Hello everybody, flash33 here and today I'm bringing you yet another review this time of the MOBA game called Prime World, made by Nival.

Story

In Prime World there are 2 different factions that oppose each other: The Imperium and The Keepers. The world revolves around "Prime", a resource in the game that powers pretty much everything so-to-speak. A snippet from the world lore can be seen below.

"There was a time when The Imperium and The Keepers one united people.

Back then, the vast Laphite Empire stretched from coast to coast, and was home to all people. The three heads of the mighty dragon gazed down from the Imperial crest, symbolizing the three fully autonomous provinces united in a single, powerful state. Even then, the climactic differences between the three lands led them to not only choose different paths of development, but also different ways of life.

Although it seemed sudden, hindsight shows that the change was inevitable. First, the weather turned strange and harsh. The rain hammered down more and more often, and when the sunlight finally broke through, there was no escape from the scorching heat. But that was only the beginning: hail, snowstorms in summer, acrid smog, hurricanes... it seemed nature itself had lost control. Finally, on a day like any other, it happened - the event that changed the world forever.



The heavens opened up, the earth gaped wide open, and gushing out on to every living thing came a previously unknown substance - a thick, cyan-colored liquid. It quickly became apparent that it had extremely powerful properties; properties that enabled it to transform matter beyond recognition. In high concentrations, it was lethally poisonous for all living organisms. The new substance turned out to be the decisive force that shaped the new world order. People named it “Prime,” and started to learn how to live in their changed habitat - each province in its own way.

The southern territory, located on a peninsula, came under bombardment from all sides by the elements. Massive waves of seawater and Prime flooded these lands. With a thundering groan, a rift opened across the earth, and the southern province split off from the mainland. Nothing more was heard of the south, and for a long time it was thought that it had been swallowed by the sea.

In the North, for the first days of the cataclysm, the population rushed to the mountains, further away from the Prime-saturated areas and fumes. A scientific observatory became the temporary provincial center, a hardened fortress high up in the mountains. Naturally, the observatory was used to carry out experiments to study the new substance. Soon it became clear that, despite the danger it posed to living organisms, it contained the key to previously unimaginable technological advances. Scientists developed a system that protected people from Prime-effects, and methodically went about stockpiling Prime as a new resource. The scientific and technological exploitation of Prime formed the backbone of a new society, and later, a new state."



Gameplay

Now the gameplay is actually unique in that it's not just your typical MOBA game. Yes it still has the typical/classic 5v5 map that you know and love, however, there's actually a separate area all-together that can actually co-inside with the typical MOBA fashion as well; castle building.

That's right, you heard me right, in Prime World you get to become the ruler of your own castle with your own sets of heroes to choose from as well. In the castle (which is where you start out at and is your main hub world in the game so-to-speak), you can use your Silver (in-game currency) to by stuff for your castle, such as Farms, Housing, Lumber Mills, Prime Crystals and even a Tavern for your heroes as well.




Now you don't get heroes like you would normally expect to in a game of this fashion, oh no. Now you do start out with a hero called Lightning Master/Storm Thrower, and you can get more heroes over-time by hiring them for Silver provided that your castle level is high enough of course. This means that even if you have enough funds to higher a hero, if your castle level isn't high enough, then you can't get them. Of course one way to by-pass this is by just simply hiring them for Gold, another type of currency that you use real-world money to buy/get.


Now about the heroes themselves, the names, the looks and sometimes even the genders of them will all depend on your overall faction of the game, meaning that for The Imperiums, they get Lightning Master, while for The Keepers, they get Storm Thrower. Other than this difference, they're overall gameplay is exactly the same (i.e. they both have the same exact abilities), so you don't need to worry about that. Also, it's important to note that your heroes can actually level up themselves overtime. You can do this by competing in the various game-modes and by just sending them on Tavern Missions as well.

