League of Angels – Heaven’s Fury Review
Fast Facts
League of Angels – Heaven’s Fury
Developer: Chengdu Dreamcaller Technology Co., Ltd
Publisher: Youzu Singapore PTE Ltd
Website: https://loahf.gtarcade.com/
Genre: Action, Massively Multiplayer, RPG
Platform: Steam
Age Rating: TBD
Release Date: 03/09/2020
Price: Free (in-game purchases)
A code was provided for review purposes.
Opening the Box
League of Angels – Heaven’s Fury is a difficult game to score, since it’s not exactly a game, as such. If you’re here for a Path of Exile or Diablo III-style experience, you’re going to be disappointed.
Heaven’s Fury opens with a dramatic battle as Pandora’s Box has been opened, and all-out war is in full swing. That’s about as much as I could really explain to you about the story. This is in part because it’s not particularly memorable, but mostly because I’ve missed most of it.
You see, Heaven’s Fury sort of plays itself. Once the game started, my character ran off by herself and started talking to characters and killing monsters automatically. That’s basically how the game runs. You pick what you want to do, whether it’s story quests, bounty missions, or even group dungeons, and off your character goes.
You can switch off auto-mode, but I can’t really say that it’s worth it. There’s little variation in combat, and missions just have you stand in a particular spot and slaughter hundreds of static enemies. As for boss battles, there is no incentive to dodge attacks or smartly using abilities – it’s your stats versus theirs.
Click the Buttons, Stat!
And oh boy, are there a lot of stats to look at, if you feel so inclined. As your character makes their way around Heaven’s Fury, you’ll be bombarded with items and upgrades. You have gear sets that you can enhance, refine, and augment (each requiring different items), you get a shield and a divine weapon, a mount, an angel summon… the list goes on and on. All of these features go towards your Battle Rating (BR), which is a quick way to judge your character’s power level.
There are plenty of ways to collect these items too. Along with story missions, for example, there are refinement and experience dungeons that offer different rewards. Experience dungeons place you on the back of a flying ray, where you kill enemies non-stop for several minutes. Extra damage and experience gain bonuses are available if you’re willing to spend in-game diamond or premium gold currency. It’s basically the entire game distilled into its pure essence, but you’re limited to a few attempts a day, which also kind of sums up the game as well.
Freedom isn’t Free
League of Angels – Heaven’s Fury is free-to-play, and firmly in the category where you can’t really play it at your pace. The various features are all limited on a daily basis, and you’re encouraged to delve into its premium purchases to keep up. On my first day playing, I earned a couple of hundred levels easily. After a week, though, without much indulgence in gold purchases, I found my progress slowing to a crawl.
Amongst the many things you can spend real money on, there are various lottery wheels to spin, “rare” loot crates that can only be opened with gold, and a treasure island that requires you to spend Vault Keys to open chests. The first couple of chests ask for two or four keys, but eventually, you’ll be asked for well over a hundred! Good luck getting that many in any reasonable timeframe without spending real money…
Needless to say, it can get expensive fast, or you can just sit back and let it run by itself.
Time is Money
So what’s the purpose in levelling anyway? I don’t think I could really say it’s for the story. Ignoring the fact that I’ve missed half of it, leaving my character to adventure while I prep lunch or sort out other admin, it starts repeating itself, just in a slightly different order.
Outside of the story, there’s a player-versus-player ranking leaderboard, which allows you to “challenge” people higher up than you. You get a random selection of opponents to choose from, and it will then play out an automated battle to determine the victor. It’s basically a case of picking people with lower BP than you.
I’ve also taken part in a few other random challenges. One is a player-versus-player tower that mostly resulted in me being mauled by high-level opponents. There is even a quiz where you move your character to one of two spots to indicate your answer.
Another time-limited mode is an escort mission that encourages you to spend earned or premium currency to “upgrade” the princess you’re helping. This feature is especially “fun” as other players can simply murder you while you’re escorting her to safety, squandering your hard-spent resources.
Cashing Out
So, with all that in mind, how can you score Heaven’s Fury? On paper, it doesn’t sound great – it’s basically a game that plays itself, and soon puts up a series of barriers to prod you into spending real money.
The difficulty really comes from deciding the reason that you’re playing it in the first place. If you’re hoping Heaven’s Fury is a deep and exciting action RPG, then you’re absolutely in the wrong place. The combat mechanics are as basic as they come, and the only real customisation comes from improving your stats. This isn’t exactly a choice so much as a lengthy process of clicking a lot of Upgrade buttons.
However, where I think Heaven’s Fury does well is in creating the same sort of engaging experience as a casino. It’s all flashing lights and spinning numbers, and in this respect, I do find Heaven’s Fury to be addictive. Even though its features are basic, it’s relaxing to return after leaving it to run for a while and upgrade your various statistics.
It’s the same sort of satisfaction I get from semi-automated games like NGU Idle. So if you’re really just here for flashing numbers and steady (ish) progress, then you can do worse than Heaven’s Fury. You could probably even add a couple of points to my review score!
As it is, though, I can only score League of Angels – Heaven’s Fury on the lower end of the scale. But it gets some credit for that guilty moreish feeling!
Rapid Reviews Rating
