Ragnarok: Heroes of Midgard could use some Godly help (Review)

Overview

Ragnarok: Heroes of Midgard is a free-to-play card collecting/RPG game that has a lot of potential, but also a lot of faults.

Developer: OmegaGamesLLC

Cost: Free (with micro-transactions and ads)

Impressions

Ragnarok: Heroes of Midgard is an interesting game, to say the least. It’s a sort of card game/RPG hybrid with characters based off of Norse mythology and fantasy. The game features card collecting, exploration and battling with a team of characters – sounds great, right? Unfortunately, Ragnarok doesn’t exactly do any of these things in an outstanding way.

The story of the game is essentially Loki, the Norse god of Mischief, is up to no good and you need to stop his evil deeds across the realms of Asgard. The game takes some liberties with Norse lore, but it isn’t the worst premise.

The game is similar in style to other popular mobile games like Brave Frontier, where you collect characters of varying rarity and power, put them in a team, and fight in automatic battles. Ragnarok uses cards instead of characters, with admittedly nice art on them, which you collect from the field of battle and from the environment. You can summon cards using in-game currency and real money, as well as upgrade and fuse them together to get more powerful units. Once you get the cards, however, the game takes a sharp drop in fun.

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Pay no attention to the user name… I run out of ideas easily.

Where a game like Brave Frontier has Final Fantasy-style animated battles with interesting effects and some degree of interactivity, Ragnarok does not. Battles in Ragnarok boil down to two parties bumping into each other with little to no animation, and just some numbers popping up.

The battles last about 2-10 seconds at most, and sometimes you don’t even know what happened until the win/loss screen appears. I wish they had sprung for animations, or added some strategy to the mix, letting you pick which cards attack when, or maybe add some ability to launch special attacks. The game just doesn’t give the player much to do besides tap one button and watch.

The same can be said of exploration, which consists of tapping the “explore” button and watching a little animation over and over until something happens. Occasionally a battle will crop up, or a cut-scene detailing the story will occur, but they are not very frequent, making exploration become tedious at times.

There are other modes to play as well, including an arena mode, where you can battle your party against others. A guild feature is also available, in which you can create and join teams with other players or friends. These modes are fine, but the arena is just more of the same boring battles.

Also, the app has a weird issue where it installs two different icons. Worst of all, one works and the other doesn’t. Confusing and frustrating for sure.

Conclusion

Overall, I was disappointed with Ragnarok: Heroes of Midgard. It has a lot of promise and a bunch of content to work with, but the gameplay itself, coupled with the bevy of superior games available in the same genre for the same price, make this game a hard sell. If you’re looking for a decent game to pick up and play for a time waster, or if you need that collectible free-to-play card game/RPG fix, you could certainly do worse, but also a lot better.

Download and install Ragnarok: Heroes of Midgard from the Google Play Store.

Pelican PROTECTOR: A case review

The Shpeel

Smartphones are not cheap. In fact, if you already have a Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge you know this all too well. Almost 800 bucks is the current going rate.

The debate is fierce, do I go “NAKED’ and show off the beauty of this very expensive pocket size computer. Or do I cover all the beautiful glass and metal up with a case, so that it lasts longer than the first day when inevitably I drop it on the sidewalk, face down and try to convince myself that ” it didn’t drop that hard. The screen is fine!” only to pick it up and to realize that even though “it didn’t drop that hard” it’s now a shattered mess that will cost almost as much to fix as replace.

I say COVER IT UP! Protect that investment and put a good case on it. Even though it’s not 100% certain that it still won’t break, there is a lot better chance of it dropping and being ok with a case on.

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The Scoop

Enter the Pelican Protector! Pelican has been at the “protecting things” game for a long time. 40 years in fact! It started out making Scuba diving gear, and have since moved into protecting everything imaginable.

Which so happens to include the Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge. The Protector is “Tested to Military Specifications to survive multiple drops”, has impact absorbing TPR rubber lining to protect the electronics inside the phone, and angled edges to divert energy and protect the screen from surface contact. The case is made with hard plastic and rubber for “two layer” protection. 

Summing it up

This case has a hard plastic back, but softer rubbery side walls. There is a rubber ring around the back that helps it not slip around when the phone is sat down on its back and when it’s in your hand. This case is two layers, not two pieces like with some other cases.

The smooth look of the hard plastic with rubber grips in all the right places make this case from Pelican visually pleasing and feels great in your hand.

Some drawbacks are the power and volume buttons are a little bit too small and take just a slightly harder push than I would like. Also the charging port cutout is slightly smaller than the non-Samsung chargers I have. Neither of those issues are a deal breaker by any means.

The other drawback for me specifically is I use a magnetic CD tray mount in my car (LIKE THIS ONE). The thickness of the hard plastic on the back, and the slippery section in the middle where the magnet connects, made my phone fall off the mount while driving. I really like the look and feel of this case and definitely feel my phone is protected from drops. Also, this case comes with a lifetime warranty that covers the case if it breaks. “Guaranteed For Life: You break it, we replace it” is the Pelican’s motto.

You can buy the Pelican Protector at Amazon HERE for around $39.99 with free shipping included.

You can also learn more at Pelican.

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Front/Inside

Side View Volume Buttons

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