If you've partaken in any type of web-based media over the last year or so, you've probably seen an ad for RAID: Shadow Legends. Though advertisements can often be misleading, it is true that the game has managed to grow quite the player base due to its massive marketing campaign. As a consumer, though, it's important that you take a moment to look at the game and whether all the hype generated by its advertisements actually warrants your download.

Features

RAID: Shadow Legends is a turn-based RPG that has a great deal in common with many of the other similar games on the Play Store. Players recruit a group of characters (called Champions here) and use them to go on quests in the hope of eventually taking down the game's Big Bad. RAID uses a fairly intuitive RPG system to help you level up your characters and take down various baddies, with a huge focus both on unlocking more powerful champions and on getting strong enough to take down bigger threats as you progress throughout the game.

Benefits

The biggest benefit of RAID: Shadow Legends is unquestionably the feeling that one gets from going through the game play loop. Like many other mobile games, RAID is all about making incremental progress towards goals. You'll undertake missions to get currency to power up your current characters and unlock new champions. Why? So that you can go on more missions and do the same thing over and over again. There's something incredibly addicting about going through this loop again and again, especially when you have the goal of unlocking a particular champion or getting over the next big hurdle so that you can continue to progress in the game.

Pros and Cons

The biggest selling point of this game is absolutely the art direction. It's frankly amazing that this game is available on a mobile platform and it really puts most of the similar games you can download to shame in terms of aesthetics. This is an absolutely gorgeous game that moves more seamlessly from the opening cut-scene to game play than it should, as well as one that clearly had a lot of love and care put into the designs of the various characters. Though a bit of the generic side in terms of backgrounds, many of the designs feel like they would fit right at home with some of the bigger PC games.

There are two downsides to the game that need to be discussed. The first is the monetization of the game. It is incredibly aggressive - expect to get hit with ads from the moment that you log into the game. Real money can be spent on everything from character unlocks to game energy, and the prices are higher than you might expect. The other real negative is that the actual game play feels surprisingly light for something that looks this good. While you'll get plenty of entertaining monsters and champions on your screen, the actual process of interacting with them isn't as fun as one might hope.

Conclusion

RAID: Shadow Legends is a gorgeous game that falls short in the game play department. Though it is worth a download just to look at some of the designs, you should be aware that making progress in the game is either going to require an inordinate amount of time or a fair bit of money. If you don't mind microtransactions, though, you may find that this game makes for a very attractive distraction.