“Castle Clash” is interesting for its clumsy swerve into a hero-team game. It’s a clash-like where the heroes grow completely out-of-control, and then, out of nowhere, a whole bunch of hero-only features open up. “We’re sorry we made heroes so strong that not only are armies useless, but your heroes can trash anyone’s base without even trying. So how about we give them something else to do”.
It appears to have started as a serious, even original clash-like. Troops are in an interesting-looking 4×3 grid of grunts, tanks, archers and wizards. Defensive towers can be customized at level 10. They put some thought into making it different. On the other hand, offensive troops waiting in Army Camps also defend. It’s your army against their army and their base. So maybe they didn’t know what they were doing. But at first you raise troops, examine their base, and work to get gold and victory. It’s an actual clash-like for a few days.
But the heroes get out-of-control quickly. You get 5 at a time, and they use the full-on collectable system of mega-upgraded Rares. Each even gets a pet. A pet! Then it gets five times worse. By the time I found the game it had “Starter Boxes”. Those things shovel 3 months of gold and “rare” upgrade items at you, instantly creating mega-heroes. The game was over 3 days in. When you attack any base there are a bunch of explosions, then your heroes fight theirs. If you win, you don’t even get any more of the stuff to improve your heroes.
Instead, new hero-only areas have opened up. Lots of them. Your 5 heroes can fight another player’s 5 in an Arena, or 1 giant monster. There’s a 4 player mode where 16 heroes attack an even gianter monster. There’s a dungeon (ultra-tough computer bases) with a Sweep button (the thing where you auto-win against something you already beat, since you need to do it dozens of times for the loot).
You base has one small use. One of the extra missions is a few computer heroes attacking it. Your guns are useless. You cauld make an army of 60 tough monsters, but don’t bother. They’ll last a few seconds. Only our heroes can stand against them. But you can redo your base, mostly the walls, to try and split them up.
I was so sure Castle Clash was a 1-time mistake. But the developer, “I Got Games”, also has “Clash of Lords 2: New Age”. The main difference is getting rid of the troops. Instead, each hero comes with a dozen tiny troops clustered around it. You still have a useless defensive base which anyone can beat, but no one wastes time attacking because they’re doing all of the hero activities, same as you.