Orions: Legend of Wizards

Developed by MoreGames Entertainment and published by Cheshire-based Chillingo, Orions: Legends of Wizards is an interactive fantasy card strategy game. If you’ve ever played Magic: The Gathering (http://www.wizards.com/magic), you’ll know exactly what your in for …

Overview
Orions is entirely based on fantasy. The game is played with a deck of magical cards, more commonly known as power cards. In the game you will fight to win battles with these cards and each card harnesses different strengths, weaknesses and magical powers.

On each card is a creature or spell. Using these power cards your aim is to win each battle. We’ll get into specifics a little later on but for now let me tell you about how the game is played. Orions can be played in two modes; Campaign or Duel. Let me explain to you what both of these gaming modes are all about ..

• Campaign
  In campaign mode you must defeat enemy forces, gaining experience in multiple fights and traveling through various unknown worlds, extending your Orion islands. This is done by collecting both monsters and spells to create your custom deck of cards. You begin with a single Orion (a town) of a elemental school of your choice. Elemental schools are another way of referring to a class of elements or powers. For example, in Orions, the their are 6 elements schools; Fire, Water, Air, Earth, Life and Death. If you’ve chosen to play on the Good side, you’ll have Water, Earth and Life at your disposal, while playing as ‘Evil’ will give you the elemental schools; Fire, Air and Death.
• The aim of campaign mode is to defeat the enemy lord himself who travels the lands and imprisons Orions. To do this, you need to enslave his home Orion, but be careful, if you lose your home Orion in the process, you lose.

• Duel
  Duel mode is a little different. In this mode you will face one enemy or wizard face-to-face in a head-to-head battle. You must defeat this entity by using the powers from a randomly generated deck of power cards. Each player starts with 50 health by default. The number of elements given to each elemental school at the start of the duel ranges from 1 to 5. The amount given to all 6 elemental schools will total 25. The player to reduce their opponents health to 0, wins.

Bare in mind that was just a basic overview of the two modes. As with all strategy-based titles, there is a lot to take in before you can actually start playing Orions effectively. There is one thing for sure and that’s Orions game play has been well-thought out right down to the very last detail.

Playing the Game
For this review we’re going to focus on the ‘Duel’ mode specifically. Admittedly this is because even after reading the built-in tutorial I still didn’t manage to fully understand or grasp game play of Campaign mode – Maybe I need to give it more time? This is one detailed and complex game.

On entering a new game you’ll be asked to select whether you wish to play on the ‘Good’ or ‘Evil’ side, and to enter your player name. Selecting the Duel gaming mode opens up a second slot for player two. By default this is set to play an actual person but if you want to play against Orions AI (artificial intelligence) you can. To do this simply select the CPU option from the bottom menu. Selecting this will also open up three tiers of AI difficulty; Easy, Normal and Hard.

The Playing Board
Entering a duel your presented with a screen split into two regions. Taking it in turns you will place down power cards down opposite to your opponent. Each card placed has a number of values which are important to game play. These include: Attack (bottom right), Health (bottom left) and level (top right). The ‘Attack’ value is the amount of damage the card will deal when played, by default. The ‘Health’ value is the amount of damage that must be dealt by you to destroy that specific creature or spell.

To play a power card you simply touch a drag it into one of five spaces on the board. Note that you must have enough of the element chosen to summon certain creatures and spells within that elemental school – Still with me?.. To see details about the power card before playing it, you can double tap it. Once your happy it’s the card you want to play, each turn you play is ended by tapping the button top right (two swords). Ending a turn allows your opponent to then cast their choice of creature or spell onto the current playing board. Summoning certain creatures will damage them before your opponent even has chance to attack you. This is called ‘summon sickness’.

Once a turn is over, you or your opponents line of summoned creatures and spells will attack dishing out damaging left, right and center. The player to reduce all their opponents health to 0, wins the duel.

So that’s a very basic overview of ‘Duel’ mode in Orions. Campaign mode adds even more re-play value by allowing you to manage and control certain ‘Orions’. In a way, campaign mode turns Orions into Sim City in the sense that you can build buildings and manage overall income all in aid of ever extending your default deck of power cards. Ok, what about visuals?

Visuals
Phenomenal. They truly are. A little cramped a times, but the sheer detail that has gone into producing this game is stunning. From creature artwork to environments, and in-game animation, Pavel Kupriyanvo and Andrey Kovalchuk should be extremely proud of themselves as the game’s designers.

Overall
Orions is a classic take on existing card strategy games while putting it’s own unique twist on things. Although the game will take a little getting use to, and there is a huge amount of info to take in on the in-game side, it’s visually stunning, and highly polished to the last detail. The game takes a step up from the normal default card dueling game by including it’s extensive campaign mode. At £2.99, the game is not over priced and in fact (if I was honest) I think it could sell for a little more. Most importantly it’s addictive nature is sure to have you coming back for more duels and checking on the status of your Orions.

Chillingo are said to have 3 other major titles coming out pretty soon. These include; Vector Tanks, Zen Bound and iDracula, and honestly? I can’t wait to see them. I’d like to congratulate Chillingo for creating such an immersive and well-executed title such as Orions. It’s now on my daily app sync. Is it on yours?

Orions: Legend of Wizards (for us) is considered a must buy on so many levels and if you have it yourself feel free let us know what you think of the game below ..

Things we’d like to see

– Wi-Fi Multiplayer Duels (it’s a no-brainer!)
– Extended elemental schools (More available creatures / Spells)

Current Status: Recommended

Reviewed at: v1.1
Reviewed on Firmware: 2.2.1
Download size: 16.1MB
Released on: 19th December 2008
Retails for: £2.99

Compatible with: iPod touch Gen 1& 2 / iPhone Classic / iPhone 3G