The cartoon violence of Marvel Strike Force’s combat leaves no blood. Only fading enemies. As previously mentioned, defeated characters can ragdoll or be thrown out of combat. If you and your family can watch any Marvel movies, then Marvel Strike Force is ready for you to play!
Review:
Many challenges and story events await your Strike team in Marvel Strike Force! The animations will excite you, the humor delight you, the music remind you of epic Marvel moments, and the collection slog will irritate you. Thankfully, there’s more to love than hate about Marvel Strike Force (in my opinion). The developers start you off with some decent characters useful throughout the game. I recommend paying the $10 for Captain America when offered because he is the best tank in the game. Other offers feel like cheap hooks to take your resources. Unlike Star Wars Galaxy of Heroes (GOH) Marvel Strike Force has an actual story. This already improves the formula in my mind. Events to unlock characters can remain as options for a year (Elektra and Crossbones, 2 great villain characters!). What isn’t so great is the increased greed. It takes 330 character shards to fully upgrade a character in GOH and 800 in Marvel Strike Force (according to http://marvel-strike-force.wikia.com/wiki/Character_Upgrading)! It also appears the drop rate for character shards and gear are decreased (https://www.reddit.com/r/MarvelStrikeForce/comments/885qbk/what_are_the_drop_rates_of_shards/ and from personal experience). Players from the original testing and who started the game when it first came out complain that the developers have made decisions which make unlocking shards and completing Blitz milestones more difficult. These complaints are slightly offset by orb fragments. Just playing the game will eventually give you premium orbs and other ways to farm characters. The developers wanted to force players to use more of their rosters so I can appreciate the idea, yet it’ll take an ice age to unlock everything. Thankfully, it looks like most players are stuck around 5 star heroes in the fifties as the developers slowly increase the level cap in Marvel Strike Force. The music and sound effects are delightful on the elevator to the top!
Time: Marvel Strike Force is an energy-based collection RPG following the free-to-play freemium model. When you first start, energy is delivered to you constantly. After a few days, you are forced to slow down or pay up. Marvel Strike Force is generally a quick play, but raids and blitz modes can make long sessions. There are energy refill mechanics in play to let you continue playing like Blitz Energy and campaign energy refills. Make sure to use them or you’ll lose the refills if you’re capped. Also note the Arena and Raid matches are timed! When you start those don’t walk away from your game. I totally didn’t do this. Nope.
Pros and Cons: Marvel Strike Force has a decent leveling progression, a decent story, and it’s told with humor. There are a few cut-scenes (you tap through), good music to keep you moving, gear to collect or auto-win, and a variety of PvP and raids to keep things interesting. The combat has random elements on some characters such as Dodge, Block chance, and chain attacks. The ability to chain attacks has a percent chance. Your strategy shouldn’t depend on chance, but revel in it when fortune favors you!
Overall Impression: If you love turn-based RPG’s, collecting Marvel characters, fun character interactions, strategic combat, leveling up and increasing your power; then Marvel Strike Force is in the App Store waiting for you! If you don’t enjoy free-to-play games, being patient for unlocking things, energy systems which limit your play time, or the Marvel universe; then Marvel Strike Force may not be for you.
Tips:
- Identify who you want to farm – Marvel Strike Force has a large community already. You can find YouTube videos by MobileGamer, McMole2, and more to help you out. Most players recommend Yondu, Crossbones, Captain America, Quake, and Night Nurse. Yondu is the easiest to farm outside of events. Crossbones’ event should let you get him to 2 stars within a week. You’ll need 5 Shield characters to unlock Ironman from a Legendary event so the starting Shield characters (Shield Medic and Shield Assault) are worth farming. I recommend gearing your most powerful characters first. It’ll help you in Arena and Blitz mode.
- Adjacency is hard to determine – The ability to hit enemies adjacent to others would be better if you could see who was actually adjacent to whom. When in doubt, aim for a central target or to a character positioned mainly in the left or right part of the formation. Frankly, most single target abilities are better at destroying enemies quickly. I’ve found focus fire to be the most helpful strategy. Taking out healers or damage dealers first is the best bet. Daredevil, Shield Medic, The Punisher and Spider-Man are good targets. Elektra can stealth and usually will after you hit her once which wastes your damage.
- Timing is everything – Raids, Blitz, and farming all depend on timing your day around the game to some degree. The game is built to have you play multiple times each day with extra energy given around every four hours or so. Free Orbs will also stack up during this time.
I hope the review and tips help you out, dear reader! Stop Ultimus and save the Multiverse!
Links: The App Store link is at https://itunes.apple.com/nz/app/marvel-strike-force/id1292952049?mt=8 and the home website is at https://marvelstrikeforce.com/en/.
Disclaimer: I’m not being paid by FoxNext Games LLC or anyone else to write these tips. The only money I could make would be through advertising on this site or on YouTube at this point in time. I don't take responsibility for the content on sites linked to from this article.
by Brian Petrilli AKA Jalinon