Ubisoft
Invincible: Guarding the Globe - A little blood for your smartphone
Today, the title inspired by the comic book by Robert Kirkman arrives on iOS and Android by the hands of Ubisoft. Here are our first impressions.
Licensed games have made a strong comeback in recent years. Older gamers will remember a golden era in the late 80′s and early 2000′s when we could see movies, TV shows, cartoons, superheroes and even food mascots in our video games. Times have changed, and although the last few years have seen the resurgence of titles that try to bring back the glory of the past, developments have made it much easier to see these characters on our smartphones. Now it’s the turn of a character created by Robert Kirkman (who you surely also know from his other famous comic, The Walking Dead) and that debuts on smartphones today to show us if it’s so...
Invincible Comes to Smartphones
Invincible: Guarding the Globe is a smartphone title developed by Ubisoft Barcelona in collaboration with SkyBound. The title is an idle squad RPG where you use characters from this violent universe to attack the villains. In the title, you can create a squad of up to 5 superheroes (and the odd villain who can join your team) to go on your way, each with a category (defender, attacker or support) and a level of rarity. Each one can level up and of course has a special power that will be activated during battle.
The story is something original, not part of either the Prime Video series or the comics. Don’t worry though, if you’re a fan of the source material, there will be blood (though no dismemberment or excessive violence). Also, the story isn’t that deep, at least as far as we were able to play. The title puts the player as part of the GDA (Global Defense Agency) in charge of managing the most powerful superhero team, Guardians of the Globe, to stop and solve a great mystery, several clones of the heroes of this world are helping criminals.
Ready for action
Anyway, how do you play? Although Invincible: Guarding the Globe has 2 game modes, all work the same way. We have 5 places where we can place our superheroes, taking into account their role, rank, level and other details. Before we start, we will be able to see some stats of the enemies, such as their level as well as their accumulated attack power. When entering the battle, we can see how our superheroes do their job, being the player who activates their special powers when they are ready, or as the game progresses, let everything run automatically until you reach the screen where it is defined if you have won or lost.
Our superheroes will be able to level up, although it will have to be done manually, using the resources that the game gives us. At the same time, you will be able to equip them with different items that are generic but will help your character. On the other hand, there is also the possibility of unlocking a new hero for your catalog through cards that you get when you play (or you can buy) is here where the gatcha element begins and you can get one of 5 characters. Also, and as you would expect from a smartphone game, we can find packs that sell us specific characters (and of course the most famous ones like Invincible himself, Omni-Man or Robot.
As for the game modes, Invincible: Guarding the Globe has 2 main modes. The first one is the Campaign, where we will advance with our squad and through the missions we will get to know this story. On the other hand, we have the GDA Ops, which are a series of missions where you send your characters to confront villains for a predetermined time to obtain the necessary resources to level up your character. These missions can be upgraded over time, allowing you to earn more rewards, but at the cost of them taking longer.
This is where the game can feel unbalanced. Because the game will let you play smoothly for a while without you having to intervene in leveling them up. However, there are points where it feels like the difficulty curve forces you to spend everything and enter GDA Ops in order to advance. While this isn’t a bad thing, it does feel like a wall reminding you to spend all your consumables, which the game gives you plenty of, but it’s also appreciated that the game doesn’t rely on a fixed number of turns per day to play.
Invincible: Guarding the Globe is a title that makes good use of Robert Kirkman’s comic book and series license and translates it into a smartphone game. The character details and game mechanics are well done. However, the selling and grinding practices are its worst villains, especially if you are not used to playing on this platform.