Clan of Champions Review, 5.5 out of 10 based on 2 ratings

While the Multiplayer Online Battle Arena genre has quickly become one of the more talked about styles of gameplay for the last few years or so, the actual products themselves have been a mixed bag. MOBA titles range from the great (League of Legends, SMITE, DotA 2), the mediocre (Heroes of Newerth), and to the relatively unknown (Bloodline Champions, Realm of the Titans). While the next contender comes from lands to the far east and goes by many handles, such as Gladiator Vs., Guradiētābāsasu, the North American label is Clan of Champions. Developed by Acquire, known for the Tenchu and Way of the Samurai franchises, and published by Nippon Ichi Software’s North American branch, Clan of Champions has taken arena battling and customization in an interesting direction.

It’s too bad that the rest of the title struggles to keep up.

The era of medieval fantasy is over, and all that remains is war. The warring forces of Ematrias and Al-waav have been struggling for control over the known lands for awhile, with Al-waav obtaining the upper hand through the use of experienced mercenaries. While Ematrias was quick to counter with their own, there emerged a rumor of an ancient castle town on the border of the two warring nations. During the times of prosperity in years past, this nameless city housed some of the best metal forging and mystical craft in the known land. So after some scout reports confirmed that it was still indeed a treasure trove of trinkets and war machines, both sides send their trump card mercs to the ruined city in hopes of amassing the resources needed to win the war.

Clan of Champions does not play like the popular “Lane” MOBA, but more like an actual gladiator battle. Before setting out to do either one of the 20+ missions in the city over four progressively harder difficulties against AI or against enemy players, players can choose their gear and their weapon dependent on which style of fighting they enjoy. Sword and Board serves at the frontline to ward off blows or jar enemies with powerful crowd control, dual blade fighters concentrate on quick area-of-effect attacks and attempting to place oneself at the enemies vulnerable angles, while close combat specialists use their multi-angled attacks to smash away defenses.

War is fought like it was meant to be fought: In HOTPANTS!

While not its own actual class, mercenaries can choose to follow the dark arts of magic by acquiring grimoires, spell mediums, and outfits through victories on the battlefield to produce mystical fire and summon the dark beings underneath the castle town. While there is no real meta-game to Clan of Champions, each style of combat has its own level that increases when used and gains magic spells, disabling maneuvers, and passive abilities that mercs can equip in between matches.

Clan of Champions’ strongest foot is definitely its gameplay, as customizing gear, upgrading items from the spoils of battle, and mix and matching skills from different professions can produce some interesting combinations. However, and it pains me to say this, the customization is about the only good part about this title, and it’s only about half of the gameplay in total. Fighting AI in Clan of Champions is dreadfully boring, as well as dreadfully easy for most of the campaign up to the point where I didn’t even need to use my sense of sight to play a level. All I had to do was raise my guard, wait for the audio cue that someone has attacked my character, and then use my armor breaking skills every 7 seconds to shatter their defenses and pummel them to death. Each mission will take you less than 10 minutes each to complete and using 5-10 minutes to upgrade gear, you can be finished the first two difficulties in an afternoon or two against AI.

“But how does the online do? MOBA titles against AI are always boring!” That is a good point, unless you’ve never had the pleasure/displeasure of playing a bot game in DotA 2. However, I am incapable of answering that question as Clan of Champions’ online didn’t work at all. As of the release date, searching for lobbies for an hour proved fruitless as well as creating an open lobby for the same duration. Was I the only one reviewing this game for the past few weeks? Is the game’s netcode and/or matchmaking systems so atrocious that online is impossible? Does anyone actually create orc characters? These questions are inquiries that I have no answer for.

Axes may be strong, but it is no match for the loincloth.

To top it all off, all forms of presentation in CoC could probably be dated back to the middle of the PlayStation 2 era. The three color palettes are dark brown for the dirt, gray for the cobblestone walls that populate the castle town, and sickly green for the horrors beneath the town and you won’t be seeing anything else unless it comes from a spell effect. I honestly have no idea how the quality is so poor at maximum settings. Was this due to a bad port to PC? Because the PS3 version looks leaps and bounds better!

While I could ramble on about the deficiencies of this game for another five or six hundred words, I honestly think that that course of action would only waste both of our time. Acquire, I hate to say this, but Riot Games and Hi-Rez Studios have set the bar insanely high for MOBA titles. A half-assed port of World of Warcraft’s PVP arena on League of Legends and SMITE’s home turf is not going to make anyone happy for long over here and will definitely not sell the DLC that Steam tried to shove down my throat.

A review copy of Clan of Champions was provided to Blistered Thumbs by the publisher for review purposes, and played on the PC platform for six hours. This title is also available on the PlayStation Network.

Clan of Champions Review

By James C.

The freight train of MOBA games continue to chug by, letting Clan of Champions off at the North American station. Will this arena brawler MOBA from Japan man up at the weigh in, or does the crowd in the stands demand its death?