Battleheart on your iPhone
February 28th, 2011
I downloaded one of the featured games on the iStore, Battleheart. I think I’d seen it when it popped up but discounted it as not being tactical enough, or I didn’t think it was necessary for me to get another game for my iPhone. However when you are bored late at night and can’t sleep, you can spend a lot of time using your iPhone and I ended up spending the $2.99 for this game.
RPG or RTS?
It was originally billed as a roleplaying game, but it isn’t really. It is a real-time strategy game. Now I’m not a fan of that genre. I still maintain that any game that Stephan Hawkins would be at a disadvantage at isn’t really about strategy. This game requires some serious clicking or since this is the iPhone, tapping and dragging. That said there are elements where you can employ strategic thinking, chiefly around how to build your party of four adventures and secondly on threat identification.
Level Up for the Big Spider Boss
Eventually I came upon the big spider boss(tm). I couldn’t win on that level, every level up until then I’d beaten, given a try or two. So how do you improve your party when you can no longer gain experience? Well you can fight in the arena, you die, but you get an item. Then you can sell that item or equip it and hope to make your team a tiny bit better.
Re-clear Previous Levels for XP
Battleheart wouldn’t be such an enjoyable game if you all you could do is fight the spider boss or in the arena after a certain point. Finally I tried clicking on a zone I’d already cleared and voila I could clear it again for more experience and gold. This enabled me to try and improve my team and try out some different combos of party members.
Are you Level 10?
Once your party members make level ten or higher they start to kick a little more booty and you can think about defeating the spider boss. The other big discovery that will help you succeed at the game is that rather than waiting for a lucky weapon drop or finding what you need in the one store in the one town, you can upgrade your character’s armor and weapons with cash. Before that I was on the verge of recommending you use the characters you can find the best gear for, which is wise in some RPGs. In this game what matters most is which special powers a character can access and what party composition works best for you.
Everybody should be Kung Fu Fighting
The single character I found the most useful is the Kung Fu master, or whatever he is called, the unarmed monk style fighter. His default skill is very useful. You start with a healer and a knight. The healer is pretty much a must have. I never tried to make a party without her. Some games she doesn’t do much after you get regeneration rings or something similar for your party, enabling them to heal themselves. Better for the ‘fighter’ types is gear that lets you steal health from the enemy as you damage them.
Also useful is the Rogue
The first character I hired was the rogue and for whatever reason, he’s always done pretty well for me. He has relatively highly upgraded gear and a higher experience than some of my other characters as I’ve used him a long time. His special powers aren’t as powerful as the monks or the elven sorceress who is my final preferred party member, but he’s quick. I discovered that the knight was frequently out performed by the Rogue due to speed which you can further increase with equipment. The Rogue is just a versatile dude, though he can’t take a beating, he can deal out more damage in theory than the Monk.
The Sorcerer is the Glass Cannon
The sorcerer does the most damage according to the two stats the game has, but since special abilities and timing their use play such a role, I’m pretty sure it is the Monk who is the star of the show. He can generally take care of himself and using his powers protect the two magic users. The Rogue is his backup, and sometimes is quicker to kill one key monster.
Take me back to the old school (RPG)
For those seeking the true old-school, puzzles and mazes RPG experience on the iPhone, I recommend Undercroft still the best RPG on the iPhone. If you want a fun little real-time battler type game, with some RPG elements, give Battleheart a try. Of the games on my iPhone the one most similar may be Fruit Ninja as you need to click and swipe relatively accurately to succeed at Battleheart. Sword of Fargoal is also comparable to Battleheart though in that game you have a single adventurer and it isn’t a real-time combat system, but it plays fast and furious if you want it to.
Any other iPhone game recommendations?
Now it is 2019 and Battleheart 2 has already come out. Buying it is on my ta-do list but first I’m finding a new job after finally passing the third and final CFA® exam. I have done hardly any gaming the last four years while living in China. Of course I played some Sid Meier’s Civilization V, a lot of it to be honest. However, I have not upgraded my laptop in a long time but I have a new iPhone and even an iPad so if I can find a new job I may do more gaming on iOS. So if you have an recommendations to make to fans of Battleheart you can leave them below.
This entry was originaly posted on , it was last edited on and is filed under: Gaming and tagged: Battleheart, Fruit Ninja, iPhone, RPG.
Last night while unable to sleep, I downloaded a new game. It is called Empire Online, it appears to be from China. It is like a MMO version of Final Fantasy. You have a single character and combat is turn based, but for your turn you only have a few options. There is no in-combat movement. You just stand on one side and the enemy on the other. I hit them, then they hit me. I don’t know if I have some innate RPG understanding, but I never even came close to dying. I think I’m almost Level 10 now.
The way Lakoo the manufacture makes money is instore purchases of Silver. You find Copper and loot when you fight, but to get Silver you need to give them real world dollars. So you need to find your best weapons and if you put your points into learning how to use swords, but find a kick ass axe, well you’re probably better off using the Axe. There are a lot of attributes and variables involved on your character screen, with rings, necklaces, etc. Both Battleheart and my personal favourite iPhone RPG Undercroft are funner and more challenging. This game is very much a time and effort game, the longer you put in the better you guy gets, so if you have all day, you’ll become more powerful. So far there are no puzzles, just go some where and kill something and pick up stuff off their dead body. You find lots of fancy sounding stuff and your little guy looks different when you equip stuff, it is all done in a cartoony Anime influence style, but it isn’t a challenge, it is a time waster, but it is free and it has 1000s of missions supposedly, but like The Quest you eventually just get tired of doing the same thing over and over. Give me Undercroft part 2 or even more Battleheart.
Now my best character is the elvish princess. Once she gets teleport as passive ability, you can zip away from most monsters. So even after everyone else died I was able to defeat the stone golem with her. She just never let him touch her.
I’ve also had some success with parties without the healer. My monk may have the highest level because I used him so much, but the character that does the most damage and is hardest to kill is the Elf now. My rogue still is useful and he can kill a single bad guy quickly using all his powers in a row. I’ve been using the Bezerker and the Knight more, the Bezerker seems better, I think speed and maneuverability is more important than armor, though the Knight plus the Healer is a powerful combination, so they work well together. A party of a wizard, a bezerker, a rogue, and the monk does pretty well for me. I managed over 100 kills in an arena and have pretty much got the best weapons and armor possible now.
Now the game is about leveling and finding which party and secondary items work best. The Trollkin Amulet or whatever gets my vote as most essential piece of kit. It is better than the life stealing stuff, as you can heal while running away. ;-)