Arena of Valor

Genre: MOBA

Players: 10 Team Competitive (Online)

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Review:

WARNING: THIS GAME HEAVILY PUSHES MICROTRANSACTIONS

Arena of Valor is a free-to-play MOBA that was originally released on Chinese mobile platforms in 2015, with the game getting a name change in its Western release in 2017, with the game coming to Nintendo Switch in 2018.

Visually, Arena of Valor looks decent but not especially impressive in any way (save for some nice animation), with a slightly-cartoony medieval fantasy aesthetic vaguely similar to the sort of stuff you see in the Warcraft series. However, even with these technically unimpressive visuals, the game still has issues with slowdown when there’s a lot of action on-screen, and there are occasional moments of lag too. Come on, guys, this is a mobile port, it shouldn’t be having these sorts of issues on the Switch.

In terms of the gameplay, this game does a pretty good job converting the touchscreen controls of the mobile version of the game to more traditional controls here, with players moving the character with the left stick and directing their attacks with the right. In handheld mode, this is supplemented with the touchscreen in a smart way, where players can use it to check specific parts of the map. It’s not perfect, however – your character can get “stuck” on a specific enemy they’re targeting, even if you’d really rather they target another. However, mostly, this game controls and plays pretty well.

However, there is one major flaw here, and that is the microtransaction-fueled progression. Players start out with only a tiny portion of the dozens of available heroes unlocked, and earning enough in-game gold to unlock the others takes a torturously long time. What’s more, ranked play is locked off for those who haven’t unlocked many of the game’s heroes, and progression unlocking the various bonuses you can apply to your hero is slow too. The result is that unless you’re willing to shell out to start unlocking content, you are in for one long slog of a playthrough.

Arena of Valor is, at its core, a fun game, with a good mix of strategy and action. On top of that, the adaptation from mobile controls to a more traditional control scheme works fairly well here. Unfortunately, multiple other elements haven’t made the transition as well, from the visuals to the microtransation-pushing game progression. Because of this, the fun gameplay at the heart of this game suffers, and it’s hard to recommend this game when players will be forced to grind or pay through the nose to see any decent progress.

tl;dr – Arena of Valor is a MOBA that does a good job of converting the game’s mobile touchscreen controls to the Switch, but the game’s technical problems and slow, microtransaction-pushing progression makes this otherwise fun game into a slog.

Grade: C

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