Star Clash: Battle by connecting the dots
Star Clash is an exciting puzzle combat game with a gorgeous anime art style. You connect stars to form shapes you can use to attack opponents with or heal yourself. There are a number of special stars which help players, but the challenge is to not cross lines when making a shape and avoiding bad stars which hurt players. Star Clash offers players a myriad of enemies to battle with from small bots to fierce creatures, six characters to play as, and eight different environments. Star Clash is compatible with iPhone 3GS and up, iPad, and iPod touch 3rd generation and up running iOS 4.0 or later.
Arcade mode is the main play mode where you select an enemy to battle against and manage your health along with your attacks. Players can level up characters with skill points after earning enough XP from battles in arcade mode or in the game's second mode, endurance. Endurance mode is where your character is thrown into a random stage where they must try to make as many connected stars as possible within a time limit. This mode is helpful for leveling up your character so you can face off against stronger opponents.
Players have the option to spend their skill points on leveling up a character's defense, damage, or luck. The higher the damage a character can deal to an opponent, the faster they can take out that enemy. However, defense is also important as enemies later on in Star Clash are much more powerful and can defeat your character quickly. The luck stat doesn't seem to do much for players as it is hard to tell how luck works in the game. A quick popup explaining what each upgrade does would be a nice addition for new players.
Players start out with one character to play as, one enemy to battle with, and one environment to fight in. Additional enemies, characters, and stages become available for purchase with the in game currency, star coins. This helps prevent players from competing against enemies who are much stronger than them. Each purchase is more important as you have to make choices between getting a new character or enemy.
For the most part, getting enough star coins to afford the next enemy or character is not that hard, but it does require some replaying of either the endurance mode or the arcade mode. This gets repetitive, especially if you are tired of fighting the same beginning bot over again. However, the stars are randomized so you will have to change up your strategy each match to defeat the enemy.
Special stars appear in each mode that give the player either full time, extra damage, more points, extra health, or even a star that fills your special bar a little which when full allows for a strong attack. In the arcade mode, the full time star refills the enemy's attack meter, buying yourself time to attack it without taking damage. In the endurance mode, the full time star refills the time limit bar which means you can keep making shapes leading to a high score.
Not all stars are good though, black holes and astroids are also apparent in Star Clash and will damage the player if they tap on them. This adds a nice challenge to the gameplay and makes attempting bigger shapes more challenging but more rewarding when you have to watch out for harmful stars. Star Clash has Game Center support which makes competing with friends for the highest score a lot of fun and encourages players to get better at creating bigger shapes and managing the time limit.
One minor problem with Star Clash is that the sensitivity of swiping through the environment select screen is a bit high, making it hard for players to select the stage they want. This is only slightly annoying and if players use more careful swiping this is not a problem.
The anime art style of Star Clash is really interesting and feels appropriate for the battle gameplay. Environments in the game are fairly bright and vivid incorporating a similar color palette throughout. This helps form a cohesive bond between each environment, even though the places are very different. This makes Star Clash feel more unified overall and more memorable.
Star Clash has a nice balance of challenge and enjoyability with great opportunities for addictive gameplay. Star Clash is free on the App Store and worth the download if you are looking for a fun addictive game full of fantastic art.
