Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Preface: I am currently out of the country and not writing any reviews (my internet here is both slow and monitored), but this game has helped me through many long nights while waiting for countless VM's to spin up, so I am making an exception. I won't kid around. Army life is tough, especially the IT portion, making me miss my (comparatively) lazy days of Cisco/Microsoft work in Florida. Having said that, I would not trade my current experience for anything in the world... However, I do miss my wife and daughter terribly, and Skype just doesn't cut it. With that out of the way, I have to say that Making Fun has some great people working for it. Travis, the Admin of the Mage and Minions forums is informative, courteous, funny, and honest. After spending over 40 (solid gameplay time) hours with the game, I ended up buying the most expensive pack they have, just to show some love for these great people. Mage and Minions is as close as you will come to a Diablo clone (simply an EPIC action RPG clickfest) on the Android platform. While multiplayer is NOT included, the single player portion of the game is fun enough (and I was assured that multiplayer is coming, at least PvP). There are multiple difficulties, and plenty of gems (paid in-game currency) to earn by simply beating levels (over and over), somewhat removing the F2PCashShop aspect of the game if do not mind grinding. You can get 28 gems for running each level 5 times, and there are three difficulty levels in which to get gems in (not to mention grinding on multiple characters, and increased gem rewards for higher difficulties)! There are also plenty of achievements and daily quests that reward these gems - so even though you don't have to buy any gems to enjoy the game, I suggest you throw Making Fun at least a few dollars for their excellent work. The animation, graphics, and sound are all excellent (for an Android game that is). I have to give special props to the water, as it is simply gorgeous. Minion models could use a higher poly count, and smoother animations, but I am just nitpicking now. While on the subject of said minions, I also wish we could equip them with all the cool gear we find, because they die fairly easy (on Legendary difficulty) unless I am playing as a ranged character with an all ranged group (mage with 2 archers is quite OP). Sound also earns a mention as a few riffs take me right back to the days of original Diablo (and the subsequent games). As with most action RPG's, loot is the star here, and there is plenty of it. Thousands of items across your 50 levels (and 26 maps), with the standard colors representing (green, blue, purple, orange) each addictive drop. The way this game is adapted to the touch screen is also wonderful. Draw a Z shape on the screen, and one of your companions will charge headfirst into battle. Draw a V shape, and you will unleash the fires of hell with another. This keeps the action fresh and fun throughout the game. With all the good things aside, the game does have quite a few negatives. It IS a free to play game after all, meaning there is plenty of IAP involved. Want to open an epic chest? That will cost you gems. Want to unlock more of your characters skills? You guessed it, more gems! Even ability/spell upgrades require gems unless you don't mind waiting over 70 real time HOURS (for the later levels). Mage and Minions also currently only has two acts and classes, although I am assured more are coming soon. There is also a huge balance gap between the two classes currently in the game, as the mage is a much better character than the warrior. Simply put, a few skills (for the mage) actually break the game. Time Warp for example, is the single best skill in the game, as at the final level (and only the final level mind you) it lets you and your companions kill everything while taking no damage, and has a fairly short CD for being so incredibly OP. Until that time, the spell is really not that good, but once you and a team of archers can have free reign to shoot stuff from afar without giving the enemy a chance to retaliate... Well, you get my picture. I honestly have no idea how they will balance this skill for PvP. At the same time, utility skills like Immolate and Frost Nova simply don't even live up to the potential of basic attack skills like Arc Lighting (incredibly OP at its final level). I see no reason of using these "utility" skills over the overpowered Time Warp and Arcane Deflection. My mage is able to breeze through content that my warrior simply can't do because of the ranged build I am running, and when enemies can kill you on one hit, range and damage are king. This just leaves my warrior unused save for completing dailies, which is too bad since I am more of a brawler than a caster fan. Crafting is also incredibly repetitive and time consuming. By taking and combining any three items (that take up space in your already limited inventory), you can craft whatever item you wish. Want a certain stat on the item you are crafting? Make sure all three of your "ingredient" items have it. There is nothing else to this system, and crafting higher level items becomes quite time consuming. I really wish they would just let us break down items into ingredients that don't take up as much of our limited inventory space, and allow us to combine them into what we want through recipes found in game (like in Diablo 3). My final gripe with the game itself is the lack of a shared stash. Playing two characters, I constantly find gear that my other character could use... With no way to transfer it. Gems and money are shared, so why not have a "shared bank" space that is accessible by all of our characters? I also don't like the incredible amount of permissions the game requires, but I am told it is mainly for cloud saves, leader boards, and later - multiplayer... Which can be forgiven if that is the case. Finally, I encountered a few bugs, such as the game closing at random times after prolonged play, or not saving properly (once again, after prolonged play), but those occurrences are rather rare. Once I had a good item drop but the game was "out of sync" so I lost it upon finishing the level. This only happened once, and the game was getting patched at the time. It also sometimes misinterprets gestures and you end up using incorrect abilities. This happens a lot more on devices with a smaller screen, but can be negated with some practice. All in all, this is one of the best Andoird action RPG's that I have played so far, and I played plenty. Even with all the negatives I mentioned, I will continue playing this game for a long, long time. So go ahead and enjoy the game, which can be played entirely for free (if you don't mind waiting), but I suggest you support this company, as they have been nothing but excellent to deal with.