At its core, Summoner’s War: Lost Centuria is a real-time card game that pits you against other Summoners in arena-style 1v1 scraps. You’ll need to build your own deck of monsters and warriors before taking them into battle to see who comes out on top.
It’s been many years since the original Summoner’s War, and now there’s finally another game of the series that purposefully shifts its focus on certain aspects of the original game. In SW: Sky Arena, the game prepares the player through single-player and PVE tasks to eventually feed into the PvP aspects of the game. However, in SW: Lost Centuria, the PvP is thrust upon the player at the getgo.
So does this make Summoner’s War: Lost Centuria a good gacha game? The game is surprisingly good and easy to get into despite it being more of a PvP oriented game. Matches are quick, addicting, and the outplays are completely satisfying. However, there’s a lot to take in at first and it might take a while to get used to the nuances of the game, but once you’re up and running, you’ll find that Summoner’s War: Lost Centuria has a lot of depth in its gameplay. The game is not all good, however, as there are some concerns with its longevity and free-to-play friendliness that will be discussed in the article.
Is Summoner’s War: Lost Centuria a Good Fit For You?
As a basic explanation of the game, players put together a deck of 8 heroes/monsters with 3 spells and pit them against other player’s decks. The player with no more heroes or monsters left on the field loses. The game is real-time, and timing matters.
This means that if your opponent plays a card, and you play one right after, it has the possibility to play the card before the opponent does – effectively countering the opponent. If you’re late in your actions, it can have a drastic impact on the game’s outcome.
| What Players Might Like About SW: Lost Centuria | What Might Put Players Off About SW: Lost Centuria |
|---|---|
| – Every match is quick and exciting. It allows for a lot of mind games and outplays. It’s incredibly satisfying to eke out a win or to come back from a mistake. – The 3D models in the game are generally well designed and appealing. The characters are also recognizable in a match, allowing players to survey their opponent quickly. – The rates for the highest rarity units are quite high, and there are many ways to get legendary cards (ranked play, single-player challenges, events, etc.). – Relatively quickly to find a match and play. The match-making is also quite decent. Rarely does the game match players with overly difficult opponents. – Alliances (basically guilds) can assist each other in trading/receiving cards and other resources. – A lot of different game modes. Some with restrictions, buffs/debuffs, and different ways to draft cards. – Generous with premium currency and resources. There’s always some event going to complete, and the game frequently gives away pulls/currencies. – The UI is clear, responsive, and easy to find what players need. | – Being PvP first means that it immediately puts a lot of players off. It’s a lot of pressure for more casual gacha players. – The PvE challenges are definitely tacked on as a filler activity. Single-player only gets unlocked after the player gets a few PvP matches under their belt. – It isn’t easy to get skillstone cards (which augments your heroes/units). There’s no easy way to get the rarer skill cards without going to the gacha. – There’s no cap to the number of cards dupes the player can feeder into their existing cards. This can introduce quite a gap between whales and f2p players. – Relatively small community when compared to other gacha games. The game is quite stale because there aren’t enough cards to vary the meta. Quite often, you’ll see the same units being played each game. |
Is Summoner’s War: Lost Centuria Free-to-Play Friendly?
While it is possible to enjoy the game as a free-to-play player and get to an adequate spot in ranked play to get the most rewards – free-to-play players should not expect to compete with heavily paying members in Lost Centuria in ranked play.
To get to the highest bracket in the game or the top 100 in the game will be very difficult in Summoner’s War: Lost Centuria as a free-to-play player. What are the reasons for this?
- Cards are not capped in terms of how many dupes you can feed into a card. A whale can summon endlessly and upgrade the same card a multitude of times. Therefore, there is going to be quite a large stat gap between a duped card and a non-duped card.
- Skillstones are incredibly hard to come by without spending some money. The good skillstone cards are even harder to obtain than legendary cards and can change how a card plays completely.
However, to offset this, the game has created different modes where the card’s dupes and levels don’t matter. Meaning everything is equalized. However, it’s only for the special challenges modes and arena style drafts – not ranked.
Also, players can’t play these modes continuously. Players will have to pay currency to get into arena mode, and for challenge mode, it resets every 2 days approximately. If you rack up 3 losses, then you have to wait until the next challenge to try again.
Therefore, when the game eventually releases a ranked equalized mode (where players can still obtain the ranked rewards), the game will be truly free-to-play as everything is equalized where skills and tactics take the front stage.
With these types of games, eventually, the game will make it easier to obtain the more difficult skill stones as the game gets older. So until that happens, free-to-play players should take Summoner’s War: Lost Centuria a bit more casually.
What is the Endgame in Summoner’s War: Lost Centuria?
The endgame in Summoner’s War: Lost Centuria is what you’ve been doing this entire time, PvP. As players keep honing their skills and how they play, climbing the ladder for the rewards and clout is the real endgame.
There’s no meaningful PvE endgame currently in Lost Centuria. Therefore, players looking for this type of gameplay should look elsewhere.
Summoner’s War: Lost Centuria Verdict
Summoner’s War: Lost Centuria is a lot of fun, the game has a lot of peaks in the beginning (in its engaging gameplay), but as players go a little bit deeper into the game, there can also be quite a few troughs that make it difficult to continue to play (it’s catering to more paying players & lack of variety of cards).
Despite some of its issues, it remains a fun experience, especially for PvP enthusiasts like myself. Players that want a more fair environment to PvP can still do that in its other modes.
Summoner’s War: Lost Centuria is a good game, but it could have been a great game. It’s still quite early in its life cycle, so it still has time to improve, but for now, it has a lot of work to do to regain the momentum it had during launch.