You can't spend more than 5 minutes on the Internet without hearing about Raid: Shadow Legends it seems.
What is Raid: Shadow Legends?
Raid: Shadow Legends is a RPG Gacha game. Gacha games are very popular in Japan and involve pulling or opening capsules to get characters. These characters are generally combined or leveled up to become more powerful. There is typically a large pool of characters you can draw from with varying rarities. The more rare the character, generally the more powerful they are.
In Raid: Shadow Legends you open hundreds and thousands of shards for a chance of something powerful. Initially you will be earning Mystery Shards which can be used to get a common, uncommon, and rare character. Throughout the game you will get a chance for Ancient, Void, and Sacred shards which increases your chances for better champions.
The graphics in Raid: Shadow Legends is among the best in the genre, as is the game play. Raid: Shadow Legends advertises over 300 unique champions, but they are well over 400 and maybe even 500 at this point.
Raid: Shadow Legends has been spending millions on marketing and advertising, and most YouTube and game ads are for Raid: Shadow Legends.
Raid: Shadow Legends can be played on IOS, Android, and even PC.
(If you use my link, you get a few goods to help you get started).
Game Play
There are multiple areas to the game and each area requires different champions and builds to be successful. Some of the better champions do well in multiple areas and your starter champion is one of them.
When starting the game you go through an introduction and get to chose from 4 different rare champions. While they are all usable, there is only one choice that is viable for all content in the game and should be your only pick.
Kael is by far the best choice, he will be usable in all areas of the game and even end game content. While the other champions are better than average rare champions, they won't be as powerful in all areas of the game and late game content.
What makes Kael so great is he uses poison which is critical for boss fights and he has a great area of attack spell for farming campaign content. It's relatively easy to make him usable for all areas before you get some of the better heroes.
The game is split up in multiple areas:
- Campaign
- Arena
- Dungeons
- Faction Wars
- Clan Boss
Each area has different challenges and requires unique team composition to excel. Even in the dungeons there are 10 unique dungeons each with their own challenges you have to get around.
For example, the "Spider" dungeon involves fighting against endless tiny spiders that overwhelm your team if you don't have good area of attack damage. The Ice Golem has massive reflect damage, stuns, and endlessly revives knights that protect him.
The dungeons have as many as 20 levels that you work your way through as your team gets better. Getting a better team involves leveling up better heroes, better gear, earning your masteries, and booking your champion skills so they are more efficient.
Initially you will spend a lot of your time farming campaign, and this is something you will do even as you get solid champions as you need to level them up using food. Food are low quality champions that are leveled up and then ranked up to feed to your primary champions so they can rank up. You will constantly be leveling food and primary champions regardless of where you are in the game.
Every day you will get 4 keys to fight the Clan Boss which allows you to earn better loot depending on how well you do. As you get better you are able to take on the harder Clan Bosses and get even more loot.
In the arena you will battle face to face with other players to earn arena tokens that can be turned in to increase your base stats so you perform better in all areas.
This game is a grind, there is a lot to do and you will do it a million times. If you don't have patience, this won't be a fun game for you. If you like to overcome challenges and gear up heroes to take on harder challenges over a long period of time, this game is a lot of fun. The game has a heavy pay to win spin to it, while it is very playable without spending anything, you will be presented with many offers that will speed up your progress. Because Gacha games don't guarantee what you get when you open shards, even high spending players are left to hoping for a good pull.
One good champion can make a huge difference in accelerating your progress through the game. I am a low spender in the game, I bought a few really good value packs and the first Battle Pass they offered (which is by far the best deal in the game). I had a few great lucky pulls, but still in need of some good champions to fill out my team. I managed to pull a few top tier champions which have helped me a lot. Even with an amazing champion, you still need to farm gear for them.
It is a fun game but it requires daily attention and a long grind to be successful. If you decide to give a go, use my link to get a little head start on the game.