Follow up : Bardbarian

Happy Friday folks, since this weeks release list was pretty week on my attention span, I've taken to wandering through my game library, working on games, checking out content updates and the like. First follow up? Bardbarian!

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/bardbarian/id766414929
.99usd, universal, 65mb download.

Quick recap: bardbarian is a reverse action rpg reverse tower defense game. What's that mean? We'll reverse action rpg means while you will be killing everything that comes at the town, in this game your minions will do the killing for you and that leads in to the second part of my description. This is a reverse tower defense game meaning your towers are literally your party members and you lead them around the screen towards enemies so that they can attack. You run around, they follow, things die you gain gold, good stuff. Gold is spent on town upgrades, your hero upgrades and follower upgrades.

The game originally launched with one game mode, referred to as day 1. The day is split in to 4 parts, morning noon evening and night. Each part has four stages and a boss fight.

First update introduced an survival mode that had you running around fending off increasingly most hostile spawns of enemies while picking up randomly generated party members. No upgrades  allowed, this mode is considered the hardest because it relies strictly on your skills and a good bit of luck.

Another mode added endless mode, running dodging and collecting things while killing enemies with again random heroes. Much like survival, no upgrades allowed, this also is a test of your skill and luck.

Now, this months update added the much anticipated day 2, and insane mode. Day 2 starts on wave 21, picking up immediately after the final boss of day 1. Really well paying enemies, everything's harder, this is essentially day 1 on hard mode. Bosses come in groups and hit harder, etc. I've made it to the first boss, wave 24 but died heh. Insane mode is offered when making a whole new save file, and is as named. Insane.

Also in this months update are a new star upgrade for all units, hero and town. You can also now go as I high as 9 party members and can bring 4 types instead of 3. This, day 2 and insane mode are all unlocked only after beating day 1.

This game continues to rock, literally heh, great music, great animations, solid fun.support is best offered via the golden guitar, it's a coin doubler and all you will ever need. If you go beyond in to coin packs, the most expensive one is 3 bucks at 100k coin. Not necessary though unless you want.

Two thumbs up for this one,

o/

Randomness

Damn it, too many games, too many distractions. Lets see...

Final Fantasy 4: The afteryears just went on sale and historically square enix always puts their latest final fantasy outting on sale right as the next final fantasy hits the app store. -stares hopefully at japan's release of ff6 afew weeks back-

Eve Online : The single largest battle took place monday morning through tuesday early hours, 18 hour battle. To put this in perspective, this battle lost over 70 titans. The second largest? 10. themittani.com has all the details and outcome reports and even a decent video.

Bardbarian : update hit, all bugs on my screen fixed, woo hoo! This'll probably end up being my game of the month.

I've taken Black Flag from 55% to 84% completion, yarr!

There's alot of really interesting games hitting the app store tonight, I'll definitely update when they arrive.

iOS: Bardbarian

Bunch of games hit this week, only three hit my download list and this one is probably the most hilariously fun of the bunch heh.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/bardbarian/id766414929
.99cents, universal, 68mb. Light on the iap.

Loading this game for the first time brings back memories of the first time I saw "A Knights Tale" in theatre. The wife and I decided to go see a movie, didn't know anything about any of the movies showing at the time and figured, what the heck lets go see a period piece.

And 20 seconds in we realized two things. 1, the movie was nothing remotely close to a period piece. 2, the movie was going to be epic.

This game is like that. When you download the game your eyes instinctively skip over the Bard in the name and read barbarian. You see the app icon and think, barbarian. Infact if you dont read the description you'll be stepping in to this game expecting some light graphic hack'n'slash rpg. And you'd be very very wrong. Loading the game for the first time, you see a barbarian, a call to duty and then the first raised eyebrow happens when the barbarian decides not to take up weapon and smash skulls in defense of the village. And then his weapon of choice... what? And then... the music starts.

What we have here is a endless hack'n'slash mobile tower defense hybrid of sorts. You are the barbarian but the barbarian has decided he no longer wants to swing weapons. Instead he turned one of his weapons in to a guitar and wails 80's era rock god solo's. How the village is defended comes from companions the barbarian summons using energy he builds up by simply wailing on the guitar. (standing still makes the energy generate faster btw) With these companions in tow you run around analog style getting the guys within range of enemies moving from right to left on the screen. Your goal is to keep them away from the village crystal. You earn coin as your companions kill, you spend the coins upgrading the barbarian, the village and your companions. The entire game takes place over the course of a day, four stages, morning noon evening and night.

IAP is present but entirely optional and if you pick up the golden axe (.99cents) coin doubler the other iap is completely unnecessary.

Music is awesome, god rock guitar wailing and solos. Lots of fun heh.

Graphics work very well with the theme and no doubt keep the game working on a great deal many ios devices.

Upgrade system. You'll earn coin as you kill baddies and when you eventually die/fail you will go back to the shoppe to upgrade everything before making another attempt at defending the village. Upgrades are spent in three catagories. Companions, Bardbarian and Town. The companion upgrades improve and unlock additional companion types of which there are about 15 and each companion can be upgraded 5 times. The bardbarian's upgrades involve health increases, formation of companions, speed, buffs, energy regeneration, etc. Town upgrades bring out more participation from the villagers, loot pets, crystal health, etc.

Aside from the main four stage story there is also an endless mode where you go at it with increasingly difficult spawns trying to simply survive as long as possible. In order to keep things fair the developers decided that in this mode you have no control over companion composition in your group, they spawn around the area randomly. Same with foods, and you have no buffs or energy regeneration. Keeps it hard, and the leadboards at least somewhat 'fair'.

Anywho, the game is 99cents, the golden axe another 99cents. Those two purchase combined guarantee you a enjoyable trip across a really funny smart playing awesome music game. Enjoy.

Gamecenter, yes. Achievements, yep. Leaderboards, yeppers.

o/