Ah mobile games... It is amazing how mobile games have evolved from crappy addicting games we played to pass the time into games that can match hand held console quality. However, despite this fact, I have not been able to find many mobile games that can hold my interest. So, I kept searching until I finally came upon the game called Kritika: The White Knights.
Kritika: The White Knights is an altered mobile version of the Korean PC MMO Kritika Online. The game is fun and can be considered to be a hand held version of Diablo 3. I have to admit that that is one of the reasons I got so hooked on it.
Story
Like Diablo 3, there is a story, but its one you will stop caring about after the very first cut scene. So, if you're a gamer that plays for story, this may not be the game for you.
The plot of the game revolves around an evil bad guy that summoned a large almighty Golem. Somehow this Golem has managed to piss off or attract the attention of all the playable character. So, you set out to reduce it to a few pebbles.
After the intro, the rest of the narrative is told using campaign quest descriptions. In other words, you get to read the story! Yay!
Like I said, after the intro, you stop caring.
Game Flow
Earlier I mentioned how Kritika: The White Knights is based off the MMO Kritika Online. Well, I'm sad to say that Kritika: The White Knights is not really a MMO. It is more like a single player game with MMO features.
The picture above displays what the main menu is like. As you can see there are the three main areas of gameplay you can choose from. 'Stage' is the campaign mode of course. 'Survival' contains the many different survival modes, and 'Battle' is the PvP section.
Each of these modes supply you with different materials to power up different aspects of your character. Now, you may ask what exactly you are upgrading. Well, see all those tabs at the bottom of the screen? All of those are tabs that lead to different sources of strength. That's right. All of them.
The entire game revolves around one theme; grind and level up your characters in order to be more awesome than everyone else. The game's character design is set up to encourage you to create a small army of characters. In other words, it's a grind fest. Are you starting to see why I said it is a hand held Diablo 3?
It's a pretty easy game to get into. However, there is a lot to handle.
Stage Mode
Now normally I would just call this story mode. However, I can't bring myself to do it. Like I said, there really is no story except in the quests descriptions. Stage modes can be considered the dungeons of the game. You run through, kill a few dozen enemies, then fight a big bad boss at the end. Not much to it... Stage mode eventually just turns into you doing one stage and farming it for all its worth. Sounds tedious right?
Yet, a recent update has made stage mode more bearable. You may wonder how. The answer is The Auto Progress button. This button has become my best friend. This button allows you to set a character up to repeatedly play and beat a dungeon on their own. You can even set up for how long they will auto that stage. So, you can go Auto Progress on a level, then put your phone down and play another game while your character auto farms and levels for you. Epic right?
Survival
In my opinion, this is where the main action of the game is at. Survival brings in the highest amount of gold. The game has four different survival modes to choose from.
Monster Wave: Your classic survival mode. You survive and kill as many enemies as you can within the time limit. There are seven different difficulty ranks. The higher the rank, the higher the rewards.
Tower of Tribulation: As the title suggests, you are climbing a tower. Each floor has its own set of enemies. You beat them and get to the next floor. This mode is for getting meteorites and gem keys.
World Boss: This is your average world boss mode. Go fight a boss and does as much damage as possible until the timer runs out.
Expedition Mode: Honestly, I don't know how to talk about this one. It is such a lame feature. It gives you a variety of rewards, but the mode itself is boring. You travel through a series of regions with a party of your characters until all your characters bite the big one. You watch your characters fight against four enemies in each region. Now, when I say watch, I mean you watch pictures smack each other with other pictures...fun.
These really aren't survival modes when you think about it. They feel more like time trials. However, they are fun to play on your own, and have an autoplay function similar to Stage Mode.
PvP?
Alright, so if you are a hardcore PvP player. I will say this now. This game will not be your cup of tea. The PvP in this can't even really be considered PvP. The game puts character up against character instead of Player against Player. So, I guess you could say it's more like CvC.
Makes you wonder what the point of PvP is, right? Well this is what I like about PvP. It allows you to win the in game currency Karats. If you play the game right, you can get about a thousand karats at the end of every week. So, you can purchase a bunch of in game features such as costumes or upgrades.
Mainly, the PvP is a battle of stats. Your characters face each other on auto. There are three modes of PvP.
Arena: Mainly two characters go in an arena. They face off and that's it. One wins, one loses, and you spent five seconds of your time watching.
Versus: This is a mode that is meant for karat farming alone. You get a selection of opponents. You choose which opponent to go up against (I suggest the weakest) and face them ten times. Now, you can win up to 55 karats each day. Each time you beat the character, they will get a stat boost. You have to beat them ten times in order to get the 55 karats.
Melee: This mode seems pointless and despite it being the most fun PvP to play, I never do. It is a mode where you pit two teams of 3 characters against each other. The mode rewards you with very few karats. In fact, the main reward of this mode is accessory materials used in crafting...you guessed it...accessories. However, by the time you are powerful enough to make use of this mode, you are already equipped with the best accessories in the game.
The fact that PvP allows players to get the in game currency makes it useful. However, the mode itself is boring and tedious. You don't actually get to face any other players, but an AI version of their character.
Guilds
The Guild system is the only reason I still play this game. I am kind of shocked to say this, but it is one of the best Guild Systems I have ever seen in a game, period.
Usually I will join a guild for the sole purpose of getting an instant "friends" list. There generally is no other reason to do so. I find most games have crappy guild benefits that you can go without.
Yet, Kritika: The White Knights actually made a fun guild system that is essential for powering up.
The picture above shows five towers. These towers hold something like a world boss, except they are a guild boss. The guild boss is summoned by the guild master. However, the guild master can't summon the boss without activity points which is earned by players being active in the game.
Once a boss is summoned, the guild has a limited time to kill the boss. The tower will level up if the boss is killed. Leveling up the towers provides a boost to the stat the tower represents. For example, the Tower of Destruction gives bonus damage to physical skills. Also, your guild levels up along with the leveling of the towers.
It is a really fun system in my opinion and I think it is one of the main reasons I keep returning to Kritika: The White Knights.
Community
I've said it before, but this game isn't an MMO despite being based off one. You can't play with other players. The most you can do is battle guild bosses or World bosses together. However, you don't fight the bosses with another person.
You can talk to people in the game. But that is made incredibly difficult by the ridiculous level of censorship in the game's chat. If there is any form of an 'inappropriate' word in your sentence, you will see an annoying notice of "I will not use inappropriate language."
I say "any form" because if there is any combination of letters that forms words the system considers inappropriate, it will be censored. For example "about it" will be censored.
Overall
The game is a pretty solid game for a mobile game. It has hours of content and things to do as well as a variety of quests and different kinds of characters to play as.
However, the fact that you can auto everything does make it lose appeal in some aspects. I usually play a game to...you know...play a game. Yet, considering how much of a grind fest this game is, it is a useful option to have.
I'd say this game is a good game to play if you have some time to kill. It is conveniently on your phone. Take it out and play it when you are bored. Kill a few monsters and become epic. In other words, it is a very fun grind fest of a game.
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