Light Review: Angry Birds Evolution doesn’t have a polished tutorial. It takes two levels before the black bird super shot is fully explained. It took several tries for me to understand the Oinktagon arena. There was never much explanation given for how to win in the arena. I’ll list how to in the details below. Important information will appear on loading screens. There is rude humor throughout Angry Birds Evolution. I believe the game is being aimed toward a middle-school-aged audience. The game is all about collecting birds and making them more powerful, yet it constrains your capabilities of doing so. The mechanics are fun, can involve deeper tactical thinking, and overall it is a decent free-to-play game.
- When starting, don’t waste your time on leveling up weak birds- The game itself states, occasionally on loading screens, that a one-star bird at level 10 is approximately the same strength as a two-star bird at level 1. Meaning it makes less sense in the early game to use up any of your birds to level up a one-star character. You will quickly run out of space to hold your birds. This means you will be required to use your weaker birds as materials to level up your strongest candidates.
- If you ever decide to stop a shot, calmly trace your finger back to the bird you initially selected for the shot- The bird will deactivate and your lineup will return to their positions. If you have already made a shot with a bird, you cannot use it again until you have used all of your active birds. The turn counters on top of your birds become more important because of this. If you want to efficiently use your super shots, you’ll need to pay attention to the turn counters.
- You can position your team strategically when you need to replay a level- The team selection actually affects where your birds will initially launch in an arena. This can be extremely important for some harder levels. For example, yellow bird super shots allow birds to continue through enemies. If you line up the pigs in a vertical line, or have Dalton, you can launch the yellow bird in such a way as to bounce it back and forth to hit each pig multiple times. This will include hits to the back which double your damage. You can’t reposition your birds before a battle starts.
- The Oinktagon is all about hitting pigs into your opponent’s side- You will notice upon entering the Oinktagon how the field is split in half and colored red and blue. In the early game, your birds will deal limited damage to these impressive pigs. The goal is thus to knock the pigs into your opponent’s side so that the pigs will deal damage to your opponent. If you accidentally knock pigs into your own side, they will deal damage to you. The arena fight will continue until you or the enemy player loses all health.
- You can tap on pigs and obstacles to learn more about them-This feature is never explained in the game from what I have seen up to level 9. However, curiosity led me to the discovery of finding pigs’ special attacks and health. This is especially useful in the Oinktagon. Pigs in the Oinktagon can deal extra damage to your opponent or heal your team when you knock them out. This is extremely difficult to do in the beginning of the game. This feature of finding information is far more useful in the PVE (player versus environment) section of the game. One pig matron can call in reinforcements and extend your battles or turn the tide of war against you.
- You can gain extra coins, power-ups, and materials by knocking out spectating pigs–The spectating pigs will occasionally throw out upgrades into the arena. Additionally, you can bounce your targets into the spectators or use explosive abilities to get extra coins and evolution materials. The black bird’s super shot, TNT, and other special super shots (such as Tommy’s red super shot, punch of bomb) can hit spectators with their area of effect. You cannot directly target spectators with your birds.
- You can collect extra gems from achievements by accessing the building on the right in town- Gems are hard to come by. Thankfully, there is a starter’s pack (or there was a week ago) which gives you 500 gems to start with. This building will also give you at least 1 gem for each discovered bird or enemy. It will give you more gems based on the number of stars the bird you discovered has.
- The game will give you 24 hours to collect birds from your mail if you collect too many birds to place in your inventory-This is a nice concession to players unable to spend money on expanding their inventory. You can get rid of weaker birds and then replace them with better ones sitting in your mailbox. This also allows players to continue progressing through the campaign without worrying about managing their inventory until they’re done playing for the day. There is no need to worry about inventory management during your gameplay session.
- Birds of the same color will give a higher XP (experience) value- Angry Birds Evolution explicitly tells you that shiny birds will give you extra XP. Pay attention in the level up screen and you will see an “XP x 2” icon show up on every bird sharing the same color. As far as my experiments have shown, leveling up weaker birds does not change the amount of XP they give. In other words a level 5 Frank will give the same amount of XP as a level 1 Frank of the same rarity. Rarity is the determining factor of many statistics in Angry Birds Evolution. Try to save your shiny birds for leveling up three-star and higher characters.
- Super Shot tips- Carefully read each bird’s super shot. There will often be extra effects which can synergize. For example, Amy will consume the combo counter for health instead of adding extra damage to your next bird’s shot.
General super shot tips- Black bird super shots can be positioned behind pigs so the explosion will deal double damage. You can also miss the explosion and waste it. If a shot looks like it’s on the edge of the explosion, I would err on the side of caution and position the explosion closer to the pig.
Red bird super shots are generally good at dealing damage. If you need dependable damage against a boss, include a Red bird on your team if you don’t have enough boosted colors. The shots are wasted if they do not directly hit an enemy. You cannot bounce this super shot.
Once again, yellow bird super shots can be placed so that you can deal more damage than a Red bird super shot as long as you can bounce the yellow bird into the same enemy over and over again. This is easiest with a vertical line. The second area, the yellow desert, gives you the opportunity to deal insane damage with yellow birds.
Blue bird super shots don’t have to hit the enemy to activate initially. You can bounce the blue birds into a corner for multiple hits against enemies trying to hide in the corner of the arena.
I hope these 10 tips help you out, dear reader!
Disclaimer: I’m not being paid by Rovio or anyone else to write these tips. The only money I could make would be through advertising on this site at this point in time.
by Brian Petrilli AKA Jalinon