Angel Stone

Angel Stone Review

By, Herman Y.

Angel Stone is a free-to-play, 3D dark fantasy action RPG developed and published by Fincon, a Korea-based mobile game developer most known for their social RPG, Hello Hero, one of the first hero-collecting RPGs on mobile. Prior to Angel Stone’s release, Fincon released a stunning CG trailer that depicted the game as a Devil May Cry and Bayonetta hybrid, which created a lot of hype, although the actual gameplay is more like the Diablo game series. Angel Stone launched globally on July 30, 2015 for mobile and PC (via Facebook) and reached over 100,000 downloads within the first week. The game is cross-platform and Android, iOS, and PC players can play with other, as well as continue their character’s progress on any of these platforms. Although the game was designed with mobile in mind, the controls work well on PC too. Angel Stone features high quality graphics, casual gameplay, and unique features that makes it a compelling mobile (and PC) RPG to try out.

Character Creation and Classes

Players can choose one of three classes and male or female when the game begins. These classes include Berserker, Gunslinger, and Shadow Mage. Berserkers are headstrong, melee warriors equipped with heavy armor and great swords and gauntlets. They have a special Rage bar to use for skills and have strong defense, but low attack power and crowd control. Gunslingers are swift, ranged shooters equipped with muskets and revolvers. They depend on Focus (which regenerates every 5 seconds) for their abilities and have high attack power, low defense, and great crowd control. Finally, Shadow Mages are mid-ranged, dark magicians armed with scythes, spears, and wands. Their Mana regenerates every second and they have powerful spells even though they fight in melee range. They are the most balanced of the three classes and have average attack power, defense, and crowd control. Each class plays very differently, has different abilities and strategies for combat, and are fairly unique compared to other games. Although players can customize their character’s appearance with various in-game weapons and armor, there is, unfortunately, no appearance customization during the Character Creation.

Unique Stage Pathing System

Like most free-to-play mobile RPGs, Angel Stone’s world is divided into instanced stages, which are further divided into Acts represented by various locations on the World Map. Each Act has 10 stages and each stage is fairly linear although players can go back and replay stages using a different path. Angel Stone has a unique Pathing system upon beginning a stage, in which players must draw a path from their start point to the finish. Each stage/map is depicted as a 3x3 grid before the stage begins and each cell can have an object, such as equipment, Angel Stone shards (for unlocking skills), enemies, and more. Some of the grid cells are grayed out such that players cannot choose to go through every cell and are forced to make a forked decision. Therefore, players cannot obtain every item on the grid the first time around. After drawing a path, players are placed into the stage and move through the map as indicated by their drawn path. Each stage is filled with waves of enemies and a boss battle at the end. Completing stages give gold, experience, and loot, and each stage is fairly short, lasting from 1-5 minutes. Each stage also takes up some energy to play, which gradually refills on its own, but limits how much players can play each day.

High Quality Graphics

Angel Stone has really top notch graphics. It was made with Unity Engine and features some of the best looking visuals in a mobile game. Angel Stone takes place in a dark, apocalyptic fantasy world and players will fight through a world filled with undead creatures and demons including zombies, imps, zealots, and mythical beasts. The environments are very atmospheric with a dark, gloomy look and each map is highly detailed with buildings, ground designs, rain/water effects, flame and smoke, plants, a wide variety in objects such as gravestones, and more. The skill effects are flashy and the game has a lot of cool AOE skills. The bosses are big and ugly in a good way and all the undead monsters and characters are well-designed. The animations are also very fluid and the attacks are impactful. High quality visuals await future players of Angel Stone.

Tap-based, Gesture-controlled Action Combat

Unlike the usual “joystick to move and button to attack” mobile RPG controls, Angel Stone uses more unique tap and gesture controls. Players can tap the ground to move and tap on enemies to attack them and there are gesture controls, such as swiping in different directions, to activate specific skills. Personally, I would have preferred a virtual joystick to move for a game like this but the tap movement definitely works better with the gesture controls. There is also an “Auto move and attack” button which makes your character automatically move and attack enemies but leaves players to manually use skills on their own. There is also a “Move to nearest enemy” button without the auto-attack, which is useful for guiding players to where they need to go. Initially, the “Auto move and attack” option makes the game feel very casual and automated, but it becomes less useful at higher levels. As the game becomes more difficult, players will have to manually control their characters in order to dodge enemy attacks and fight more efficiently. Because of this, I would say that the game is not completely automated. The combat itself is quite fast-paced, similar in style to Diablo, and can get fairly strategic and challenging as the game becomes more difficult. Certain skills can also be used in combination to deal more damage.

