Gems of War Reviews

The new update is terrible. The UI is blurred, hard to see, can barely see health bars, mana is confusing especially for a new player, gold trim looks terrible on troops, Mythics look bad, there is no reward to get that light blue border on making a troop mythic. Players are leaving globally as we speak. There are guilds that have open spots all over the place. Players equal profits and good customer service makes people spend. I have been in a chat with over a hundred players who are going to quit until they are heard. The new weekly event is trying to lower gem savings and is a cash grab. Everyone I have talked to will never buy gems. I have spent money where it is needed like on Dragon armor. Cramped up game play makes for a unpleasant experience. I loved this game. Also your player base is adults not 7 year olds. This will fall on deaf ears like treasure hunt did when a admin’s girlfriend/wife liked it as is so there was no change. People have 10s of thousands of treasure maps. Pay attention because attention gets paid. A fix to this update bleed would be allowing players to revert back to the old UI or keep the new one. Another option is giving the players the ability to choose what aspects they want on and off on their UI. The choice should be the players.

First of all with this last update I have never seen so many new players quit the game after just a few days. You are locked into a boring group of kingdom stories and have to finish them all before you can unlock the soul forge which could have been really helpful at the beginning. My niece started the game, joined my clan and we helped in every way we could and even when she hit level 100 still didn’t have a decent team to do much with and she was only halfway through the mandatory boring kingdom stories. She quit of course and is now playing Puzzles and Dragons and having a blast. This game has terrible loot chest drops, cheating AI, and with each update it goes more towards pay to win. New players don’t have a chance. People who have played from the beginning have weapons and creatures that are much harder to get now. So do yourself a favor and play a different game. This one will just make you angry. Oh also pay attention to dev responses especially the stupid one that says they tested the AI and it DOESNT cheat then they go on to say in fact IT CHEATS for the player which it does not. So they say it doesn’t cheat then admits it does. If it did cheat for the player there wouldn’t be so many AI cheating complaints. They must think we are stupid. Do not support them!

I’ll start by saying that if you’re a newcomer considering this game, don’t bother. If you do, don’t spend any money on it.

I’ve been playing this game and enjoying it for years—it’s a fantastic concept—but unfortunately, in the past year the quality and support has dramatically declined. New features are clearly not beta tested, glaring bugs (such as missing artwork for many troops) are reported by players and simply ignored by the developers, and in the game’s forum, reps for the game rarely respond to feedback, and even when they do, it’s a one-time “we’ll look into it” message that never results in a solution. In a recurring event released today, it’s comically obvious the devs didn’t bother to remove placeholder elements in the template.

I have spent a significant amount of money on this game over the years, because I do believe devs should be paid for their work, and I got real value from the game. However, that’s changed. I certainly won’t be spending anything going forward unless there’s significant improvement. In fact, things have gotten so bad I wouldn’t be surprised if the game was simply shut down soon, as it seems the company that owns it has lost interest in truly supporting it.

GoW, at its core, is a fun game. The number of team building options are fantastic, and the guild system does a great job rewarding those who’ve worked together within the game for a long time. The recent changes are obvious attempts at monetization that have diluted that system, though. The pets are pointless. Guild Wars are still a ton of fun, but the Raid Boss and Invasion events are dull grindfests that lack variety and encourage gem spending to progress beyond a certain plateau. That plateau comes a lot sooner if you don’t have top-tier troops for that week’s event, a more likely outcome now that the drop rates for Mythics have plummeted (except in VIP chests, I’d guess). Let guilds choose which events they want to do—if a guild wants to only play Guild Wars every week, let them do that. You can incentivize variety by allowing guilds that play the three different events type to gain more rewards, but those of us who would gladly sacrifice rewards to have more fun should be able to do so. As it is, I find myself virtually ignoring the game two out of three weeks, and I doubt that’s the outcome the devs want for dedicated players.

I’m going to start out and tell you this game is fun and very addicting to play, which is why I give it 3 out of 5 stars. There only downfall is the TEAM (guild play). It is important to be on a guild to help you through the process of resources in this game. With that being said all resources are done weekly and they reset every week. Now what’s odd with this they have trophies that your guild can accumulate every week and they are pretty useless as your guild gets nothing for these trophies, except your overall rank in guild. I’m ok with this process, but they never reset the trophies like everything else so that teams that have been playing longer than new teams you will never ever catch them. It’s the only thing that measures your guild and you can never know how really good your team can be each week because your trophies never reset. So new guilds can never get excited about their status. Plus in GW’s if your a new guild and really good, you can’t climb the brackets. Your always stuck in the back with guilds who don’t even play or have one member. The sad thing is I’ve been playing a year now and it has been brought up in forums and brought up to the developers of game and they never comment about it, or fix it. It’s like they don’t care.

Update: devs explain insult as “creative” bug fix. I upgraded rating to 3 stars.

