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Spellbreak review
by Graham Kaletsky

Not a bad Battle Royale

Other reviews3

Concise Review:

A magic based BR that takes it pretty safe. It’s competent, feels well balanced, and has an interesting art style, but besides replacing guns with spells there isn’t really anything this BR does that’s new, or anything that it does exceptionally well. Fun for a little while but it lacks the depth or excitement to keep you playing long term.

Amazing: Nada

Great: Zilch

Good: Art Style. Spell combat is creative and more precise than I originally gave credit.

Fine: loot and gear mechanics. Spell variety is almost even bad, I’m only keeping it at fine because the spells interact with each other in unique ways, there should be at least 8 gauntlets, 10 would be great.

Bad: map design is rather dull

Awful: nothing is awful

Journal Style Review:

I like the visual style right off the bat. It has a nice cartoon vibe to it. It’s working for me.

Uhhh so I won my first game ever playing it. 4 kills 2 assists. I’m the BR king.

Uhhhh so I won my third game as well. 7 kills 2 assists this time. The final fight was me against a full squad of three and I killed all three of them. I’m fucking unreal. 

I think this game would be better with the typical 100 players instead of the 50 player count. I also wish that it wasn’t just squads right now. I’m not getting a lot of communication from my teammates.

The spells are different enough that I’m not sure which ones I think are best for certain situations. That’s a good thing. The loot system is reasonable. Plenty of reason to explore and find better gear. It’s pretty difficult to win a fight if you are severely under leveled with gear.

I keep getting Ws and that is fun. Rock power is my fave currently. I like how you can combine spells to make fire tornados etc. This BR is pretty fun. I’m enjoying the subtle rpg elements where you unlock new perk upgrades from playing more. 

Solos are a thing now which is much appreciated. I like squads for a lot of BRs but this one is better playing solo. I’m playing pretty poorly though recently. I need to be more aggressive and actually hit my shots.

Im focusing a bit more now and realizing that if you really focus and learn to lead shots you can hit people from pretty far away. I’m getting more kills again, I haven't had a solo win yet though. Finished second today. I haven't played a ton of solo games yet though. Also putting a bit more care into using the secondary attacks effectively is useful. The fire gauntlet is growing on me. The fireballs are good in close to medium range and the firewall is a good way to escape or corner an enemy. I think lighting is my favourite secondary. You can always hit flying people at medium to long distance and the lighting storm is a good all around secondary I feel.

I feel like this game should be better than hyperscape. It feels like it’s better made. I like the appearance more. But for whatever reason I haven’t hit the same level of excitement with this one yet. Even though I have had a couple epic wins early on, they didn’t feel as epic as they should have. I’m enjoying this game but it’s a lower middle B+ currently. There’s room for growth though if I start getting into solos and I can start to rack up some kills and Ws.

Got a solo win the next day. Pretty good but I don’t think this BR has a long lifespan for me. I probably play it another week or so. Even with my first solo victory i don’t get the same excitement and joy that I usually get from a BR game.

Got a second solo later in the day. Fire main electric secondary with Wolf ability is my favourite late game combo. The fully upgraded fireball is great for area damage and the lighting hits the guys in the air. Both the fire and lightning alt spells are solid aoe moves that claim space. The wolf is great for finding enemies and for running away so they never get a shot. I enjoyed discovering the damage this setup can do and I actually had 6 kills with 3 coming out of the last 5 enemies so I cleaned up at the end and barely won. Escaped death by a thread. It was better than the last win.

I’ve had a couple laggy games. This game isn’t good enough to fight through the lag. If its glitchy and the connection is poor I really don’t think I’ll keep playing. Restarting my internet to see if it’s me or the game. Better be me for the game’s sake... I think it was.

I had a pretty good game with the ice now guy. If you have great aim you can get some snipes. You just need a close range secondary like rock.

Ive played a good number of other fun games with ice. Probably my favourite to play as because you can actually snipe guys from a far off you aim and lead right. I was getting much more 4-6 kill games and some of the kills were pretty good shots. The wolf is still my favourite as well. I had a second, two thirds, and like a fourth and a 7th in a row. All getting between 2 kills and 6 kills. Pretty fun stretch of games.

I’m doubling down on the ice guy is the most fun. But I’m also doubling down on this BR game is aggressively average. Back to back second place games where I blew it in the end but still had great games and yet the excitement was just alright. I’m nearing the end for this BR. It’s on its last days. It had some moments but overall it’s fine with moments of good.

I just got back to back Ws with the fire guy. Pretty deadly. Back to back Ws are hard to get in any BR game. Also this game is better stoned for sure. 

Another fire win next day. Ice guy is my fave for the middle of the game and for getting sweet kills but the fire guy is the best late game.

This game keeps making me want to play a few more rounds. Partly because nothing else is currently jumping out at me, but partly because I’m playing a lot better. 4 or 5 kill games with top five finishes is becoming pretty standard. The combat is just creative and precise enough to keep me wanting to play. It looks simple, it can be rather simple if you don’t think about it, but if you really lead your shots and aim where they are going to be, not where they are, you can win firefights even when outnumber or with less health. If you combine the alternate spells you could do some devastation. I don’t know how much longer I will play, maybe a day, maybe a week, for sure less than a month. This game is going to sit at a middle/low tier B+. It’s very close to hyperscape for me but honestly not quite as good. Which is surprising because after my first few games I thought for sure it would be higher on my list.

I just got a 10 kill game where I won. I took out 1/5 people playing the game. Part of me thinks some of them were bots or just really shitty people. I think this is a good place to call it. This game has had its run.

Final Score: B+
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