Comic Book Catnip
A sinister conspiracy is afoot, spreading its influence across the DC Universe. Protect the multiverse alongside your favorite characters in developer Jam City’s DC Heroes & Villains: Match 3. Experience a brand-new story spanning iconic locations from DC lore, including Gotham City, Metropolis and Themyscira. Recruit a roster of iconic DC heroes and villains and defeat waves of enemies by solving match-3 style puzzles. Use your puzzle-solving prowess to foil the mystical threats looming over the multiverse before it’s too late!
Apokolips Later
DC Heroes & Villains begins with the Justice League facing off against a swarm of parademons and Darkseid. These initial stages act as the first leg of the game’s tutorial. Players launch basic attacks by matching three tiles of the same color. Matching tiles with colors that correspond to your characters gradually powers up their special abilities called Power Moves. Each Power Move not only deals damage but also grants special buffs to characters. When an ability is fully charged, its icon will light up. Players can unleash Power Moves by tapping the character’s icon.
After the League defeats Darkseid, Martian Manhunter radios in with troubling news from Gotham. The League regroups at the Watchtower and Batman joins Robin (Damian Wayne) to investigate the threat in Gotham City. Before starting the next tutorial, players must recruit more heroes to begin the investigation. Enter the game’s gacha mechanic—Recruitment. This feature allows players to trade in their capsule keys for random heroes and villains to fill out their roster. You’ll receive Batman as the reward for your initial pull, but subsequent capsule pulls are completely random.
Mystical Mayhem
Your final tutorials begin with the Dynamic Duo’s investigation cut short by waves of thugs and Two-Face. These two tutorials serve to explain the specifics of power-ups and color advantages. They seem unnecessary, especially given that these mechanics feel intuitive and could’ve been introduced during Darkseid’s initial stage. After defeating Two-Face, you’ll add him and one of his goons to your team before facing off against the Enchantress in your first boss battle.
With June’s Enchantress persona subdued, the sorceress joins the team just in time to challenge the extra-dimensional demon Trigon. After his defeat, the team sets off to find the mastermind behind the seemingly coordinated attacks. At this point, you’ll receive ten free capsule pulls, allowing you to form a more balanced team as the game’s campaign begins.
Pick a Fight
In addition to the main story campaign of DC Heroes & Villains, players can explore other modes including Events, Choice Missions and VS Assault. Events are special, optional missions that contain unique side stories progressing through several chapters. Over the five Event matches I’ve played, the gameplay remained unchanged from the standard campaign. However, these stages reward players much more generously than the normal campaign.
Choice Missions are located in the Living World tab, where the main campaign takes place. To access this mode, tap the scanner in the lower left corner of the screen. If the scanner contains charges, it will discover a mission on the current map leading to a choice between a Hero or a Villain match. These matches reward players with coins, resources and hero- or villain-specific capsule keys. Players will have access to a new charge every two hours, which makes farming these capsules fairly easy. These alignment-specific capsules can also be purchased in the Shop using credits earned through Assault matches. Speaking of…
The VS Assault mode pits your team against other players. This mode consists of a ladder that contains ten nodes between each ladder level. As you face off against other teams, you’ll earn rewards and advance a certain number of nodes, depending on the difficulty of your match. For every 10 nodes you advance on the ladder, you’ll gain a ladder level and earn a specific reward.
More Resources, More Fun
Players can also attain resources by completing Quests, located on a separate tab on the game’s main screen. You’ll inadvertently complete quests through regular play; however, their specific requirements are listed should you want to target a specific task. There are three main Quest categories—Battle Pass, Basic and Lifetime. Battle Pass quests reward players with points toward the season’s battle pass, which offers a paid and free rewards track. The Basic quests are divided into daily and weekly subcategories, which feature standard activities players mostly likely complete through their regular play. Finally, Lifetime quests reward players with Gems for completing milestones over the course of their playthroughs. Quests feel extremely generous when it comes to doling out resources and they contribute a ton to the game being extremely free-to-play friendly.
Astonishing Adventures
I was ill-prepared for just how much fun DC Heroes & Villains turned out to be. As a lifelong DC Comics fan, I’ve faced a lot of disappointments when it comes to this franchise. For me, DC never fully bounced back from their New 52 comics reboot, which stripped away most of what people enjoyed about the iconic characters—their identities. And the less that can be said about the vast majority of the movies, the better. With this criticism in mind, you’ll understand my surprise when I discovered that this mobile game completely nails the essence of these characters. Everything from the character designs to the voice work, to the dialogue fits the traditional incarnations of these characters perfectly. While the worlds themselves could use a smidge of sprucing up, they feel like appropriate settings for the DC Universe.
In terms of gameplay, the title is pretty standard for the genre. While certain elements like the VS Assault mode and gear crafting could have been explained more clearly, they’re simple enough that players will likely pick up on the mechanics in no time. Perhaps the most impressive part of DC Heroes & Villains: Match 3 is its free-to-play status. Unless players want to unlock characters or battle pass rewards, I see no need to ever spend real-world currency. Resources are given freely and frequently enough that players who play often should rarely struggle to progress.
I cannot wait to see what new features, characters and events from DC’s extensive history come to this match-3 puzzle game in the future. Crisis on Infinite Earths, anyone?
