Eternity Warriors Review: A Fun Free iPhone Game for the Action RPG Crowd

Eternity Warriors is one of the recent free iPhone games released by Glu games who are more recognized as the creators of the highly popular Gun Bros. game. Right after launching the game the similarities to Glu’s more popular Gun Bros. is evident and because of this similarity Eternity Warriors has received negative reaction among some of the iPhone gamers. In spite of this first reaction from gamers, Eternity Warriors is still one of the best free iPhone games on the market.

Gameplay

The objective of Eternity Warriors is simply to survive wave after wave of demons. To be specific there are about 300 waves that you must survive all broken down into 30 wave chunks called Onslaughts. Clearing one of these Onslaughts will award you with souls and a gem. Clearing a wave without getting hit will award you with even more souls and give you the Perfect Wave identifier on the wave number. This is sort of like the Angry Birds star system that will have perfectionists replaying previous levels to get all perfect waves.

As you hack and slash your way through each of these waves you gain experience points which is used to level up your character. Gaining a level is only awarded with the ability to unlock weapons and armor for purchase and a small health boost. There are no stats to manage or skill trees to worry about. Roaming around the game’s seemingly single arena-like environment you will encounter piles of bones that hide health vials and exploding tree-like structures to help cull the horde.

Along for the ride is a computer controlled buddy, again similar to Gun Bros., that can be replaced with your Facebook or Game Center friends’ character. Using your friend’s characters doesn’t allow them to take full control over them but seeing how Gun Bros. finally did get multiplayer I don’t see why Eternity Warriors wouldn’t.

Each day you use your friend’s character you get coins and they get rewards too. Also, each day you come back to play the game you are awarded with coins and as the consecutive day count rises so does the coin reward. The developers have perfected their marketing strategy of enticing customers to visit their product often.

Combat

Each weapon purchased has its own special skill that once the special move meter is full you can unleash with a press of a button. The skills range from sending out a shockwave to stealing health from surrounding enemies.

You do get to have 2 different sets of weapons equipped at one time. One slot is reserved for the faster dual wielding weapons while the other slot is for the slower but more powerful 2 handed weapon category. Any given time in combat you have access to 2 different special skills plus the game’s regular and heavy attacks.

Attacks can be stringed together to create huge combos which in turn increase the souls multiplier for the session, not to mention its very satisfying. To cash in on the gained souls you must either die or quit and return to the map.

Currency

Souls are the game’s way of gathering and growing deposits of gold coins. After hacking your way through the many waves you earn souls from the dispatched demons. These souls are then used at the Forge in hearths. There are 6 hearths each with their own time limit on how long it takes the souls deposited to turn into gold coins. Each hearth also has a different yield amount with the Instant hearth giving only 100% gold and the highest hearth clocking in at 48 hours yielding 400% gold coin return.

Gems are the game’s other currency of the typical Freemium variety. Gems are awarded by either downloading a variety of free or paid apps, completing an Onslaught, watching a daily video, or just out right buying them from the In-App packs. Gems are an important part of the game because all of the highest level armor and weapons can only be purchased with this type of currency. It is easy to see that to buy the top weapon you will have to spend an additional $65 on this free iPhone game and that is not including the top armor set.

Gear

In the Shop you can purchase a nice selection of weapons and different pieces of armor. Weapons, as mentioned earlier, come in 2 categories: dual wield or 2 handed. Armor comes in 3 categories: head, chest and legs. As you level up you unlock higher level gear to purchase and with each new piece of equipment comes a very high price tag. Luckily by using the hearth system you can gain 100,000 gold fairly quickly but you will need a lot of gems if you want to unlock the game’s best weapons and armor.

Weapons that are purchased can also be mastered similar to other games like Infinity Blade; though not as in-depth as the perennial App Store game. Each weapon has 3 levels of mastery a bronze, silver and gold. With each new level comes a bonus to experience gained while using that weapon. This system does add a little more replay value for those perfectionists that want to level up each weapon before moving on to the next piece.

There are also items that can be purchased that range from health vials to invincibility shields. Thankfully the majority of the items can be purchased with gold coins which is good because I can imagine that later in the game if you haven’t spent the money to purchase the gem packs to get the best gear you may have some issue slaying the rushing monsters.

Art and Sound

The game has a “World of Warcraft“ feel to it because of the cartoony and vibrant graphics. This is one area that some gamers have criticized Eternity Warriors because it looks very similar to Gun Bros. but with swords. The characters are nice a big as well as the monsters making their detail easy to see. The various effects from the swing of your sword and activating special skills also looks cool. The screen shakes when you land big hits and the corners turn red when you are low on health too. These nice little touches make Eternity Warriors a treat to look at while splitting a zombie in half.

The game’s sound has the typical epic fantasy themed music that fits really well with the setting. The sound effects on the other hand could have been a little beefier especially when your sword hits and enemy. There isn’t an option in the game menu to play your own music but if you exit the app and then start up your own tunes you can re-enter the app and just turn off the game’s music. I typically don’t listen to the sound of iPhone games just because I want to conserve as much battery life as I can while I am away from my charger.

Wrap Up

I have enjoyed my time with Eternity Warriors in spite of its high price tag on gems and the obvious goal to make you purchase the In-App packs. The controls are very smooth and responsive. Also, hacking at countless enemies with no care in the world is an absolute blast. If Glu adds content regularly like they have Gun Bros. and a real-time multiplayer they would have a really good game on their hands. I highly recommend this title for anyone looking to scratch that action RPG itch.

• Title: Eternity Warriors
• By: Glu Games Inc
• Age: 9+
• Device: iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad
• iOS: 3.0 or later