Your first job is to pick a character, ranging from your typical Roman to a skeleton. This won’t have any bearing on your abilities, but your choice of class will: knight will give you better close combat powers and unique abilities, whereas a spearman will have to used differently. After this, you’re ready to face others in battle with your limited equipment resources. The first challengers you face won’t put up too much resistance, but further down the line their strength, health, and special abilities continue to improve. Luckily there’s more to do than just defeating your opponents, as you’re rated out of three stars for every performance, depending on how much health you were left with at the end. Not only does this give Tiny Gladiators replayability every round, but these stars can unlock secret areas further into the game.[sc name=”quote” text=”Perhaps if Gladiatorial battles were fought between skeletons and ogres for stars and loot boxes, they wouldn’t be seen as so infamously brutal today.”]
In winning a battle you’ll be rewarded with a variety of items, including experience points, coins, and gems. The latter two you can use to purchase special loot boxes, which hopefully reward you with an improved armoury, and both can be purchased with real-life money too. They become essential parts of boosting your character’s stats, alongside personal upgrades to your health and special powers. With bosses to be faced up to every five levels or so, you’ll often find yourself replaying certain levels just to increase your character’s level and weaponry, to give you a better chance against the bigger opponents. Several different game modes also mean you have the option to move away from the central story, and prove your worth against other enemies.
On the face of it, Tiny Gladiators plays out similar to a 2D, 1v1 fighting game, in which players have the ability to jump, block, attack, and use special powers. In this sense alone it’s a fun, enjoyable game, with the characters being easy to control. Yet rather than just being a fighting game, Tiny Gladiators also has RPG elements, by allowing players to level up their characters, loot for items to improve their stats, and collect objects along the way. This gives its gameplay much more depth, and ensures that you’ll be battling in the colosseum for as long as it takes to boost your stats. The other gameplay modes are enjoyable too: PVP lets you take on real-life opponents whereas survival pits you up against an infinite amount of enemies for as long as you can stay alive. There’s a huge amount of longevity to the game, even without its micro-transactions.
Perhaps if Gladiatorial battles were fought between skeletons and ogres for stars and loot boxes, they wouldn’t be seen as so infamously brutal today. Tiny Gladiators is funny, enjoyable, and doesn’t take itself too seriously, and its depth means you’ll have the pleasure of being engrossed in its gameplay for a long time.