Skills

Each class has a separate set of abilities that can be unlocked via Angel Stone Shards. Previously, I mentioned that Angel Stone Shards (for random skills) can appear in the “stage pathing” before beginning a stage and that is mainly how players will unlock new skills, with the exception of some story-based skills. After collecting a certain amount of Angel Stone Shards for a specific skill, that skill can be unlocked, and collecting more of these Shards can be used to upgrade the skill. Skills can be leveled up with gold in the Angel Stone menu but upgrading a skill to make it even more powerful requires a certain amount Angel Stone Shards for that skill. Once a skill is unlocked, players are free to use and level it up to their liking. Skills in Angel Stone include single-target damage/debuff, AOE damage/debuff, poisoning, healing, self-buffing, and more. There are also skills to summon companion pets that fight by your side. These skills can either be activated by pressing the skill icon or by using the proper swipe gesture. Because the gestures are simply swiping in one direction, the gesture skill control works well and is simple to use.

Co-op Partying

In addition to the global chat system, Angel Stone has a party co-op mode in which players can interact with each other. The co-op mode is in real-time and players can party up with 2 other players via an auto-matchmaking system. However, instead of being able to party in every stage in the game, players can only party in 1 map per Act, which is a custom map for the Act. The co-op version of these stages are significantly more difficult and longer, but are more fun, although it still lacks interaction due to most people just using the “Auto-move and auto-attack” feature. Players must complete each 10-stage Act in the single-player campaign in order to unlock the co-op mode for that Act, which ensures that they are ready for it. Unlike the single player stages, the co-op stages have a predetermined path and give out a lot more gold, experience, and equipment. However, the co-op mode has a separate form of energy and players can only party for a few times each day. There is also real-time PVP, but it is odd and feels more like playing a PVE stage with some other players around that can attack you.

Cash Shop/In-App Purchases (IAP)

The in-app purchases in Angel Stone are quite reasonable and the game is very generous in giving out free Carats (premium currency). The first section of the Shop is the “Magic Shop,” which consists of equipment and Angel Stone Shards for random skills that can be bought with gold or Carats that resets every couple of hours (as in the list of items changes every couple of hours). The Magic Shop starts with 4 item listings and more slots (for more items) can be purchased with Carats. With Carats, players can also purchase and open chests that contain Angel Stone skills, in-game gold (for upgrading skills or purchasing from the Magic Shop), 30% gold and experience boosts, and energy. There is also a free chest with random items players can open every 7 hours (which can include Carats). The game also gives out a lot of Carats for free from login rewards, achievements, and completing quests. Overall, the in-app purchases are fair and Fincon gives out quite a bit of Carats for free. Spending money will give players slight advantages in better skills and equipment and will allow them to fill up their energy to play longer. From what I’ve seen, Angel Stone doesn’t really have a paywall as long as players are willing to grind and farm like most other online RPGs.

Final Verdict – Great

Angel Stone is a fun, high quality mobile RPG by Fincon with many unique features. With impressive graphics, a unique dark, apocalyptic theme, fast-paced combat, and intuitive tap and gesture controls, Angel Stone is a great RPG to try out despite the slightly automated gameplay.

Angel Stone Screenshots

◄ 1 2 3 4 ►

Angel Stone Videos

Angel Stone Links

Angel Stone Official Site
Angel Stone Google Play
Angel Stone iOS
Angel Stone Facebook Page

Angel Stone System Requirements

Minimum Requirements:

Android 4.0 and up  / iOS 7.0 or later

Angel Stone Music & Soundtrack

Coming Soon...

Angel Stone Additional Information

Developer: Fincon
Publisher: Fincon
Platforms: Android, iOS
Release Date: July 30, 2015

Angel Stone was developed and published by Fincon, a Korea-based mobile game developer and publisher founded by Chung-gil Yu, a gaming enthusiast who put together an all-star team of people that had worked on MMORPGs such as Continent of the Ninth Seal, Archlord, and Reign of Revolution. Fincon is most known for their first mobile game, Hello Hero, a mobile hero-collecting RPG with over 14 million downloads worldwide. Angel Stone is Fincon’s second mobile game produced with similarly high production value. Angel Stone had a short closed beta testing from June 11, 2015 to June 15, 2015 and launched globally on July 30, 2015. Angel Stone reached over 100,000 downloads within one week on Google Play, and considering the huge popularity and success of Hello Hero, Angel Stone will likely reach over 1 million downloads within a month.