Opulencia is now accessible from your mobile, Ubisoft's The Mighty Quest for Epic Loot being available since today (last night for some) on iOS and Android. Thanks to TestFlight access, I had the opportunity to start the adventure a few days before the release, and on this occasion to climb to level 5.
A mysterious character, a bucket on his head, greets me in a very light tone, giving me the title of "novice looter". This tutorial is quite long, guiding through the different features of the game throughout Act 1, and even a good part of Act 2. Operator, it requires too much to click in a specific place, to launch a particular mode or to carry out such action, thus preventing any discovery by oneself, which frustrated me a little. Rather than imposed orders, I would have preferred simple information bubbles, which would allow me to improvise at will.
The heart of the game revolves around quests organized by actions, small missions to be accomplished in castles on islands, chains of enemies to be slaughtered, chests to be looted and bosses to be killed. Attacking a castle costs energy (4 to 5 on average), and gives loot as a reward, as well as a rating of 1 to 3 stars. To get all 3, you have to complete the castle on time (usually 3 minutes) and kill all enemies. Achievements for each act require collecting a certain number of stars, with rewards at stake, thus pushing to be full, even if it means restarting the castle until that passes.
Similar to so many games in the industry, energy is recovered over time (around 4 hours for a full recharge), or by spending diamonds, the premium currency.
The gameplay is very action oriented, hack & slash limit, the character spam his sword shots as many times as you tap on the screen. The interface is minimalist, getting to the point. At the top are displayed the character's life bar, the number of enemies killed and the elapsed time. The skills are at the bottom left while a large place remains free for movement on the right (the reverse arrangement is available, the game asking at the beginning if you prefer a left-handed or a right-handed configuration, the option changing from settings). Either way, movement is taken into account from anywhere as long as there is a sliding effect. The same goes for sword strikes, this time by detecting quick hits.
Many areas on the ground are to be dodged to minimize the damage suffered, life only regenerating during the exploration of a castle with healing potions (occasionally dropped by enemies), but being in all cases reset to its maximum at each start. You have to be reactive and get the character out of a rapid slide that triggers a roll.
Around level 5, I unlocked the autoplay function: the character moves, dodges and attacks alone. This could be handy if AI weren't so dumb as it zaps the parallel paths where chests are (and loot then ?!), and forgets to use skills. However, I use it for movement, the character intuitively knowing the shortest path, and I take control again to open chests or launch skills.
My character currently has three skill slots, which means you have to make a choice very quickly. From the top of my level 5, I already have four: a poison zone, a damage zone that pushes back, blades that spin and a black hole that attracts all enemies to one point. Each skill can be improved, an additional reason to focus on your favorites for the sake of optimization.
Equipment (a weapon, a shield, and 4 pieces of armor) can be upgraded by merging orbs or unnecessary pieces of equipment, combined with a quality system (represented as stars that defines the maximum level he can reach) and runes. Once the maximum level of an item is reached, its quality is increased via the promotion which costs money and special tickets, recoverable either in the shop or in specific castles (with a very long reload time, allowing access only twice a day). Everything is combined to form a power level (in my case on the capture on the right 23), to be compared with the level of the castle that we want to loot to know if victory is possible.
There is finally a companion whose interest I did not fully understand, except to accompany the character and to be cute. In itself, that's already a lot, I grant you.
Achievements, Daily Missions, as well as Login Bonuses provide goodies all over the place, an incentive to log in regularly if one was needed, in addition to the frightening idea of wasting your regenerated energy beyond four. hours without playing.
Last point to discuss: the store. On the program: chests (containing equipment) including one free every four hours (which can also contain keys to open a rare chest), gems (premium currency), useful in-game items (auto victory ticket, Item Promotion Ticket, Fusion Orbs, and Epic Keys) and Gold Packs. In the end, nothing that does not unbalance the game, just utilities that make it much faster. So far I've only felt the need to checkout for Promotion Tickets: I would have liked to upgrade my shield stuck at level 10 but I don't have enough Promotion Stones to do well.
Summary of official specifications
- Launch into this dynamic medieval mayhem with your thumb
- Explore a living and wacky world with hundreds of flying castles just waiting to be looted; From cursed cathedrals to ghost pirate ships, destroy everything in your path!
- Do not experience any class restrictions, it all depends on your loot! Equip your hero with several pieces of gear from the thousands you can get, as well as companions to help you get even more loot
- Upgrade and strengthen your hero's swords, armor and artifacts
- Travel through the gigantic PvE campaign where you will have to avoid traps and fight the bosses of each castle
- Take on the challenge of the multiplayer arena where you will fight other players to climb to the top of the leaderboards
- Take part in constantly changing events that offer mountains of rewards and loot
- What else ... tons and tons of LOOTS!
To conclude, an excellent action game, corresponding to current industry standards, both in terms of the nervous gameplay, the crazy atmosphere and colorful graphics. If you want to get into the mad scavenger hunt, you can download The Mighty Quest for Epic Loot right now from the App Store and the Google Play Store.
