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Vainglory

Vainglory is a free-to-play, high quality 3 vs 3 MOBA game on mobile devices with top notch 3D graphics, many Heroes to choose from, smooth animations, precise tap controls, unique jungle mining, and casual/competitive gameplay.

Publisher: Super Evil Megacorp
Playerbase: High
Type: Mobile MOBA
Release Date: November 16, 2014
Pros: +Great graphics. +Intuitive touch controls. +Numerous heroes. +Fair cash shop.
Cons: -Matchmaking can produce unfair matches. -Only 1 map and mode. -Lots of leavers.

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Overview

Vainglory Overview

Vainglory is a 3D fast-paced MOBA game published by Super Evil Megacorp. Experience an extremely high quality and polished MOBA game on your mobile device. Compete in casual or ranked, 3 vs 3 online battles full of action and strategy. Choose from over 16 different Heroes, each with unique roles and abilities. Build your Hero with a variety of different items and skills for maximum customization. Immerse yourself in beautiful console-quality graphics and quick 20 minute matches. Crush minions, destroy towers, and clash in intense team fights. Explore a unique jungle area with mines, minions, and Bosses. The E.V.I.L. game engine provides top notch visuals, 60 frames per second, smooth animations, and precision controls. Collect cards to craft special skins for your Heroes with multiple skins to unlock. Purchase new Heroes and climb the ranks of Vainglory. Experience one of the highest quality mobile MOBA games today!

Vainglory Key Features:

  • Strategic 3 vs 3, one lane and jungle, MOBA gameplay.
  • High quality 3D steampunk-themed graphics.
  • E.V.I.L. engine provides 60 frames per second, sub-30ms control responsiveness, and 1.3 million polygons in the game map.
  • Lots of Heroes to collect with different roles and abilities.
  • Dozens of items to customize your Hero’s build to fit every situation.
  • Casual and Ranked modes with automatic queuing.
  • Unique jungle layout and mechanics that offer new strategies compared to other MOBAs.

Vainglory Screenshots

Vainglory Featured Video

Vainglory - Game Basics Overview Trailer

Full Review

Vainglory Review

By, Herman Y.

Vainglory is a free-to-play, mobile Multiplayer Online Battle Arena (MOBA) game for Android and iOS developed by Super Evil Megacorp, a new mobile game developer with a stand-out team that has worked in well-known companies such as Riot Games, Blizzard, Rockstar Games, and Playfish. The iOS version of Vainglory launched on November 16, 2014 and the Android version was released after much delay on July 2, 2015. The Android version acquired over 100,000 downloads within its first week on Google Play, making it one of the fastest growing mobile games. With the great success of PC MOBA games such as League of Legends and DOTA 2 over the last few years, the MOBA genre has gradually begun appearing on mobile as well. Prior to Vainglory’s release, Heroes of Order and Chaos by Gameloft, which came out in December 2012, was the most well-known and predominant MOBA on mobile devices, although The Witcher Battle Arena by CD Projekt Red, another MOBA, also came out recently in January 2015. Vainglory, however, is by far the most polished MOBA thus far on mobile devices with fantastic visuals and gameplay. Vainglory features quick 20 minute matches while maintaining lots of depth and replay value, making it one of the best MOBA games on mobile.

A 3 vs 3 Battle Arena

While most MOBA games feature a 5 vs 5, 3 lane system, Vainglory opted for a more casual, yet still in-depth, 3 vs 3, 1 lane system. The objective is the same; The team that destroys the other team’s Vain Crystal (Core) wins, but they will have to go through five turrets (towers), enemy minions, and 3 enemy Heroes to get there. Currently Vainglory only has one map, which Super Evil Megacorp has been working on since their 2014 closed beta, which leaves a bit to be desired, but they designed this map specifically to offer the best competitive experience and replay value possible. In addition to the Vain Crystal, which located at the far left and right ends of the map, there is also a shop where players can purchase items that give stat boosts. These items are essential in powering up your Heroes, and with a large variety in items, there are many builds to choose from. Items have build paths in which weaker items can be combined into stronger ones and items can improve stats such as attack power, crystal power (ability power), speed, armor, health, and more.

The Jungle

Below the one lane of the game, is a large jungle area. The jungle area features monsters to defeat for gold, Minion Mines, and a Boss Gold Mine. Monsters are scattered in the jungle area and defeating them gives gold to buy items as well as level experience (max level 12). These monsters are not very tough but give good amounts of gold and respawn every couple of minutes. Minion Mines are a unique feature that appears 4 minutes into the game. There are two Minion mines: one of your team’s half of the map and one on the enemy team’s half. Defeating the Minion at the mine will make your team’s minions stronger and conquering both Minion mines will also make your team’s minions even stronger. However, stronger minions mean that the enemy team will get more gold for defeating them and over-extending minions can get teammates killed sometimes, so taking the Minion Mines are not always a good idea. There is also a Boss Gold Mine with a giant, more powerful Minion who is constantly mining gold the entire game. As the Boss mines, his amount of gold increases and defeating him will give your team that amount of gold. Defeating him early on won’t give as much gold but delaying it will allow the enemy team a chance to claim his gold for themselves. There is also a shop in the mid-bottom of the jungle where players can purchase items.

Release the Kraken

Fifteen Minutes into the game, the Boss mine is replaced with the Kraken, a super power beast that fights by your side once captured. Super Evil Megacorp probably decided that after 15 minutes, the game has gone on long enough and wants the game to end by 20 minutes. After capturing the Kraken, it will automatically move towards the enemy lane and start destroying any turrets in its way. It has lots of health and generally the team that acquires the Kraken will win the game, although he can be stopped. The Kraken plays a large strategic aspect of the game and ultimately serves as a way of ending the match around 20 minutes. It is important to team up right before the Kraken appears in order to capture it before the other team. This can also lead to some intense team fights over the Kraken, and the team that wins the fight will most likely win the game.

