Reviews for Arcalona

[MeGa-wise]

I will not repeat other reviewers and will not talk about how this game is too grind and useless strength and critical is and only useful stats are health and magic. These are defiantly valid, but it has already been said.

I want to point out some other problems:

- When you buy other island it appears on other screen but you cannot place buildings there because you can't scroll between screens with a building placement selected from main base. What happened instead was that I somehow placed my building in mid air between the old and new islands. Then the next time I reloaded the game there appeared an intermediary island under that building which was previously hovering in midair. I could reach to build new buildings to this intermediary building, thankfully, but I still had the island I bought bare and unusable.
- There is no New game option. The first time you start this game you click Play. After that this Play button is grayed out and you can only click Continue which let's you play the saved game. But you can't start a new game and start a new game you must when you realize that you have ruined your characters with putting points into strength. So you are forced to wipe your browser memory which will also delete saves for other games you don't want to get deleted. Not user friendly at all.
- Why can't I return to my home island by clicking it on map, like any other island? Only way to do it is by closing the map.
- Sound can only be turned off from your home island - why not during battle? I may have a phone ringing or door ringing during battle too you know?
- Cannon vs ship battles are boring and not fun. This feature should be removed or dock should give +3 to attack instead of +1 and +50 to health instead of +10.
- Factory should have more fun upgrades up to building level 20 and they should do more for heroes.
- All characters are mages. They all should ignore strength and just pump points in magic. The best end game attack for archer is opening a portal to hell. Wtf? Don't get me wrong - that attack is cool, but it doesn't fit an archer character at all.

On overall this game has a fine basic mechanics and good animation, but some things should be calibrated better and the interface mechanics mentioned above should be solved.

[AutumnBlue]

I'm upset. I thought I can resume back the game as it automatically saves on the URL. When I came back, and click Continue, nothing happened. And so I have to restart again. Feel like crying right now.

[SonicXVGfan5602]

A fun RPG builder game, a bit heavy on the grind but easy enough.

Advice for others:
First, the cannons only matter in the first few levels. It seems like leveling your ship matters- it really doesn't.
There's no point in putting strength on any character, the most damaging abilities are all magic. Crit is also completely useless. The only stats that matter are Magic and Health- the first to kill the enemies, and the second to make sure you don't die in the first hit.
The best abilities are:
Shield Wall, Toxic Gas, Auto Revive, Enhance Health for the Knight. Toxic Gas does all the damage, the others are just to survive longer. Healing Salve and Holy Shockwave is good at earlier worlds.
For the Mage, Zap for the earlier levels. Reduce Attack, Smokescreen, Health Boost, and Doomsday Eye are the essentials. Again, the first three are just survivability, the last the only damage spell you need.
For the Archer, if you max Magic Damage the Power Arrow is good in the first worlds. Other than that, only Health Boost, Life Leech and Summon Pet are needed, the first two to live and the last for damage.
The most important buildings are the Markets, the Main Base, the Heroes Home, the Silos and eventually the Shrine. The Dock is nearly useless, the Casino completely so. The Crystal Facility is nice but not a big deal considering how slow the crystals accumulate. The Research Facility really only matters for the Builder boosts and the Market boosts.
Cannons matter in the early game, but by the later game they do basically nothing.

Note to the creator:
There are a few things I think are out of balance.
My opinion is that the stats are lopsided- Crit and Attack don't do nearly enough in the later levels, Magic is the ultimate and Health because you have to.
There are no abilities that deal physical damage that can compare to the magic damage abilities.
The cannons don't matter in the later levels, which is good considering that your ship stops being anywhere able to destroy them. I had to fight the cannons (a slow and laborious process) many times. I think it would be better to have two levels of upgrade per level of dock, which would make it at least closer to a fight.
I think that the grinding to get to certain points is a little to much. If you could reset the points being allotted, it would be much easier, and more fun to change playstyles.
Having such an insane cap on meat is ridiculous, seeing as the cost to fight the final boss is only 99 when I have 19200 available. Having more than is necessary is fine if you come back, but that much is just silly.
The game bugged out on me multiple times, having a character (either mine or an enemy) attacking and frozen in place. One of those times I reloaded and I had max crystals. Hard to replicate, but it happened.
The population is completely useless toward the end of the game, potentially consider doing something the last few upgrades per town.
Being able to upgrade the research facility to 20 is useless considering the options cap out at level 10. You might want to consider adding more options or spacing out the ones you have.
I easily fit all the possible buildings on the original island, consider doing something other than real estate. I understand some people might want to separate the buildings, but considering the massive cost associated the final island and the fact that you can't destroy buildings means more than likely there is nothing there.
Finally, I really wanted to get to those small islands and get rewards for beating worlds. Any chance you can implement that?

Please don't think that my suggestions and complaints mean that I think the game is bad or that I didn't enjoy it. I leveled every building to max and beat every boss, and I like the game thoroughly. I think there are a few places to improve, because I think it is worth improving. Thank you for your hard work!

EggysGames responds:

Thank you for the long and detailed review. I think they are very good and fair suggestions and have learned from them especially for future games.

[LinkTheChain]

Game is a lot of fun, enjoy the challenge of the fights and how the experience and loot helps the heroes scale up to continue on. I wanted to point out some bugs I've come across:

1) On the second world, during the boss fight (the rocks), every third battle or so, when one of the rocks would go to attack, he would get about halfway to the heroes, then freeze, running in place. I would have to refresh to continue.

2) Whenever I had to refresh, none of the stats from any gear was working. I had to unequip and reequip for it to register again.

I haven't gotten further than the third world, but I will continue to play until this "impossible" end boss! ;)

[lronKnight]

Cool game. Second enemy island all my heroes became mages and funny, the original mage was the weakest untill the last spell unlock. I disliked the building times and the amount of levels you have to upgrade.