Island war is a multiplayer battle strategy game designed by Fastone Games HK. The game has mechanics quite similar to Clash of Clans and at times, it feels like the devs of Island War didn’t even try. Even the names of some defenses and fighters are the same while the basic objectives are also similar. You attack islands and try your best to annihilate your enemy’s troops and destroy their buildings. Here in this article, we will review Island War and share our first impressions of the game.
Island War offers a familiar gameplay
Starting off with the Island War review, while the game resembles Clash of Clans, some mechanics are different. You land on the island on boats and after that, your troops disperse once you reach the island. Before you destroy your enemy’s structures, you need to get through their troops. Once you get rid of them, you can destroy the rest. There’s a timer of two minutes and depending on the weather, your troops’ movements may vary (The game has the aspect of changing weather as well).
A victory gives you XP, trophies, gold, and logs. Gold can be used for buying character cards while logs can be used to upgrade your things. The game also has gems and you can get more by taking part in events while you can become part of a clan after getting 400 trophies. For now, there’s the standard battle mode, events, and the clans. Other than that, another feature called “Hero mode” would be added later. You also get “Idle Rewards” regularly at your own base.
You start off with swordsmen and then can move on to archers. After that, you can unlock new characters. You can also merge fighters (they have to be of the same kind) to make them bigger and stronger. To defend your base, you can build Walls, Archer Towers, Mortars, and Bombs (the exact same names!) While the options for attack are more than enough, the options for defense are way too low but then again you don’t have much space in your base anyway. You can use your gold to buy character cards or buy some cards with real money. Since your troops don’t take time to train, you can keep on attacking other islands for better rankings and loot.
The game comes with decent controls but average graphics
While the audio and in-game music is good, the graphics are not too great. While the game does have that blocky graphic style to it, there’s very little detail and we are not a fan of the overall look of the game.
There isn’t much to the controls… You just tap on the screen in that area around your enemy’s island and your troops do the rest. The UI is not really all that good and you don’t get much of an introduction to the menu options either so it might be a bit confusing at the start. There is no introduction and you’re practically thrown into the game to click stuff and figure out what’s what. Back at your base, zooming in and out and scrolling sideways is a very bad experience because of the janky controls.
Bugs, glitches, and cash
During my playthrough, we didn’t find a lot but found a really annoying bug. While playing, you can get disconnected from the game while you’re attacking and actually end up losing the loot you might have gained. Some other people also came across the same problem and it’s quite frustrating. Hopefully, the devs will find a way to resolve this issue.
When it comes to Pay to Win features, that game has plenty of those. You can buy gold, gems, and special cards with real money which obviously gives you an edge over other players. You can still win the game without spending a penny and gold can be purchased with the gems you already have. Also, we found that the game itself gives you a bit too much in some cases and too little in others. This means that while you might have a lot of gold, you might be in dire need of logs
Final Verdict
While the game is a knock off riding off the back of a much more popular game, it isn’t all that bad. The graphics could definitely be improved on and more defenses can be added. There really isn’t much in the way of strategy and certain game mechanics can be worked on. For example, while logs are needed to upgrade things, they are really hard to obtain as compared to other resources and that makes the game much more frustrating. The UI definitely needs to be worked on to reduce confusion among new players.
Overall, the game can do better but because of the fact that it copies another game and doesn’t try to include anything new and original, it definitely won’t be our first choice when it comes to battle strategy games.
What are your opinions on the Island War game and your review of it? Do let us know in the comments!
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