I had never played a MOBA game and before playing VainGlory, I didn’t even knew what MOBA is. When I first saw the game in the App Store, I quickly recalled that this was the game Apple used to show the new graphics capabilities of the new iPhones in the Apple’s 2014 Special event. I quickly downloaded the game since I was already bored with 8 Ball Pool.
VainGlory is a Multiplayer Online Battle Arena game available for all the iPads & iPhone 5s and above, developed by Super Evil Megacorp. The graphics of the game looked much better than other games I had played on my iPad and to try it out, I went to play a Public Match just to check out the game. A Public Match in VainGlory involves two teams with three players in each team. While I was waiting for the game to connect me with other players, it displayed on the screen that “a match usually takes 20 - 30 minutes”. I don’t usually play games for as long as 20 minutes but VainGlory seemed different to me, so I gave it a try.
The gameplay includes two teams fighting in a map called Halcyon Fold to destroy enemy’s Vain crystal which is an energy source. Vain Crystal of both the teams is located at the team base which is at the extreme ends of the Halcyon Fold. Halcyon Fold in the VainGlory, which is the only map for now includes two parts, one is the lane and the other is jungle. There are turrets for both the teams on the lane which protect their team heroes. The main aim for the teams is to destroy these turrets one by one and finally destroy the Vain Crystal of the opponent team to win the match. Snipers and shooters can earn gold by killing minions of the enemy team in the lane while the jungle heroes can earn gold by killing monsters in the jungle. The more gold you have, the better items you can buy from the shop to make your player more powerful.
There are also special creatures in the Halcyon Fold. There is a minion mine for both the teams located in the jungle which when captured, produces stronger minions. So if you capture yours as well as enemy’s minion mine, your minions will be much more stronger than enemy minions. There is also a Gold mine in the middle of the jungle which mines gold. You can capture the Gold mine to acquire more gold. The strength of your hero in the game basically depends on how quickly you earn gold and the items you buy for your hero.
There is a special creature in the Halcyon Fold called Kraken. Kraken appears 15 minutes after the game at the place of the Gold miner in the middle area of the jungle. Defeating the Kraken allows your team to make the Kraken play with your team. Defeating Kraken is hard and it usually requires at least two heroes to unleash the Kraken. Once you unleash the Kraken, she will play from your side and will help you in destroying the enemy turrets until enemy team kills the Kraken.
I remember that I choose SAW as my hero when I first played VainGlory, and I also remember how quickly I got killed by the enemy heroes and got defeated. There are heroes of different types including assassins, snipers and warriors. The current list of heroes include Skaarf, Taka, Joule, Krul, SAW, Petal, Glaive, Koshka, Adagio, Ringo and Catherine. Skaarf is the newest hero in the game and the developers are introducing new heroes with time. Only a few heroes are free in the game and the developers rotate the free heroes frequently. So, if you want to keep playing with your favourite hero even when it is not free, you’ll have to buy the hero. Heroes can be bought using Glory which you earn after playing matches, or you can also buy heroes using ICE, the currency which the game accepts. Every hero in the game has a unique set of abilities apart from the basic attacks. The power of attacks is totally based on the build of the player, or in other words, the items you buy for your player. Each player in VainGlory have different skills and statistics so each require a different build. There are lots of items you can buy for your player including Weapons, Crystal power and Defence.
Apart from the Public Matches, there are also Practice and Party matches. In a Practice match, there will be no hero other than you. You can do whatever you want for practising. In a Party match, you can create a party and add your friends to the party. A Party is a match in which either you can add your friends to your party so that they can play with you as your teammates or you can also play 1vs1 or 2vs2 matches in party with your friends as your opponents.
I’ve been playing this game since 2 months now and I totally love this game. VainGlory is one of the reasons for not updating this blog since a month. Also, this game is so addictive that I haven’t slept on time since I downloaded this game. I have learnt a lot since I started with the game and have played over 500 matches and have 370 wins with the highest karma level one can have. And I am still not bored with the game.
The only bad thing about this game is that it happens sometimes that your teammates quit in-between the game(also called AFK) making it hard for you to win the match. I have gone through a match when both my teammates left the game, but I still somehow won the game. Over the official VainGlory Facebook group, the developers shared that they are constantly working to reduce these AFKs(away from keyboard). They also introduced notifications in the latest updates which allows players to know when their teammates abandon the game.
Recently Super Evil Megacorp announced that they will be releasing a new hero in VainGlory and the hero will be called “Ardan”. Just like every hero, Ardan also have a story which the developers shared in the latest blog post on the VainGlory blog. The devs also stream live matches on the official VainGlory Twitch channel regularly.
I only want to say that VainGlory is an amazing and addictive game. If you want to experience a game with stunning graphics and awesome gameplay, then you should open the App Store right now and download VainGlory.
VainGlory is free on iTunes App Store and is available for all the iPads(requires iOS 6.1 or later) and iPhone 5s & above(requires iOS 8.0 or later).
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