Hello, dear reader, I hope you’re having a good day. I’m not being paid to write this blog, and it contains information based on my opinions from playing Rival Crimson x Chaos on iOS. I’ve played to player level 2 and reached rank 4 in the current season. You can check out my YouTube video at Lunar Nebula LLC Gaming on Rival Crimson x Chaos if you want to see the gameplay in action. Rival Crimson x Chaos is a free-to-play arena strategy game, like Clash Royale, where you’ll collect characters, level them up, learn new skills, and use their powers to destroy your Rival’s towers. The game features in-app purchases to speed up collection and leveling. You need an internet connection to play it. There are no ads.
Rival Crimson x Chaos is rated 12+ on the App Store for Infrequent/Mild Sexual Content and Nudity, Frequent/Intense Cartoon or Fantasy Violence, Infrequent/Mild Mature/Suggestive Themes, Infrequent/Mild Profanity or Crude Humor, and Infrequent/Mild Realistic Violence.
There are some scary creatures so maybe bump that rating based on your family’s tolerance for scary looking monsters. An example of the violence expected is slightly more realistic Clash Royale animations and gunshots. Characters’ bodies hit the ground and fade when defeated.
Review:
Rival Crimson x Chaos looks like a triple-A game and, usually, it plays like one. Bad internet will cause a bad game. It’s well-animated, the 3D models look great, and the art style is consistent (except for the emojis). The audio works well with the gameplay and the familiar sound of a charging archon, or the Marksman’s sharp report will give you information needed to form a counter-attack when your eyes aren’t following all the action. The quests and daily tome giveaways are great jumpstarts into the game and it feels like you won’t have to wait forever to get good cards. The game mechanics are similar to Clash Royale and Star Wars Force Arena, but every card has unlockable effects as you level and every card can be a special leader. This contributes to a variety of deck combinations and ideas without breaking the game (as far as I’ve seen).
Time: Rival Crimson x Chaos isn’t energy-based and you can play as much as you want as long as your internet behaves. The time for tome unlocking and limited gold generation will limit the progress you can make, yet it appears matchmaking is pretty balanced at the beginning of the game and you could play all day to gain gold. events and daily quests have a number of attempts per day. Rival Crimson x Chaos’s Story Mode is generally quick to play with levels taking a few minutes to defeat.
Pros and Cons: Rival Crimson x Chaos is fast on the draw with a fun tutorial. The lore of each card/character adds flavor to the game without explaining any real reason behind your battle. The quests and battles always give gold, free tome giveaways let you unlock cards quickly, and the unique take on leader cards gives every niche a test drive. The game requires strategy, good deckbuilding, and a bit of luck of the draw to counter your opponent. The game looks good and when it’s working well it’s working swell. The cons relate to the nature of the game itself. There’s a minimum amount of story from the tutorial and card lore. If you don’t like some amount of luck in drawing the right card/character, free-to-play games, or sometimes facing opponents who have the right upgrades on their cards to counter yours; then Rival will be hard to swallow. Once again, the internet connection could be a sore point because it can cause lag. Dropped games could give auto wins to your opponent. I haven’t seen any penalty for losing a game yet so I wouldn’t worry about your rank in case of internet problems.
Overall Impression: If you love Clash Royale and want a fresh take on the arena strategy game, then Rival Crimson x Chaos is in the App Store waiting for you! If you don’t enjoy free-to-play games, Clash Royale, scary monsters, or 3D characters, then Rival Crimson x Chaos may not be for you.
Tips:
- Read the hints while battles load – Rival Crimson x Chaos contains many new faces. The hints at the left side of battle loading screens will help you identify characters and their strategic uses. You want to place Marksman behind a tank or tower. You could place him at the edge of a tower’s range, yet he falls over quickly when someone breathes in his direction.
- Leaders have different cooldowns– Each leader skill is different on every character. Skull Swarm has a cooldown of 25 seconds, and each time it’s used it adds skulls to the swarm (my favorite leader). The Archon takes 40 seconds between uses. No matter which character you choose as the leader it gains power or an ability. You will always be able to access it from available cards once its cooldown has finished.
- Don’t spend (much) gold on cards – The cost of each card increases as you purchase. As an experiment, I spent around 1000 starting gold buying a mid-tier card. I was able to upgrade it but then didn’t have any remaining gold. As previously mentioned, Rival gives you plenty of free cards if you can be patient. I highly recommend saving gold for upgrading cards because the cost nearly doubles or more with each upgrade.
Extra tips: Marauders are great against skull swarms, not towers! Like Clash Royale, starting a big tank card or costly card at the back of the lane gives you time to react to your opponent’s first move with the cards left in your hand without wasting mana. Normally, it helps to build a solid wave of various units and help it push to the end when possible for shorter games. Join a guild when you can for more quests according to other online articles. Keep the mana cost at a reasonable amount (have some low-cost and high-cost cards in the deck).
I hope the review and tips help you out, dear reader! Time to find your memories on Rival Crimson x Chaos!
Links: The App Store link is at https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/rival-crimson-x-chaos/id1300704524?mt=8.
Disclaimer: I’m not being paid by Section Studios or anyone else to write these tips. The only money I could make would be through advertising on this site or on YouTube at this point in time. I don’t take responsibility for the content on sites linked to from this article.
by Brian Petrilli AKA Jalinon
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