by Romancing socially awkward elves might be on the outs in this free-to-play spinoff, but Heroes of Dragon Age for iOS nevertheless manages to capture the spirit of BioWare’s beloved dark fantasy series from consoles and PC. However, the familiar music and faces merely amount to a pretty show. Strip away the ambiance, the lore, and the heroes, and this could be any one of the better collectible card games crowding the App Store these days.
Heroes of Dragon Age may not look like a card game, but that’s exactly what it is. The “cards” resemble animated chess pieces, but the game itself still forces you to perform the same dance of battling through campaign and multiplayer battles for gold, and then use that gold to buy what amounts to packs. As if to make the mimicry complete, there’s even a stamina bar that depletes faster than Fenris’ patience. Good thing, then, that the setting lends some novelty to the routine. Spending gold usually just earns you some nameless darkspawn creature, but slapping down some cash for a rare pack all but guarantees that you’ll score a powerful named figure, like Morrigan the witch.
That’s why it’s such a pity that you have no effect on how the battle unfolds aside from making smart character arrangements for bonuses, or the result of how powerful you’ve made your heroes by letting them consume or combine with weaker ones for their powers and attributes. (How’s that for dark?) You’re so removed from the combat, in fact, that the whole project seems like a satire of complaints that BioWare had over-streamlined the combat for Dragon Age II.
And yet it still manages to be fun. The lore is the savior here, as the campaign rewards you with insights into Thedan history only hinted at in the core titles. Of course, you might bristle that the action has little to nothing to do with the accompanying text – but then again, the chance to see Aveline team up with darkspawn and bears is generally a reward in itself.
The bottom line. Heroes of Dragon Age is a generally entertaining romp through Thedan lore, but a lack of battle interaction and an overly limiting stamina bar blight the whole.
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