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Athenion might not have the pedigree of some other deck-building card games available for mobile, but that shouldn't put you off. This is a game that's packed full of bright ideas, fresh new gameplay modes and enough content that you can lose hours of your life to.

Battles take place on a 4×4 grid, and see you taking it in turns with your opponent to lay down cards. You draw up to five cards from your deck of forty at the start of every turn.

These are the units you're playing in the fight, and they range from hulking monsters to flighty fairies, from magical trees to fearsome undead dragons.

Your cards have arrows on them that you show you which direction they can attack. You'll also notice a bunch of other numbers on the cards. These let you know the hit points a card has, how powerful its attack is and how many soul points it grants you.

Those soul points let you attack your opponent and they're the key to victory. The first player to lose all of their own hit points is the loser.

There's a lot more going on than that though. For one thing you need to pick from one of six different factions before you even get to the fights.

These factions have different strengths and weaknesses and figuring out which of them best suits the way you want to play is the first step of a pretty long journey.

Different factions have different special moves as well. Some let you link together cards to make them more powerful, others are all about sacrificing weaker units to create pockets of dark magical energy. One lets you build giant rock walls that you can use to protect some of your units or power up others.

There are single-player challenges, regular events and much, much more as well. You're never short of something to do in Athenion, and the pace of the matches lets you get a lot of them in in a single setting.

The Good

There's a staggering amount of depth to Athenion. It's going to take you a good while to get to grips with the basics and once you've done that there are layers and layers to peel back. Every time you win you'll figure out a new strategy and every time you lose you'll be trying to find a way to right that wrong.

The game looks amazing too. The cards all sport a brilliant anime art-style and you'll want to collect all of them just so you can check them out. The speed of the fights is a massive plus too – they deliver huge chunks of tactical action in the sort of short-blast sessions that are perfect for mobile play.

On top of that there's a brilliant community to the game, and you never have to wait long to find an online battle. There are a number of different modes that let you practice with different decks, take part in intriguing events and fight it out in ranked and casual multiplayer matches.

The Bad

There's a pretty steep learning curve here, so if you're not in for the long haul then you might be better finding your card-based fun somewhere else. Even when you've got the basics down you've still got a lot to learn and it can be punishing to come up against an opponent who knows more than you do.

There are also a lot of currencies, crafting materials and other rewards to figure out. The game does tell you what they do, but the tutorials are pretty brief and you're left on your own for a lot of the time to try and get to the bottom of things.

Overall

Athenion might not be the easiest game to understand, but once things start clicking it becomes something really rather special. There are some brilliant ideas here and they're woven into a bright tapestry of gorgeous visuals and wonderfully paced mobile play.

It won't be to everyone's taste, and it's fair to say that some players are going to put it down before they've even got to the good bits, but this is one CCG that it's well worth sticking with.

8.2

OVERALL

Replayability 8.1

Game Controls 8.2

Graphics 8.7

Sound/Music 8.2

Gameplay 7.8

FREE

Athenion: Tactical CCG

ZERO-bit Company Limited

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ICEY ($2.99) by X.D. Network is a side-scrolling action game that's rather meta in and of itself. This is a mobile port of the ICEY game that was released on Steam in November 2016. If you enjoy other hack-n-slash titles like Super Samurai Rampage and Severed, then you'll like what ICEY brings to the table, but it's not without some flaws.

When I'm feeling a bit stressed, I enjoy getting my pent up frustrations out through video games. There's nothing better feeling than just unleashing a flurry of attacks on some digital enemies and watching them fall, you know? While I haven't heard of ICEY until now, I knew that this was a game I had to check out after seeing screenshots and video of the gameplay. And while I'm liking it so far, it definitely isn't without some flaws.

$1.99

Super Samurai Rampage

Brackish Games

$6.99

Severed

DRINKBOX STUDIOS INC.

Visually, ICEY is gorgeous. The game features a heavily anime-inspired aesthetic to it, especially with ICEY's character design. ICEY is rendered in 2D, but the backgrounds are rather detailed and provide a bit of depth to everything, so it's almost like pseudo-3d. Environments are fairly detailed and textured, along with enemy robots. If you're an anime fan, you'll feel right at home. ICEY has smooth and fluid animations, so there was no issue with lag on my iPhone 8 Plus. The atmospheric and ambient soundtrack is soothing to listen to, and the sound effects are done well. On top of that, the unique narration that you hear as you play is incredibly human-like and sounds natural, but will make you question everything. As you may have guessed, this is where the meta part of the game comes into play.