Original review: I’ve been playing for years and love the game, but the latest release includes “offers” to purchase simple troops and pets for 1 million gems. For the uninformed, that would require a cash purchase of over $25,000! No explanation as to why the eff anyone would think that’s a good deal. To accumulate 1 million gems without a purchase would be literally impossible to achieve even if you played every day for 8 hours a day and never spent gems for anything as you accumulated them. This review is to alert people considering this game that the developers have lost their minds. There is no other explanation. “Offering to sell their customers a common game resource for $25,000 is the textbook definition of insanity.

Every time they do upgrades it messes everything up. I have been playing this game, believe it or not, for about 2 years. When I first started playing it was about earning trophies and upgrading troops. Now they have so many games and guild activities it’s kind of confusing. They also make it very hard to earn specific items to upgrade your troops. People that have started months ago have better and more troops than I do. Also I must have spent about $100 on this game. I should be a VIP member where I can do anything. But I am only at
VIP 4 and Cannot excess the VIP chests. Playing kingdoms at the hardest level should give us the highest talismans not the lowest. And to craft better troops and weapons you have to use 100,000 souls which is impossible to get unless you spend more money. So don’t waste your money on this game because it won’t help you. It is fun to play and I’ve made a lot of friends. Even though they are from different states and countries we have become close and that makes it interesting But all the upgrades and games that they added really slows the game down and causes a lot of problems so I have to keep rebooting the game. They make it more about you spending money to upgrade your troops. If I didn’t become friends with my Guild I would have deleted the game a long time ago.

I’ve never played a game that was a living thing like this one. The developer is always playing with the look and side quests such that the game always feels fresh despite having a basic mechanic to it. I like that it is turn based so I can put it down instantly when I need to chase my kids or address something else in my busy life. I love that the PVP area is all teams designed by various players, but that team is run by the computer so I don’t have to wait on someone to take their turn. I like that I can play completely free- money just makes game easier or faster rather than possible.

The game only got four stars from me because it is buggy. I usually have to load it at least twice and there are periodic holes in things. This week I can’t get into the events menu at all.

The gameplay is fun for the most part aside from whatever game breaking mythic or card combo that makes PvP unplayable. The best news being that PvP does not lock any content rewards so you can play a good portion of the game without it.
The mythic/legendary/whatever drop rate is abysmal but join a good guild and you’ll get something worth working with more sooner than later.
Most important is synergy between your cards and it will take a while to gather a decent team but when you do you’ll be able to clear endgame content - even that will rely on luck on many an occasion.
It’s fun - just minus 1 star for the obscene difficulty of Pet Rescue (without damage reduction ANY matched skulls WILL kill one of your team in the last 2 stages) and the inability to save your team in that mode (and Delve).
Seriously though - good game.

This match system challenges you to plan your moves on multiple levels. Abilities and damage actions usually end your turn, while matching 4+ mana or using utility abilities can extend your turn. Like PQ, you need to avoid giving your opponent the colors they need, while still making your own headway.

Could easily be a perfect 5. There are some small complaints though. The UI is functional but unattractive. At times, it can be hard to understand what abilities due just by reading the description. And while the art in the game is serviceable, it pales in comparison to other hero collecting/Gacha games.

But honestly those few issues do not take away from the core gameplay which is the reason you should play this game. Excellent strategy match-3.

This is my favorite match-3 game I’ve ever played. Well done to the creators. The one thing I ask for now is that they create the option to make it available in portrait mode. Also, it has some stability issues in that it tends to crash when opening.

UPDATE: so I’m level 405 now, and I’m having an insanely hard time getting arcane traitstones. I get celestial more often, surprisingly. So I would really love it if some balancing fixes happened, as I’m getting extremely tired of farming. I can farm one Explore mode for 2 days straight and not find ONE arcane traitstone. Also, why can’t I connect my progress to the PS4? I would love to play on there, but I’m not about to completely start over.

ANOTHER UPDATE: I’m level 730 now, and I STILL have not uncovered a mythic troop. This is extremely discouraging, especially since I’ve spent actual money on this game in the attempt to get mythic troops. I’ve opened countless chests. It’s getting old. I’ve been playing this game for many many months. I’m certainly not spending another dime. The game is still fun, and I especially like the addition of the daily quests, so I’m not changing the rating. But if I make it to 1000 without a mythic troop, I will stop playing. This is just ridiculous.

I’ve been playing this for a few weeks now and it’s pretty fun, it’s like a mash-up of Bejeweled and Magic: the Gathering. A couple years ago I played a similar game (Legendary: Game of Heroes) that would stop you from playing unless you waited for an hours-long timer or spend money to reset it. Gems of War just lets you keep playing, and there’s a bunch of different modes to mix things up. I can’t speak for the guild wars/PvP stuff yet, but you can play the “campaign” mode and a bunch of others without spending any real money and actually enjoy the game and collecting all the doo-dads. It’s the kind of free to play game where you’ll actually want to spend money just to reward the developers for a job well done, and that’s why I described this game as humane. I highly recommend this.

