I heard about this game a few weeks ago and was truly intrigued to see how it played. As a huge fan of the original Star Wars: CCG by Decipher, I was looking forward to something similar — namely, buying and trading cards and packs much like we see in Magic: The Gathering and building decks to challenge both the game itself and other players.
Unfortunately, what I got was basically a Mafia Wars type system that didn’t even try to hide the fact it wanted to rape gamers via its freemium format. What pissed me off the most was that I bought into it for a good week or so until I finally snapped to my senses and realized what a huge piece of shit this game really is. In other words, stay as far away from it as possible no matter how much you love Star Wars and CCGs, as Force Collection technically has nothing to do with either.
Sure, you get to draw random cards of your favorite Star Wars characters in attempt to battle other players for glory, but unless you’re willing to shell out a ton of money to invest in packs that let you build your decks, you’ll not only never get the best cards available, but you’ll also never win the random battles your fellow gamers will challenge you to.
Want this pack? Be prepared to spend $30 on it.
Much of your time will be spend going on “quests” to level up and earn credits and ocassionally crystals, but after a short time, you’ll have to either wait an hour or so for your energy to come back or use real money to buy crystals, the in game currency, that will recharge your battle stamina so you can keep fighting Stormtroopers and other random enemies, And by fighting, I mean tapping on them to make them disappear. That’s it; no strategy, no reliance on how you’ve built up your team or invested in levelling them. You tap, tap, tap some more and then wait.
Endless tapping …
The only slightly interesting part of this game is setting up your battle formation and going after other players to win more credits or possibly blueprint parts to build your own attack vehicles, like an AT-ST and what not. The problem is, you’ll never beat people (or win against random attacks) unless you have invested lots of real money to ‘draw’ the rare and poweful cards needed to claim victory. Neither the best strategies nor the bonuses cards grant you are worth anything when you go up against someone with a 5 star Vader or Obi-Wan. Thus, even the best part of the game is shackled by its freemium aspect and just leaves players with a nasty taste in their mouths.
The only cool thing about the game is still completely ruined.
When it comes down to it, I hate the freemium model and wish developers would stop making games around it. Sure, some do exist where investing real money is completely optional and not necessary to progress further (Simpsons: Tapped Out, Pixel People and Plants v. Zombies 2 come readily to mind), but Force Collection is brutal in its money grubbing requirements and ruins what could have been a really fun and intriguing game. I would much rather have shelled out $20 from the get go to have a fully unlocked game that would reward me for my questing and battling instead of appearing to be free to play, but then requiring a heavy investment to even begin to enjoy playing it.
I’m deleting this game off my iPad as soon as I finish writing this, and I would recommend that people steer as far away from this ‘game’ as possible. It’s not fun, will do its best to suck money out of you at every chance it gets, and Konami should be ashamed to have whored out the Star Wars license in the manner that they have. I honestly hope the game dies out as soon as possible as travesties such as this should be bansished to the darkest corners of the internet.