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Spirit Guardian

Spirit Guardian was a free-to-play, online action RPG on mobile devices with anime-inspired 3D graphics, many Heroes to collect, a point-and-click/action combat system, over 100 stages to explore, asynchronous PVP, and random encounter Boss Raids.

Publisher: GTArcade
Type: Mobile RPG
Release Date: July 15, 2015
Shut Down Date: August 31, 2017
Pros: +High quality graphics. +Many Heroes to collect. +Strategic combat aspects.
Cons: -Automated combat. -Repetitive gameplay. -Pay-to-win aspects.

Overview

Spirit Guardian Overview

Spirit Guardian was a 3D hero-collecting action RPG developed and published by GTArcade, the company behind the popular “League of Angels” game series. Enter the Eternal Dream and defeat the Lord of Discord who seeks to destroy every Spirit in Dreamworld. Collect and assemble a party of over 70 unique Heroes and journey through hundreds of levels. Evolve and upgrade your Heroes for maximum power and additional skills. Defeat your foes with a mix of point-and-click and action combat including over 300 Hero skills in total. Participate in asynchronous PVP and take down other players’ parties to increase your ranking for better daily and weekly rewards. Use your skills to take down powerful dragons and demons in Boss Raids. Become the liberator of Dreamworld today!

Spirit Guardian Features:

  • Stage-based Levels – Fight through hundreds of unique stages full of monsters, bosses, and colorful environments.
  • 3D Anime Graphics – High quality, anime-inspired graphics bring each character to life with realistic animations and skill effects.
  • Semi-Action Combat – Move Heroes and target enemies with tap-based controls and an “Auto” feature. Players can also use skills, as well as dodge and interrupt enemy skills.
  • Many Heroes to Collect – Collect over 70 Heroes with different appearances, abilities, and classes. Heroes can be upgraded and evolved to become even more powerful.
  • PVP & Boss Raid – Battle other players in the Arena, and take down powerful dragons in random encounter Boss Raids.

Spirit Guardian Screenshots

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Spirit Guardian Featured Video

Spirit Guardian Official Trailer

Full Review

Spirit Guardian Review

By, Herman Y.

Spirit Guardian is a free-to-play, 3D mobile RPG developed and published by GTArcade, a Chinese company most known for their “League of Angels” game series. After much success with League of Angels: Fire Raiders, which was a mobile spinoff of their browser title, League of Angels, GTArcade released Spirit Guardian two years later which resembles a 3D version of their previous game. Spirit Guardian, like League of Angels: Fire Raiders, is a stage-based, hero-collecting RPG with largely automated combat. While the 3D graphics and freedom of movement are a nice addition compared to League of Angels: Fire Raiders, the game still feels incredibly generic and doesn’t really offer anything new to the genre. Although there is a lot of content and Heroes to collect, as well as some strategic combat aspects, that will keep casual players busy, for most gamers, Spirit Guardian will not hold most one's interest for very long.

The World of Dreamland
In Spirit Guardian, players play as a Dreamer (someone who can control Spirits) in Dreamland, a fantasy world divided up into hundreds of stages. The game has a typical stage-based layout with several stages in each map like in most free-to-play mobile RPGs with linear progression. In each stage, players will navigate through a map and fight their way through a couple waves of enemies with a boss battle in the last wave. The stages are quite short, ranging from 1-3 minutes each, which is great for casual players, but feeling somewhat short and lackluster for more hardcore gamers. Each stage gives Hero and player experience, gold, Runes (for upgrading Heroes), equipment, and more. The graphics in each stage are actually quite good with colorful 3D environments, a mix of Western and Eastern mythology, and flashy combat effects. There is also a story featuring some character dialogue every now and then but isn’t particularly interesting or well-developed. Each stage gets progressively more difficult as time goes on so players will have repeat and farm previous stages often in order to upgrade and evolve their Heroes. After completing an entire map on Normal difficulty, players will unlock the Elite difficulty with better loot for each of the stages.

Fighting Evil Spirits
The combat in Spirit Guardian is a mix of point-and-click and action. Players can have a party of up to 4 Heroes but can really only control their Leader Hero while all the other Heroes just follow along. Players can move their Heroes by tapping on the ground and if enemies are within a Hero’s attack range, the Heroes will automatically start attacking although players can also tap on enemies to target them. The movement around the maps is similar to other mobile action RPGs but the combat is more of a point-and-click style. Each Hero has one skill they can use like in League of Angels: Fire Raiders that players can activate once their skill bar has filled. Unfortunately (or fortunately for some people), the game emphasizes its “Auto-combat” feature that allows Heroes to automatically move and attack. The constantly glowing “Auto” button encourages players to click on it which makes everything a lot quicker but more automated. Skills, however, are not automatically used so players still have to remain active to use skills, but for the most part, the combat ends up feeling very automated.

Despite the automated feeling to the combat, there are many strategy aspects that make the combat more interesting and in-depth. First, like most mobile RPGs, there is an elemental advantage system featuring 4 elements (Fire > Wind > Earth > Water > Fire). Each Hero and enemy is of a certain element and arranging a party of elementally favorable Heroes gives combat bonuses, and helps complete harder stages. Combat can also be more strategic in terms of choosing which enemy to focus on. Ranged enemies tend to have higher attack power and lower defense so players should target and eliminate them first before taking out melee opponents. This strategic targeting must be done manually since the Auto-combat only targets the closest enemy to the Heroes. Lastly, Hero skills can be used strategically to interrupt boss and regular enemy skills. Unlike Heroes, monsters have a casting delay before their skills hit so players can either move out of the way or use a skill to interrupt it. Therefore, timing and waiting to use skills can be important during boss battles, although skill spamming still works until later levels.