Keep in mind though that the more you use a particular hero, the more tired they get and the worse they perform as well. This stat is known as Vigor, and is tracked by a bar above your heroes icons (the closer it is to the red the less Vigor the hero has). To remedy this, simply take them to the Inn and for a small Silver fee you can restore their Vigor so that they'll be fighting fit for the next adventure that you send them on.

Outside of the castle, there's your standard 5v5 map/mode called Borderlands as well as some other game modes as well, but more on them later. What's unique about PW's standard 5v5 map is the usage of what's called "Native Terrain". While your own your teams Native Terrain, some of your heroes abilities actually get special bonuses added to them that can only be used on Native Terrain as well. Your base will always be on Native Terrain, but outside of it, in order to access it you must raise your faction's flag up high. Once that's done, then some Native Terrain will be added to that particular lane as well as some parts of the jungle areas around it as well. Some hero abilities and some items also grant the usage of temporary Native Terrain as well.


Now it is possible for you to destory/take down the opponents factions flag by attacking them with 5 attacks (flags have 5 hp just fyi), and there's also a special kind of lane minion that can also both raise and destroy flags as well.

Also, the level up system is very interesting in this game if I do say so myself. Instead of gaining experience by killing enemy creatures and heroes, you're actually gaining what is called Prime, and Prime is used to unlock/activate certain talents and powers that are on your hero. Now the game will always display the talent that costs the most Prime to unlock/activate, however, you can get them in any order that you choose to get them in. Once you've selected a talent, your hero then levels up immediately after that, meaning that you could potentially gain a good couple of levels in one fell swoop if you have enough Prime to do so.

Item shops do technically exist in this game, however, they're not what you might find in games like League of Legends for example. These item shops mostly have things like potions, wards and teleport scrolls, the latter of which lets you teleport to an allied turret that you choose. All of these items do cost Prime to get so keep that in mind when getting them.

Recalling/teleporting does technically exist in this game as well, but to a much lesser extent. For one, it can only be used once about every 3 or so minutes give or take, and you can only use it to teleport to your own Native Land as well, so don't think that you can use this to teleport straight into the enemy's base as you can't.

Now there is another way to get these special kinds of items aside from buying them, and that's with a little mini-game. This mini-game functions just like Zuma pretty much in that you must clear a bunch of paint blobs before they reach the hole in the middle. If you can do this, then you complete the scroll and can send it to any one of your teammates right away. Keep in mind though that the actual game is still going on while your playing this Zuma-like mini-game, but its still worth it to try to play it when you can, as the scrolls gained from it grant special powers/stat bonuses for a limited time to the person that uses it, which can turn the tide of any fight when used properly that is.

Other Game Modes

Now like I mentioned before, other than the standard 5v5 map. Let's first start with the castle.

Now in the castle, you'll have to make sure that there's enough people to do the work that you need them to do. You'll also need resources to build stuff as well. The resources are: Ore, Food, Wood and of course Silver. If you don't have enough then you can't build things. To get more, you have to build special facilities that produce them, such as Farms and Lumber Mills. By upgrading your facilities with resources, they'll be able to produce even more resources than they could before. However, you must be wary though, as each resource does have a cap, and once you hit that cap, you can't gain anymore of that resource unless you spend some of it and/or increase that particular resource's cap.

Of course, you'll also need people, as without people, you can't make or upgrade facilities when you need to. Luckily, by building homes such as Cabins, you can gain more people. These homes are also important as they automatically produce a small amount of Silver for you every couple of hours without you having to do anything at all whatsoever, and obviously the higher the buildings level is, the more Silver that they can produce as well.

Some other game modes are featured as well including but not limited to the following game modes:


Challenge Mode: Essentially a co-op vs ai experience where you and up to 4 other players fend off against an army of enemies called The Touched; creatures created from Prime itself.
Dragonmaw: A mode where you and a team of 4 others race against a team of 5 players trying to get to the center first to get a special item while fighting Touched along the way.

Switcharoo: A game mode that's still played on the Borderlands 5v5 map. However, this time it's with a twist. Instead of being the hero that you chose, you're actually playing as the hero that your own TEAMMATE chose instead. This means that they could actually get a hero that you don't even own yet but your teammate does instead, leading to some interesting team compositions if you really think about it hard enough that is.