Even after multiple device changes, I always come back to this game in some way or another. I have played this game for so long. I love the game dynamics/game play. I love the card descriptions! It’s a wonderful game. I’d recommend this for anyone who wants a D&D-ish color matchemups. There’s plenty of other features too whether social world chat or guilds. There’s something for most in this game (there’s always gonna be some that don’t like the features given). Lots of work in the beginning but nothing too difficult or pay-to-win. You get back as much work you want to put in. Of course there is normal buy in game currency stuff but nothing too crazy outside of that. So for me I’d give it a 10/10. I love this game.

It all started one Saturday morning. I was looking for good games on the AppStore when I stumbled upon this game. (Wish I could use the name but I can’t cuz of copyright) so I decided to download it. At first I thought it was fun. But not super fun. As I continued to play the game I got more overpowered troops that mad me win so many battles! I just could not think of a better match 3 rpg game. I have played for days and days and days and days and then... I got my first mythic troop. I was so happy I fell of my couch. Then... I got like 4 legendaries from one chest! I always get so exited to see what I get from the chests. I get legendary troops most of the time. And I’m ok with that but I really want a new mythic troop. I just found out that a troop level cap is 20. So yeah... so now I’m playing this game like 24/7. Not really. But this is a really great game and I hope many more updates come in the future!!!

I have been playing this game off and on for the last two years. I love that you can sync your game between mobile and PC. They have made a lot of changes recently and there are tons of game modes and guild activities, but players are able to participate at their own pace. If you want to play for free and just do the activities you want, cool. If you want to spend money every month and compete for the leaderboards, that’s cool too. Sure, people that do the later have some better troops and more rewards, but that’s the incentive you play for. This doesn’t keep less competitive players from playing the game or having fun. There is always something new to unlock and new troops to play for, the combinations are endless. Download, play and enjoy. If you find that you love the game I suggest getting involved in an active Guild community and watch Tacet’s videos.

I’m still a fan of this game but please evaluate the rewards for legendary tasks, raids, arena and treasure gnome. If it stays the same then this game is not going to maintain its dedicated player base. If you just want money then let us buy growth packs monthly rather than 1 time only. There’s so much that can be improved to the mini-games in the game (arena, treasure hunt) like achievements, challenges for higher rewards, etc...

Yes, the last update has some bugs with it and some users may experience difficulty with older devices but the update shows how the game will be sustainable for longer gameplay!

I invested in a newer iPad and life is so much better- not only for this game but the others I play. My iPhone... not so great but I still love playing the game!

Great new content since last I played and the gameplay is still as fun as ever. Now there's even more troop types and combinations to experiment with. This game will keep you up into the wee hours. The game is not pushy about buying things and you can have a very enjoyable experience without paying a dime. You can purchase upgrades that help speed up development but they aren't necessary to be competitive at the low and medium levels.

Also as a suggestion to the devs: maybe consider allowing a user to stay in the challenges menu after completing a challenge level. It's rather annoying to have to re-enter the menu each time if you're trying to knock out all 35 kingdom challenges in a row.

Never thought I’d get hooked on a mobile game. I’ve played Match3 before but nothing like this. It’s action/RPG/arcade and and a fiery challenge. Just make sure to raise the difficulty if you’re bored with progress, and do that regardless because PVP is a monster.

Loot boxes seem ... generous, but business is business and I don’t see the extent of the wall yet. Just gotta put in time to get some of the better cards and PVP will show you exactly what they can do. The rank listings clearly show where you stand so, like any fight, if you get whooped by the biggest guys, it was your choice to take ‘em on. It all seems fair to me.

There are some freezing issues + bugs here and there, but nothing game ending. This program does guzzle battery juice so be careful taking your addiction on the go. I highly recommend this game to anyone looking for something worth the extra taps on a touchscreen.

Looking for a great Free to play puzzle game with some depth, this one is for you! The game is great with a few irritable things like offering high priced content every time you log in and some frustrating encounters. However! The encounters are triumphed with some thought behind your team. Story is passable as light entertainment. No need to buy anything to succeed in this game thus far. PVP is not real time but rather you face enemies constructed teams with your own and is very rewarding. There is no energy limit like other free to play puzzle games, so feel free to stay a while, provided you have a good internet connection. All around great game and I may put some money into it to help it stay going strong. Oh also there are NO ADS! =D

I place this game on my Xbox one, but want to continue playing while I am on the go. I downloaded this game with the hopes of this, but realized I must start over. Please make it possible for cross platform compatibility! I, and I'm sure many other people, would take complete advantage of this. From one programmer to another, I'd suggest having a lock on the accounts that made it possible to only be signed into console or phone at a time. Keep the GUI for the phone and console different and more easily used for separate devices. Have the actions be stored on a server like the Xbox one does, that way they will be up to date when switching devices. Please do this and make an announcement on each device if/when you do so that people may take advantage of this new ability!

Thanks,
Lonnie G.