Review: League of War: VR Arena (PS4 / VR).
League of War: VR Arena is a production that will not convince skeptics to sink into the world of virtual reality. The tournament of the world’s best commanders seems to be an exceptionally shallow, kitschy and poorly made creation from the very beginning. Is it really that bad?
League of War VR Arena on paper it sounds pretty cool and you might even like the idea. We play the role of a commander who has a model in front of him and must skillfully deploy units on the battlefield in order to win over the opponent standing on the other side. The three-dimensional board viewed from the perspective of virtual reality should open up new tactical possibilities for us. Imagine big conflicts that you can view freely from any perspective just by bringing your head to the scene of the action. Unfortunately, you won’t experience it here, because the entire game is shallow like a drying puddle, and the battles themselves take place on a tiny scale.
League of War VR Arena is not a strategy game, but closer to this production to a simplistic tower defense title. Our role is limited to sending units to a small board. Forget about giving any orders, they end up selecting your first target to attack. Later, our subordinates act on their own, i.e. they either attack a nearby enemy or start heading towards the enemy base. The battles last up to three and a half minutes, and the only tactical aspect of the game is the right selection of units on the basis of a rock-paper-scissors. So we are dealing with an extension worthy of being called a mobile for smartphones.
The mock-ups on which the battles take place are boring and ugly. Forget about any element of the environment influencing the course of hostilities. Empty locations differ slightly in appearance, and their shape and size always remain virtually unchanged. Once we come across deserts, where instead of a few trees, the creators threw a few stones. This is where the variety ends. Similar monothematicity occurs in the game itself. The first moments aren’t the worst. Intuitive controls are very convenient, and the game can even play for a short time. Then it turns out that the entire production looks exactly like the first ten minutes. One hour, two and three hours pass, and no new mechanics or variety are introduced to the game.
It all comes down to completing identical campaigns and arcade mode. The campaigns are devoid of any fictional content. Before the fight, we hear a dialogue to introduce us to the opponent in general, but the Lines are spoken with a terrible accent. I must admit that I simply did not understand many sentences, because the game is devoid of subtitles. We choose a character, where each of them differs slightly in units, and we fight another duels with a twin course. There is no surprise here, only the difficulty level increases. In arcade mode, we can create our own army by assigning specific units, but there is no more fun in this. It also makes sense, because there is no impact on the gameplay, and the main difference is based on the changed statistics.
League of War VR Arena was priced at PLN 99 in the PS Store and this price is horribly inadequate to what we get in return. The production is basically primitive and more like a technological demo than a full-fledged game. The interesting idea of the creators has not been turned into anything of value and the effect of the work is fun only for the first few fights. Then we repeat the same until boredom, which comes very quickly. We can also play local duels with another player, but the title does not benefit much.
