Dungeons & Dragons: Arena of War review: looks great, but doesn’t play so well

Japanese game company DeNA has yet created another mobile game that isn’t quite its usual social gameplay style. This time, it has brought Dungeons & Dragons to mobile as Arena of War.

For Dungeons & Dragons fans, the art and sound will be very pleasing to your eyes and ears. The entire experience was good; the game gets a heavy update upon loading, but while you wait, you go through a story that explains the game and your destiny.

Choosing a hero is great fun and with many options. Characters include half-orc barbarian, elf bard, half-elf druid, dragonborn sorcerer, human cleric, and tiefling rogue. The unique ones like human pirate require you to level up your tiefling rogue to level 8 and half orc barbarian to level 8 to unlock.

Once you’ve picked your character, the game throws you into battle pretty quickly and that’s when you will probably get a little disappointed. Instead of the usual real-time slashing or pausable turn-based fighting, Dungeons & Dragons: Arena of War is a drag and release turn-based fighting game. If you imagine the characters and monsters as balls, Arena of War becomes a game of billiards. I think it is a bit of a waste to have such a lame approach to the fighting gameplay given that the art and sound are absolutely amazing.

This is how you fight: Drag and shoot!

To power up for battles, the game offers several in-app purchase items which can be kind of confusing. In the treasure room, you can buy gold and unlock chests to get a power packs. These chests are either bought off the shelves, or you can get them after completing a battle. You can also fuse powers to get stronger in battles. Battles are limited by Quest Energy. Each quest you play requires Quest Energy. If you run out of it, you can either pay to refill or wait for the auto-refill. Overall, it’s quite a confusing game and I thought the tutorial didn’t quite explain things clearly.

Dungeons & Dragons: Arena of War is social, as players can form parties to fight battles, so you know you won’t be dragging and shooting your hero alone. But for those who prefer to play alone, you can create multiple characters and form your own private party.

All in all, Dungeons & Dragons: Arena of War, isn’t quite worth playing. It’s confusing and the fighting gameplay isn’t impressive. But that’s just one man’s opinion. If you have an iOS device and like Dungeons & Dragons, feel free to give it a try here.