In Hero Academy 2, you build decks compromising of a variety of units you can unlock through completing multiple matches against the AI, or even other players. When fighting, you take that deck of cards and add them to a tabletop-esque board, fighting to control the board and obliterate the enemy’s health bar, represented in Hero Academy 2 as an iridescent gem on the playing field.
Combat is based around three primary statistics, Damage, Health and Energy. You need to manage your variety of troops to ensure you can beat the enemy, deploying troops from your deck as needed, using the ever-increasing amount of energy provided to you each turn.
Each different troop card has varying unique abilities, from simple soldier and archer types, all the way to area of effect magic wielders or units that hit everything in a straight line.
The balance of decks can seem rather askew, as it seems that area of effect attacks, or really anything that can hit multiple objects at a time, are far stronger, due to the fact that the enemy’s health is itself a unit on the board.[sc name=”quote” text=”The balance of decks can seem rather askew, as it seems that area of effect attacks, or really anything that can hit multiple objects at a time, are far stronger, due to the fact that the enemy’s health is itself a unit on the board.”]
This design decision, keeping the health gem on the board during gameplay, means you need to not only be fighting the enemies themselves, but also trying to manoeuvre your troops towards the gem. This creates an interesting scenario wherein you’re both trying to defend and attack at the same time. This is fun and interesting, but can quickly get very frantic and even distressing at times,
The irritating quality of Hero Academy 2 is its tendency to obfuscate a huge amount of information within the game. Often, units will be summoned with traits like “Smash” or some other powerful sounding word, but without any kind of instruction or information as to what on earth that means. With other games of this type, there will be the ability to hold down on the card to learn the info. With Hero Academy 2 however, you can only do this with your own cards, meaning you will often be confused what an enemy is doing as they play a new card, leaving you confused and frightened as hordes of enemies with special abilities suddenly appear.[sc name=”quote” text=”With Hero Academy 2 however, you can only do this with your own cards, meaning you will often be confused what an enemy is doing as they play a new card, leaving you confused and frightened as hordes of enemies with special abilities suddenly appear.”]
Hero Academy 2 has all the makings of a successful Collecting Card Game: good gameplay variety, interesting details and humorous, relatively fleshed out characters and story. The only issue, at times, is the obfuscating of pertinent information, as well as the near continuous feeling that the AI is working on a programmed route, rather than adapting to your decisions naturally.
Hero Academy 2 is a good CCG and a good game, offering plenty of hours of entertainment, as well as sprawling deck building options. For Hearthstone light, it’s an excellent choice.
[review pros=”Varied enough card distribution to allow for a huge amount of deck types. Nice combination of boardgame and CCG gameplay mechanics.” cons=”The information can sometimes be obfuscated enough to be confusing.” score=7.5]
[appbox appstore id1164507120]
[appbox googleplay com.robotentertainment.heroacademy2]
