Dark Summoner Review

Dark Summoner is a free RPG card game app that is available in both iTunes and Android developed by ATeam. Many top designers were gathered together in order to create a nightmarish dark fantasy world. In the game you'll be able to go on missions to collect monster cards, treasure, and gold. Form teams of monsters to battle with other players. Summon more monsters to complete your army and sacrifice the useless ones to strengthen the leaders. Choose your guild and your clan and lead them to victory.

For those who have played Rage of Bahamut, the gameplay is very similar to theirs. As a result, I'll sometimes compare the two apps in this review. I don't know which came first so I'm not trying to say that one game ripped off the other.

At the very start, you'll have three guilds to choose from: Tyranny, Sin, and Rancor. I'm not sure whether or not it matters which guild you choose in the end. For one thing, many players end up filling their decks with monsters from other guilds along the way.

The graphics for the cards can be very frightening. You'll see zombies with peeling rotten flesh and monsters with no eyes. They are all extremely twisted and nightmarish. Certainly not for the faint of heart or the young. Personally, I like the graphics in Rage of Bahamut better. However, Dark Summoner has much better animations as compared to the random screen flashes in Bahamut. Each monster has a different level in the form of an alphabet letter.

You can get new monster cards by either Summoning them or acquiring them through quests. You are allowed one free Summon each day. By connecting the game to Twitter, Facebook, or openFeint, you'll be able to get more free Summons for each site that you connect to. If you are a new player, you're allowed to do a Rookie's Summon, which will give you a Rank A monster card, thus giving you an advantage in the game. However, the summoning costs 100 Soul Points and Soul Points can only be acquired by spending real money in their in-game store. So if you're unwilling to part with your money, you'll end up missing this chance. Also, this type of Summon can only be used within the first 72 hours after a player signs up. There are different types of Summons and each will give you different levels of monster cards. For example, some Summons are more likely to turn up higher level cards than others. All at a costlier price, of course.

Completing missions requires Energy points and each mission requires multiple attempts before completion. Each attempt will require you to spend a certain amount of Energy. As you progress through the missions, the cost will rise. The good thing though is that your Energy will recharge over time, about one Energy point back per minute. There's a nice little countdown timer below the Energy bar so you know exactly how long you need to wait before you get another point. However, if you're impatient, you can always fully recharge it through the use of costly potions. Regarding the missions themselves, they have a much clearer progress bar than Bahamut, but there are a few things that Bahamut does better. For example, Bahamut quests have a much better general storyline. The storyline of missions in Dark Summoner is reported purely in the form of tasks to complete. Also, in Bahamut, you'll always end up with some sort of reward after defeating about three to four monsters. In Dark Summoner, on the other hand, the reward system is not so rigid. There were times when I went through three missions consecutively but there was not a single reward in sight. After about every five missions, you'll be able to take on the boss to move onto the next area.

Like in Bahamut, you can also battle other players. However, you won't be able to seize treasure from others  through battles like Bahamut allows. So if you're missing a few collectibles for your collection, you'll have no choice but to replay the missions until you get all that you need. You can get a max of three different monster cards or collectibles. You'll never receive potions or gold as rewards though. Anyways, back to the battling system. The battle page will give you a list of different opponents to fight from, telling you the player's level, a picture of their leader monster cards, and their Battle Points. Battling other players cost points and these points are determined by the total number of BP of your monsters in your current formation. You'll be able to edit your formation on your home page, and you'll even be able to ask the computer to generate a current best deck for you. You can either view the battle where your monsters will deal damage to your opponent one by one or directly skip to the results. The battle can go by very fast so unless you're very quick at reading you won't be able to analyze the battle's log. However, the next screen will allow you to see your battle log in more detail. Winning the battle will earn you gold, exp, and honor points. Losing the battle will result in you losing gold. Even if you do not have enough BP to support your full formation, you'll still be able to battle although some of your monsters might be missing. In general, as long as your opponent's BP is less than yours, you will usually win the battle unless your opponent has really strong monsters or good combos. By having certain conditions you'll be able to unlock various combos that will increase your attack. For example, having monsters from the same guild or having all your monsters be the same level are combos.

Collectibles: Collectibles are Dark Summoner's version of Bahamut's Treasures. As mentioned before, you can only gain them through missions. Every set you complete will earn you a Dark Crystal. These Dark Crystals can then be used to unlock boss battles. Defeating the boss will give you a copy of the boss as a card which you can add to your formation. Killing a Raid Boss requires multiple hits and each hit will cost 10 Energy Points. There is also a time limit of around two hours to defeat the boss. The strength of your attack is determined by the total attack power of you and your allies so it's crucial that you stock up on allies before taking on a Raid Boss. Allies can be gained by sending friend invites to other players. Collecting multiple set copies will allow you to battle the Raid Boss again.

You can increase your monster's level and stats by sacrificing other monsters to enhance it. Each sacrifice will cost gold and will get more expensive as the monster's level rises. Unlock in Bahamut, you will not be able to evolve your monsters so there's no point in hoarding multiple copies of weak monsters except to sacrifice them at a later date.

You can only have 30 monsters in your deck, a much lower number than in Bahamut. This limit can actually be quite annoying as it quickly forces you to determine which monsters you want to keep in your formation. All the rest of the monsters need to go as sacrifices. Through missions you can gain more monsters but if your deck is full they'll go to your gift box where they'll disappear after an hour if not collected. If there's a certain monster in your gift box that you want to keep, you'll again have no choice but to keep sacrificing. The constant need to sacrifice monsters has become a hassle. Of course, you could always sell your monsters if you are low on gold, but that seems to be a waste considering that you could have powered up your other monsters to earn more gold. I wish that Dark Summoner would increase the monster limit of the deck.

Clans: Clans are Dark Summoner's equivalent of Rage of Bahamut's Orders. You can either join another clan or make your own. You'll be able to donate gold in order to increase your clan's power. Unfortunately, you can only donate in multiples of thousands. Of course, upgrading your clan to the next level can be very expensive, and most clan leaders might even kick you out if they feel that you haven't been active enough (i.e. posting in forums and donating). The nice thing about joining a guild though is that you'll gain Ally Points when your clan goes to battle, and these Ally Points can then be used to summon more monsters at 200 Ally Points each.

In conclusion, Dark Summoner is a very addicting game as you try to collect as many monsters as you can, complete the missions, and complete all the treasure sets. The monster cards are a little scary but thankfully not enough for me to have nightmares after playing. My main complaint would be the constant need to sacrifice monsters to make room for new monsters. Although the waiting time to replenish your Energy or Battle points can be annoying, it does give you a break in between each play. One nice thing about Dark Summoner, as compared to Rage of Bahamut, is that it does not rely as much on forcing players to tweet or post things to Twitter or Facebook in order to get goodies. There certainly is, but not as much. Also, it's easier to get potions that you otherwise would have had to spend real pocket money than in Bahamut.However, both games still rely heavily on "forcing" players to use real money in order to gain goodies. While very similar to Rage of Bahamut in gameplay, it also has many fresh takes. I rate this game 4.5 out of 5 stars.

For those who are interested, I have provided links to the iTunes and Google Play and the game's official pages:

Official Website: http://www.darksummoner.com/
Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.darksummoner
iTunes: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dark-summoner/id480950048?mt=8
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/darksummoner.us

UPDATE:  Upon further inspection, I found that you can indeed increase the maximum number of cards allowed in your deck using a Monster Limiter potion. However, getting more potions can be very costly.