Developed and produced by JWaffle Games comes a monstrous mountain of malefic mayhem. A mix of Team Fight Tactics and Hearthstone, it’s time to wage war on the underworld.
Prepare yourself, this is Hellfire Tactics.
Abandon All Hope
Strap in because this isn’t going to be pretty. This game is bad, even for a free to play system. If you want to know the gritty as to why, keep reading as I will be going into the main reasons why you shouldn’t bother with Hellfire Tactics.
First and foremost, Hellfire Tactics is a competitive online auto battler. You pick of random Archdemons, which gives you a passive ability throughout the match. You are part of a group of 8 that will take turns summoning creatures and swinging at each other in an attempt to bring down their life total to zero. On the surface, this seems pretty easy to grasp until you realize nothing is explained to you at all.
There is a Training Mode, but it is a curated AI fight that teaches you nothing. There are a lot of terms and abilities in Hellfire Tactics, but none of it is explained to you. And the overall design isn’t conducive of learning, which is really bad because there is a lot to learn. There are Archdemons, Units, Artifacts, and Rituals, and the many types of units and effects that come from them. If you want to learn how to play, the best way to do it is to throw things at the board and watch what happens. After a few rounds, you might pick up on some things.
The Road to Ruin
The Art-style in Hellfire Tactics isn’t bad. It might be akin to a slightly upgraded Adventure Quest. The music, however, is the same 10-15 second track that loops indefinitely. Battle, main menu, cash shop, all have the same BGM with a few sound effects sprinkled here and there. And yes, there is a cash shop. It’s pushed in your face from the moment you start the game to the beginning of every match. It gives you the option of 3 Archdemons at the start of a game, with the obviously cooler looking Archdemon as the third option. It says “Unlockable,” but it means “purchase.”
The cash shop itself is chock full of stuff for you to buy, and I will give the developer some credit here. It is a well put together shop. And a lot of the Archdemons, Titles, and skins can be bought with the freemium currency that you can earn from playing games. My problem is that the prices for the shop are spaced out in ways that constantly push you to buy more.
Let’s call a spade a spade. Hellfire Tactics is trying to be both Hearthstone and Team Fight Tactics. And it fails at both. In design, it is almost a straight rip for Hearthstone in Hero Banners and Monster Frames. Having a rotating list of monsters that you can hold onto rips from TFT.
If it felt like I didn’t talk about gameplay much, it’s because I honestly didn’t have much to say because it’s so hard to figure out. The best I can say is a 20-minute-long video explaining some of the game’s details, but even that won’t do a proper job.
Concluding Thoughts
Hellfire Tactics is unfinished. Training Mode gives you nothing but slightly less strong opponents to face against. It teaches you nothing. The pricing setup for the shop is predatory in design. It is possible for this to be a good game in the future, but not today.
Hellfire Tactics is available on Steam PC.
VERDICT
BAD
BAD
Hellfire Tactics is unfinished. Training Mode gives you nothing but slightly less strong opponents to face against. It teaches you nothing. The pricing setup for the shop is predatory in design. It is possible for this to be a good game in the future, but not today.