Controls

Now the controls are a bit different than what you might find in a normal moba game. Instead of using the QWER buttons/keys, you're actually using the number buttons instead (i.e. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, etc.) as well as using the left-mouse button to click in the game instead of using the right mouse button do to so. Now these can definitely be changed in the options menu, but for now these are just the starter controls so keep that in mind when first starting out.

In the castle, all that's used in the left mouse button to select things really, but you can also use the arrow keys and/or the mouse-wheel/scroll pad to zoom both in and out of your castle.

Design

The design for the game is really amazing I must say. From the castle landscape to the different buildings and objects and such around it to even the in-game maps and heroes and such is just really amazing when you really look and think about it.

Bad

Well one thing that I don't really like is that though there are different game modes to play in, they aren't readily available 24/7 aside from Borderlands and Challenge mode. This means that if you want to play a game of say Dragonwald (the 4v4 pvp/pve game mode) for example, then you'll have to wait for the day that it does become available.

Though you can technically play with and against computer AI opponents, that's only on the Borderlands and Challenge modes of the game respectively. I feel that Nival should really make it so that at the very least a co-op vs ai option is available for the other game modes for those players who really don't want to have to do just straight up pvp all the time if they want to play their favorite game mode.

Leveling up your castle can take a really long time to do, and unlike games like League of Legends for example, some heroes don't become initially available for purchase with Silver unless your castle is at a high enough level. Yes you can just purchase heroes with gold and be done with it but still though not allot of players have that option to do so, and this can really take away from the experience of the game in my own honest opinion there.

While we're on the subject of the castle I and so many others dislike the fact that you can only upgrade the castle space 1 time and that's it. Now it might not seem like much of a problem/issue at first, but since so many of the necessary buildings can take up quite a bit of space in your castle, over time you'll find yourself struggling to find space to put your structures down at.

Resource gathering can take quite a long time to do as well, and upgrading certain structures often require allot of 1 specific type of material. For example, upgrading a lumber mill to lv.14 takes about 10k+ food alone-that's not even counting the other material. This also presents a problem for if you run full of a certain kind of material needed for a certain upgrade, as you may have to upgrade multiple different structures before being able to upgrade the original one that you wanted to upgrade in the first place.

Good

While resource gathering can take a very long time to do, Nival has offered players multiple ways to help speed it up faster. One such way is the use of friends. When you go into a structure, you have the option to assign friends to it (so long as they're in the same faction as you of course), and when it comes time to harvest said material, both you and your assigned friend get a bonus/increased amount of that specific material than you would have if you had just left it alone with no friends assigned to it. As you upgrade your buildings you'll find that you can assign more than 1 friend to it, up to a maximum of 4 friends per structure.

The other option is gold. If you pay a certain amount of gold you can make it so that the structure is automatically ready for harvest right away than it would be had you waited the allotted time initially. Now this feature only works if you have gold to spend, but if you really need a certain type of material right away then this method can definitely help speed things along if you play your cards right and use it smartly and wisely that is. This method also works for revitalizing your heroes Vigor instantly rather than just waiting for a few seconds to do it that way.

Gold also has another use aside from just buying certain hero skins and that's to actually unlock different heroes right away. For instance, say that you're of the Dokht Imperium faction and you really want the hero Vampire but you aren't castle level 34 yet. By simply paying 499 gold you can unlock the Vampire hero for play right away, even though you technically don't meet the required castle level and/or silver sum/price as of yet.

Overall

I really like how Prime World combines many different elements of many different types of games into one and how eventually one can get all of the heroes in the game for their faction just buy paying Silver and being at a high castle level as well. As for the game modes themselves, I personally think that they're really fleshed out so-to-speak and are nice to play on rotations every now and then as well there too, so there's that at least.

I do like the game and I really think that you all will too as well there also.

I give this game an 8/10.

Thank you for your time.