#MobileSpread - Puzzle&Dragons NA Ver

Hey guys! Rosa’s here! I’m just a casual gamer who never play a mobile game for more than a year because I get bored easily. I enjoy playing mobile games that have battles, collecting monsters, creatures or characters or simple games with good graphic. It’s even better if there is a story to follow or collaboration with my favorite anime or manga. Follow me as I'll be writing about various games under #MobileSpread.

I'll be introducing a game that I restarted to play after years (Puzzle & Dragons) the North American version. If you are wondering if I’ll be comparing it to the original Japanese version (or other versions) my answer is no. I feel I didn’t play the original version long enough to give a good comparison. I remember the struggle of only getting a stamina for every ten minutes, rolling rock monster ('golem') and other useless monsters from rare summon, or using a suicidal (resolve) team just to get an evolution materials. There is also the struggle of getting experience and low team cost long ago, now everything is so much easier. Why? Read on guys 

First things first basic game play. You can set up to five monsters in a team all of them can be the same! You can bring friend or stranger’s monster if you want to.  Is it time to attack? But how? You simply attack by matching orbs of the same element with the monster on your team. What makes it engaging is there are multiple ways to attack base on multiple leader skills and team synergy. Sounds normal so far? Unlike most puzzle game where you can only match by moving it once or replacing one gem in another, in puzzle & dragons can go to any direction without restriction.  It's harder to explain the gameplay than showing it so here's a video of Mantastic (one of the elder in Puzzle & Dragons community)

                    “[Mantastic] Fixed Team Challenge: Solo Hel vs Deus ex Machina Descended”

Second point is how to level up. I mentioned about team cost and getting experience because in the new version this problem is easily solved. Instead of starting with the team cost of 20 now you start with 100 making a full team filled with god and goddess easier (each of them cost 15 - 20). You can increase them by completing quest such as completing five arenas, evolving x number of monsters etc. Experience (exp) for level up is easily gained by doing experience dungeon which does not exist before version seven (I could be wrong about the version number). It only cost 30 stamina and reward you with two hundred exp point. In normal and technical dungeons, sometimes there are events such as half stamina, double experience, double drop and even four times more experience. In my opinion this makes the purpose of leveling up decreases and it put an end on the assumption ‘higher level means higher skill’. For comparison, it used to take 6 to 8 months to reach level 150 now it took less than two hundred days (depending on how hard core you play)

 

Next point currencies. There are three types of in game currency one is the gold coins, rainbow gems and monster points. First the gold coins can be collected from normal dungeon and gold dungeon (weekend dungeon). Secondly the rainbow gems that is harder to collect since you can only get them from completing area, special dungeon or daily reward during in game event (such as Easter Extravagant). The last one is a bit special since you can only get them by selling monsters with a rarity of three or above. Monster points is use to buy rainbow colour evolution materials, masks with rare drop rates, monster point exclusives or dragons. Each evolution materials cost between two to three thousand (2000 – 10 000). The monster point exclusives cost two hundred thousand (250 000) and the last one the dragons cost three hundred thousand points (300 000). 

Something worth mentioning about the monster points is the rumour among players about a

monster called Dark Athena that will cost seven hundred thousand monster point. This monster came out first and the current meta in the original version (Japan). English version is usually only two months behind with new monsters. Four months had passed since it was released in Japan so the players in the English version are desperate.

Now let’s move on to the core of the RPG part … if you say monsters or creatures you got it right! Each monster is divided into five elements: Wood (green), Fire (Red), Water (blue), Light (yellow), Dark (purple). Another way to divide them is by types. There NINE TYPES: God, devil, dragon, balance, fighter, physical, healer, mechanical (latest addition), coin,enhance and evolution. 

The very first monsters include dragons as the name suggest, golems and some rabbit like creatures. Then the god from different myths takes over such as Chinese, Indian and Greek- Roman. Three Kingdoms general are also included as god and goddess in this game. The newer ones include constellation (Pollux, Antares, castor etc) and some new ultimate evolution. If you are planning to start now LUCKY cause the rates of getting good monsters are higher. For those who do not plan on spending money no worries skills and patience will reward you in the long run. 

You can collect or get monsters from dungeon (battle) drop, Pall egg machine (PEM) or rare egg machine (REM). Once a month there is a 2x up to 4x chance to get god and goddess called god festival (GF). ‘Godfest’ (GF) runs anywhere between two to three days. Some monsters are GFE (God fest exclusives) meaning you can only get them during godfest. Usually it happens once every three week, unless it is an anniversary special. No worries about monster box in the latest version 10 the capstone for monster box is 4500 from 4000 in the previous version. 

Want more challenging way to get strong monsters? Try descend dungeon where only the strongest dragon callers will be acknowledged by the guardian waiting at the end. Starting from version 8 you can do a co-op which means you can team up with another player by inviting them to a room or by sharing  your room code. That means a much stronger player can help or even carry you! Isn't that great!? One last thing that no one should ever forget to mention COLLABORATIONS REM! The collaboration can be from manga, anime or games even angry birds is included in the collaboration once. If you are worried about not getting your favourite character from REM then there is a dungeon called collaboration dungeon where you might be able to get your favourite character from there.

Let me introduce to you how to power up your monsters. First of all, you can enhance material that can be obtain from special dungeons or specific PEM. PEM have several events of its own such as evolution materials, rare monsters (2-5 stars rarity) and enhance material. Other than enhance material you can also use useless monsters to level up your main ones. As the game keeps on updating, now you can transfer skills between monsters with a maximum of one transfer skill. The system is called assist monsters. There are some requirements before you can do so. The requirements are rank (level) 130, the assist monsters must be fully awoken (cannot be evolve anymore), a rarity of 5 or above. For the base the only requirement is to have an active skill.

At this point, probably you have decided to play it or not if you never play it give it a try. If you decided to play there is a close-group for puzzle & dragon community in facebook where you can get advices on team building, rolls or summon, analysis on new monsters and other helpful tips. If you are not using Facebook there are other social networks you can use such as twitch, Instagram, Discord and obviously Youtube. Follow me on twitter @GSRosa for more updates on mobile gaming or you can follow the team's twitter account @TheGamerSpread if you haven't done so. See ya next week for an exciting double post.