Might and Magic is a role-playing game franchise with a legacy that spans over 30 years. It was one of those early titles that helped establish the early PC RPG genre and still maintains a fanbase to this day.
The latest title in the series attempts to reboot the franchise and bring it into the 21st century by making the game accessible to millions of mobile gamers — Might and Magic Elemental Guardians. It fits into the larger Might and Magic universe that fans will recognize without being inaccessible to gamers who are coming in fresh to the franchise.
Download: Might and Magic Elemental Guardians (Free w/IAPs)
An iconic RPG franchise finds new life on mobile
Ubisoft bought the rights to the Might and Magic franchise from 3DO back when the company folded in 2003.
After 15 years, we've finally seen Ubisoft take up the franchise and turn it into a brand new mobile experience that borrows the fantastical settings and creatures found from the original series while updating the graphics and gameplay for mobile devices.
Elemental Guardians gives you have multiple ways to play. The game starts out with a single-player campaign that introduces the world of Ashan and the Akadimia, an Academy of Magic where you are a young Wizard apprentice. As part of your training, you are tasked with training and evolving mystical creatures which are discovered by breaking Soulstones. Create an ultimate team of your best creatures and battle to become the champion of Ashan.
The game features a brand new story that fits into the established world of Might and Magic. But story aside, this game is mostly about creating an epic team and battling through Special Dungeons to collect evolution items for your creatures and then battling other players in the PvP Arena.
The basics of battle strategy
Each creature you unlock is linked to one of four elements — Fire, Water, Air, and Earth. As you'd expect, each element has an advantage or disadvantage over another (for example, Fire is weak against Water but strong against Earth). Different creatures fall into one of four roles.
The most important part of preparing for battle is making sure your creatures are as strong as they can be, and that you have a balanced team that won't get dominated by a single Element.
Creatures are also defined by their roles. There are four different roles that a Creature can play on your battle team: Attackers, Defenders, Support, and Saboteurs.
Attackers are capable of doling out serious damage but are more susceptible to damage. Defenders are the tanks on your team that are capable of taunting the enemy and can take more damage. Support creatures have special spells that can heal your team. Saboteurs feature spells that affect your opponent's creatures and can help shut down particularly powerful characters.
To be successful in Elemental Guardians, you will need to be constantly upgrading, evolving, and tweaking your team to make them stronger. Once you unlock PvP mode, you can set your four best creatures to defend on your behalf as you work your way up the PvP ladder.
How many creatures can I collect?
There are currently over 400 creatures available to unlock and collect in the game, with much more ready to be added to the game over the coming months and years as the game expands. Each creature is given a star rating from 1 to 5, with one-star creatures being the most common and five-star creatures being exceptionally rare. Creatures are unlocked by using Soulstones, which are unlocked as loot from battles or can also be purchased via in-app purchases.
If you pre-registered for the game in the Google Play Store, you will have received an extra special creature upon the game's official launch — Andy the Android bot. iOS users got a glowing orb meant to represent Siri so… Android users clearly won here!
Plenty of things to collect and upgrade
The biggest draw of Elemental Guardians is collecting loot. There's a ton of stuff to collect — crystal and golden seals (coins) used as in-app currencies, energy and tickets for battles, potions for leveling up your characters. But the two most important collectibles in the game are Soulstones and Glyphs.
Soulstones are used in the Summoning Alter to summon new creatures. You can unlock new Soulstones by completing achievements or purchase them using your seals in the shop. You receive a new Soulstone daily, so you can always unlock a new creature simply by logging in each day. Alternatively, you can buy booster packs with Soulstones via in-app purchases in the shop — although to be clear, in-app purchases are limited and are designed to speed up the upgrading and evolving processes. There is no pay-to-win element in this game and everything can be unlocked without spending a dime in-game.
Glyphs are rare stones emblazoned with 14 different types of power-ups that can give your creatures special bonuses for HP, attack or defense powers, and faster cooldowns for special attacks. Glyphs are unlocked by winning battles and can be applied to open slots on your creature. You need to match up three of the same type of glyph to unlock the available bonuses.
Special events, daily missions, and more
One of the best ways to build up your resources in the game is by completing special events and daily missions. Each time you complete a section of the single-player campaign you will have completed multiple missions, and there are many missions that require multiple playthroughs of each island section to complete.
There are also monthly events that offer additional challenges for you to complete to unlock some epic rewards, such as rare creatures. Daily rewards are also gifted to you simply by logging in every day.
You are also able to create or join Guilds to connect and play with your friends.
See your creatures and battles in augmented reality
One of the coolest things making its way into the game is an augmented reality feature that lets you bring your creatures into your world to snap pictures with your favorites. You can also see battles unfold in augmented reality, too, which worked well in the tests that I saw.
The feature should be live on Android phones that support ARCore.
Download: Might and Magic Elemental Guardians (Free w/IAPs)
Are you an Elemental Guardian?
This game just launched and there's plenty to do. Let us know what you think of this game in the comments below!