Graphics and Sound

The graphics in Vainglory are fantastic. The game has a colorful steampunk theme that combines a medieval atmosphere with high tech machinery. The game currently only has one map but it looks very detailed. The ground has a dirt and stone design that looks quite realistic, there are brushes placed in convenient locations, and the mining areas have an underground, glowing blue color with neat smoke and water effects. The towers are large, heavy machine turrets that shoot explosive rounds and the Vain Crystals are giant, glowing stones with fancy symbols around it. The jungle area is also well designed with colorful foliage, dirt paths, bright torches, and heavy boulders along the side. The game runs on Super Evil Megacorp’s special E.V.I.L. engine that offers 60 frames per second, high control responsiveness, and 1.3 million polygons in the game map.

The sound is also great in Vainglory. There is female announcer that says unique lines like “You are a Nightmare” and “Enemy is kind of a big deal.” Every Hero has a few lines of dialogue when moving or attack and the voice-acted lines can be quite funny for certain characters. The music is atmospheric, and Vainglory excels in both visual designs and sounds.

Heroes and Roles

Currently the game has 16 unique Heroes with more to come, and feature characters such as the leaping squirrel assassin, Koshka, the fiery drunk, Ringo, and the damage absorbing, stun delivering, Catherine. There are officially five Hero roles in Vainglory which include Assassin, Mage, Protector, Sniper, and Warrior. Assassins are generally found roaming in the jungle but pounce into lane every now and then for game-changing ganks. Mages focus on crystal power (ability power) and can deal high damage from a distance. Protectors are defensive tanks that can take high amounts of damage and support their team with stuns and buffs. Snipers are hard hitting rangers, known as AD carries, that can get extremely powerful once they are fed with kills. Finally, Warriors are melee fighters with average attack and defense. Although Vainglory assigns roles to each Hero, they all have different skills (each Hero has 3 skills) and can be customized with various items. The large amount of Hero and item variety allows players to adapt to different situations, as well as adds a lot of variety, replay value, and strategy to the game.

Queuing and Ranks: ELO and Karma

Vainglory has the standard match-making queue system seen in many other MOBA games. To begin, players can choose whether to queue for casual or ranked games (Ranked games require account level 10, Karma level 10, and 3 Heroes owned). Casual games will queue up players to play against random similar-leveled players and after 6 players accept the queue, players can choose a Hero and begin the game. Ranked games are more competitive. Player rankings are determined by their ELO score, which increases when players win and decreases when they lose. Players with similar ELO scores are matched up, although Karma level also plays a small role in the match-making decision. Players’ Karma levels are determined by whether or not they finish games. Finishing a game increases players’ Karma levels and leaving a game early lowers their Karma level. A higher Karma level gives more Glory (in-game money) at the end of each game and maxes out at a 24% Glory boost at Karma level 20. Although ranked games generally match players based on their ELO score, it also tries to match high Karma level players together and low Karma level players together.

Skins and In-App Purchases (IAP)

Unlike a lot of freemium mobile games, Vainglory has a well-designed Cash Shop that offers no real advantages to paying players. The only use of real money in Vainglory is to purchase Heroes and Skins, which can also be purchased without spending real money. Heroes can be obtained with Glory gained from playing matches and Skins can be unlocked via a unique crafting system. Skins can be created with cards obtained from playing matches, although it does require quite a bit of cards to create a skin. Crafting Skins require players to play certain characters many times, but does not require spending cash, and encourages players to play the game more. Skins can also simply be purchased with real money, but are purely cosmetic and have no stats or advantages. Cards can also be purchased with real money to make skins. There are a lot of skins to choose from and all the skins look fairly unique and visually appealing. Overall, Vainglory is definitely not a pay-to-win game as spending money does not give any advantages at all other than purchasing Heroes and Skins earlier than others. There is also a free Hero rotation every week to try out new Heroes.

Final Verdict – Great

Vainglory is extremely polished and is currently one of the best MOBA games on Android and iOS. Despite only having one map and mode at the moment, the game offers top notch graphics and animations, intuitive touch controls, fun and quick casual and competitive gameplay, and tons of replay value that finally brings a true console-quality MOBA game onto mobile devices.

Screenshots

Vainglory Screenshots

Videos

Vainglory Videos

Playlist: Vainglory (Mobile)

System Requirements

Vainglory System Requirements

Minimum Requirements:

Operating System: Android 4.4 or later, iOS 6.1 or later

Music

Vainglory Music & Soundtrack

Additional Info

Vainglory Additional Information

Developer: Super Evil Megacorp
Game Engine: E.V.I.L. Engine (Proprietary)
Publisher: Super Evil Megacorp
Platforms: Android and iOS

Release Date (iOS): November 16, 2014
Release Date (Android): July 2, 2015

Vainglory was developed by Super Evil Megacorp, a San Mateo, California based company with an all-star team of developers who have worked at well-known companies such as Riot Games, Blizzard Entertainment, Rockstar Games, EA, and more. Super Evil Megacorp released their first game, Vainglory, on iOS on November 16, 2014 after many years of development with their ultimate goal of bringing AAA console-quality games onto mobile devices. Super Evil Megacorp later released Vainglory onto Android on July 2, 2015 which reached over 100,000 downloads on Google Play within one week. Vainglory runs on Super Evil Megacorp’s E.V.I.L. engine that features console-quality graphics and precision touch controls. Super Evil Megacorp is supported by world-class investors and Vainglory can potentially become the next League of Legends on mobile devices. Vainglory won the Apple Design Award at WWDC 2015 and the People’s Choice Award and Best Technical Achievement at the 11th International Mobile Gaming Awards.