Dreamworld’s Finest Heroes
There are many Heroes to collect in Spirit Guardian, each of which has a unique ability, element, and class. Hero classes include Vanguard, who are aggressive melee or ranged strikers, Support, who are backline or mid-line healers, and Tank, who are tough melee defenders. Heroes can be obtained from completing stages, combining Hero shards, or from the game’s Gacha summoning system. Each class has a unique ability that has various purposes that can range from powerful AOE attacks, to healing, to stunning enemies for a certain amount of time. Heroes can be evolved and upgraded which is very important to progress in the game. Evolving Heroes requires specific Runes obtainable from certain stages, and increases the Hero’s rank (Fine, Superior, Epic, Legendary) which increases their stats and unlocks new skills. Heroes can also be upgraded with enough Amethysts (obtainable from achievements, quests, and Boss Raids), gold, and replicates of that Hero, which adds another Star to their rank and increases their HP, ATK, and DEF. Players will have to repeat stages and farm quite a bit in order to obtain Runes, Amethysts, and replicates of Heroes in order to evolve and upgrade which can be very time-consuming like in most hero-collecting RPGs.

Competitively Automated PVP
Spirit Guardian, like most hero-collecting RPGs, features completely automated PVP via its Arena. Starting at level 10, players can enter the Arena where they are pitted against other player’s parties from around the world. The PVP is asynchronous and players will have a choice of three players of similar ranking to fight against. During the battles, players watch as the two parties clash with no real control over the battle. Players cannot use skills, move their Heroes, or target any specific enemies. Instead, the battles are completely automated, which is unintuitive but can still be competitive due to the ranking system. Players are rewarded daily and weekly based on their rankings in which they can earn gold, Medals, and Diamonds (premium currency) which encourages players to participate and do well in the PVP. Medals can be exchanged for various prizes including Hero shards, Scroll shards, and more that refreshes every day.

Fierce Boss Raids
Every now and then, a random Boss Raid may appear after completing a stage similar to a “random encounter.” Boss Raids feature powerful bosses, including dragons and demons, that players must defeat within a certain time limit (usually 1 hour) to claim its rewards. The Boss Raids, unlike the Story Mode, cannot be automated and players must manually control their Heroes during these Raids. The bosses tend to be very powerful with special AOE attacks (that can be dodged) and high amounts of health. If the player dies against the boss, the boss retains its lowered health until the indicated time runs out. Boss Raids require the same type of energy as the Story Mode to attempt so players can just keep attempting the Boss Raid with their energy until they defeat the Boss. Every time players defeat a certain boss, the boss will be of a higher level the next time they appear which is significantly more difficult, but gives even better rewards. Boss Raids can give very nice rewards including Hero shards, Amethysts, treasure chests, and more.

Cash Shop/In-App Purchases (IAP)
The in-app purchases in Spirit Guardian are very typical of hero-collecting RPGs and offer various advantages. With Diamonds (premium currency), players can summon Heroes between 3-6 stars, refill Stamina, and purchase in-game gold. With Divination scrolls, which can be obtained for free via quests and achievements, players can only summon 1-3 star Heroes and Hero Shards for Heroes 4 stars and above. Because it takes a lot of Hero Shards to create one Hero, being able to summon the 4-6 star Heroes themselves with Diamonds (rather than just shards) gives an undeniable advantage to paying players through convenience in potentially obtaining powerful Heroes more quickly. There is also a VIP system in which players can raise their VIP levels by purchasing Diamonds, which gives increasingly larger advantages such as more Stamina and gold purchases a day, more dungeon attempts per day, and more Store refreshes each day. Overall, spending money is not completely required but gives various advantages that speeds up the player’s game progression and gives early advantages in the PVP.

Final Verdict – Fair
Spirit Guardian is a relatively generic hero-collecting RPG with a semi-action oriented combat system, largely automated gameplay, and lots of grinding and farming to be done. The combat does have some strategy elements to it like strategic targeting and skill canceling enemies, as well as lots of content that will appeal to casual players, but generally, Spirit Guardian is more of the same without any real defining features that makes it stand out from the crowd.

Screenshots

Spirit Guardian Screenshots

Videos

Spirit Guardian Videos

Spirit Guardian Official Trailer

System Requirements

Spirit Guardian System Requirements

Minimum Requirements:

Android 3.0 and up / iOS 6.0 or later

Music

Spirit Guardian Music & Soundtrack

Additional Information

Spirit Guardian Additional Information

Developer: GTArcade
Publisher: GTArcade
Platforms: Android, iOS
Release Date: July 15, 2015
Shut Down Date: August 31, 2017

Spirit Guardian was developed and published by GTArcade, a Chinese game developer under YOUZU Games Hong Kong Limited that is most known for their “League of Angels” browser game series. Spirit Guardian is GTArcade’s second mobile title and reached nearly 500,000 downloads within one year. GTArcade is currently focused on developing more award-winning browser games as well as expanding on the mobile platform. GTArcade is also the publishers of the browser games, Magerealm and Knight’s Fables, and the mobile game, League of Angels: Fire Raiders. On July 11, 2017 it was announced that the servers for Spirit Guardian would be shut down on August 31, 2017.