge allows these specific minions to attack the turn that they are put into action. Whenever a minion attacks an enemy minion card, that minion takes counterattack damage equal to the attack rating of the enemy minion.
There are 9 playable classes, each with their own unique cards and aspects. For example, the warlock has cards that focus on sapping the life from enemies, while the priest utilizes restoration-based cards to win the day. When you start out, you can unlock a certain class by beating it in a match, either against the inkeeper (AI) or another player. When you play a certain class enough, it will level up. Continue to level up that class to unlock more cards that can be put into a deck.
Speaking of which, you can create custom decks from the cards you've earned from leveling your classes. It's important to balance your deck by adding lots of different types of cards and choosing an equal number of minions and spells.
How does the Game work on Android?
The port onto android is actually pretty dang good. The graphics, gameplay, sounds, and expansions are all here and exactly the same as what's in the PC version currently. I think the touch controls are really great and a perfect fit for mobile, although the game does take a few seconds to open up whatever it is that I wanted to open after I press the button.
One major complaint I have with the app is that it still lacks even a basic offline mode. Because I'm on the go a lot, I would love to be able to play this game while I'm not at home and continue to progress while I'm on vacation or whatever. Other than that, The android version of Hearthstone is great and I highly recommend that you try it out! Like I've said before, it's totally free to play so if you don't like it you won't have lost anything. I'm guessing that you'll like it though!
Download Hearthstone here!
Download Hearthstone here!
Well, that's it for my Hearthstone [android] review (android and PC versions are identical)! I'm also working on a review for the also free-to-play team based shooter game, Dirty Bomb, so look out for that in the future!
And with that, I'll see you guys later!
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