Orions : Legend of Wizards, The Second Age and Deckmasters – fantasy based strategy card game.
The Orions Series from More Games Entertainment is a fantasy based strategy card game. The game was won multiple awards and should easily be one of the best turn-based strategy game for the Windows Mobile game. Today we look at all the 3 installments in this amazing series : Legend of Wizards, The Second Age and Deckmasters.
Orions Series
This is not one of those game that you can pick up and play and keep winning. You need to learn the the rules and get to known the strengths and weakness of the cards. The in game tutorial is a good way to get acquainted with the gameplay. Once you are familiar with the creatures and spells this game should keep you entertained for a long long time.
You are a Wizard, Harry and you can choose from Six schools of magic. Life, Water, Earth fall in to the good side, while Death, Fire, Air are in the Evil camp. The core of this game is it’s turn based battle system, which is played by cards from the various schools of magic. As a wizard who belong to a particular school of magic you still have access to creatures and spells from all the different school.
Each player has a side that contains five slots on it. These slots can be filled by placing cards in them during your turn. Each player can place one card per turn, they can call in a creature to take up the empty slot or use a destructive spell to damage the enemy or a friendly spell to aid the user or his creatures. During the turn your creature will attack the creature in the opposite slot and if the slot is empty the attack will be directed towards the enemy player. Each creature has its own health points, attack strength and some of them can cast special spells. Each spell / creature requires a certain level of skill points for that specific element before you can cast / summon it. You gain a skill points for each element every turn. You goal is to take the HP ( hit points ) of your enemy to zero.
The game offers two different type of gameplay modes. Duel Mode and Campaign Mode. Duel Mode allows you to battle against the computer or against another player via the Internet, Bluetooth, or 2 players on same device. In campaign mode the map is made up of a group of connected islands known as Orions. Each Orion belongs to a school of magic and has several unique structures associated with it, building them lets you add more cards to your deck. There are 4 type of crystals you can build on Orions which act as the gold/resource required for building structures and buying cards for your deck. When you win a campaign you unlock a special item, I really don’t think there is any advantage to these special item other than bragging rights.
I know that this game is a bit old but the 2 update has kept the game interesting, with each new update the game adds a new and interesting dimension to the gameplay. The game has a great soundtrack , the animations and sound effects are amazing. I haven’t tested the bluetooth / network mode but if there was an option to send duel request to friends ( from within the game ) and a online leaderboard that would be amazing. The game is not very finger friendly, so you might need to pull out the dreaded stylus for this one. If you are new to the Orion series, get Legend of Wizards first and once you start to get bored with it try going for the addon packs.
- Two game modes to play: Campaign and a Duel
- 72 Cards
- Only $4.95
- New Building : Black Market
- 30 New Cards
- New Mode : Custom Decks
- New Mode : Draft Mode
- 45 New Cards
Tested On : VGA Emulator
Pros :
- Nice Graphics
- Sound Effects and Soundtrack are good
- Addictive Gameplay
- Addon Content to keep the game interesting
Cons :
- Not Finger Friendly
- No WQVGA / WVGA ( most new device have a WVGA Screen, so this is a huge drawback )
Possible Improvements :
- Online Leaderboard
- Game Lobby to fight random opponent ( online )
- New Addon… pretty please ( more of a request than a suggestion for improvement )
Orions : Legend of Wizards [ Demo ] [ Buy for $4.95 ]
Orions : The Second Age [ Buy for $9.95 ]
Orions : Deckmasters [ Buy for $12.95 ]
We are giving away 3 copies of this game, See 1800PocketPC.com for more details. Closes 18th Nov ( Melbourne time )
Screenshots :
When does it stop….hopefully never ever
I love this app, too bad it is not WVGA, but the older Orions, without the expansions, at least runs with black border
No WVGA
. why ?????
because the app is rather old, and when it was released, WVGA devices where not common.
The dev once told me that all is handdrawn and it would be too much work to redraw it for ide screens…whatever.
I hope to win a copy of this game; it's a lot of fun and it makes me think of my childhood days with Magic: The Gathering. From what I've seen, Poseidon's my favorite creature, and Enslave's my favorite spell.
you just won a free copy of this game .. Congrats
Congrats Steven! I agree, this game is awesome and reminds me of playing Magic (just in a different way). I have the Original and Second Age, though I didn't even know about Deckmasters until now. Wish I had seen this before the 17th, I would have tried to get one of the 3 copies (that is, if it included or could be Deckmasters).
Anyways, off to see what else this site has tested.
-Jono
Congrats Steven! I agree, this game is awesome and reminds me of playing Magic (just in a different way). I have the Original and Second Age, though I didn't even know about Deckmasters until now. Wish I had seen this before the 17th, I would have tried to get one of the 3 copies (that is, if it included or could be Deckmasters).
Anyways, off to see what else this site has tested.
-Jono