Since ICEY is a side-scrolling action game, players must go through everything in linear fashion. You'll navigate through a series of connected rooms in order, and the only way to proceed is to clear out all enemies in the room you're in. There are also some tough boss fights that you'll be put up against. The game starts you off with a tutorial that explains all of the controls and basic actions to you, which I recommend paying attention to because things can get a bit tricky. The story is a bit generic and cliché, involving the typical hero who awakens from a deep slumber and must set out to defeat an evil villain trope that's been overdone.

The narrator will narrate everything that occurs on the screen, and even point you in the right direction to make progress, but you may not always want to listen. The meta part of the game involves breaking free of an omnipresent force and forging your own path. After all, can you really trust a mysterious omnipresent force like that without questioning its true motives?

Controls in ICEY are simple, but take a bit of time and practice to fully master. In the bottom left corner is your virtual joystick for horizontal movement. The bottom right corner has four buttons placed in a diamond formation, and each one is labeled with a number and a symbol. With the "01" button, you perform a basic attack. The "02" performs a heavy attack, which is capable of breaking through enemy defenses. The "03" allows you to jump (double tap for double jump) and "04" does a dash forward. Eventually you get a "05" button in the very bottom corner that lets you do special attacks once you've unlocked them.

While the game does a good job of explaining the controls, I wish that there was the option to change key bindings. I often found myself pressing the wrong button because I'm used to controls from other games, and end up dashing instead of attacking, or attacking rather than jumping. Hopefully the developers consider giving players the option to customize the button positions or bindings for a bit more freedom and streamlining in with the controls in the future.

ICEY's health bar is shown in the top left corner. Underneath the blue health bar is the yellow shield gauge (looks like arrows pointing right). The shield protects her from some damage but has to recharge after it's depleted. Performing a dash uses one charge, and you only have three available at a time. However, dash charges refill quickly enough, so you shouldn't have an issue with being completely out.

The key behind ICEY are combos…a lot of combos. The damage that ICEY does is increased for each consecutive hit that she's able to land. She's also capable of executing crazy combos from the ground and air alike, so it's best to experiment. And make sure to break through enemy defenses with her heavy attack so then you can unleash your fury.

For those of you who care about trophies and achievements, there are plenty to discover and unlock in ICEY. You'll also come across floating panels that can be activated with a hit from ICEY. These allow you to get upgrades for ICEY's moves and abilities by spending the cash you acquire from defeated foes. It's important to take advantage of these when you come across them, because they'll make battles easier.

ICEY is an intense side-scrolling action hack-n-slash style game that is rather meta.

The Good

ICEY is a great little side-scrolling action game that is sure to delight fans of the genre. The anime style art is polished and appealing, while the music and sound effects are a nice touch. The controls work well enough but require time and practice to master. The game's story is the typical fare, but the meta part with the narration and questioning of the omnipresent force is a nice element to the game. Battles are fun and intense, and should appeal to fans of hack-n-slash action.

The Bad

While ICEY is pretty good for the most part, it's not without flaws. I mentioned earlier that the controls should be customizable with the bindings, as it would streamline the process for players who are used to other key bindings for similar games. Also, the difficulty level, even on Easy, can be a bit hard because of the controls. Hopefully the developer can fix that.

The verdict

Overall, ICEY is definitely a game that fans of the side-scrolling hack-n-slash action genre should check out. The game features amazing visual style, great sound, and the narration can be rather humorous and serious at the same time. Controls are okay, but should be fixed in the future. The key to victory in battles is dependent on your combos, so make sure to mash on those buttons and land as many hits as you can. The game says "don't think, just fight," and that's exactly what you'll want to do when robots are trying to get you.

I recommend giving ICEY a try if you're looking for a fun and frantic hack-n-slash game. You can find ICEY on the App Store as a universal download for your iPhone and iPad for just $2.99. There are no in-app purchases.

8.1

OVERALL

Graphics 9

Replayability 8

Sound/Music 8.5

Gameplay 8

Game Controls 7

$2.99

ICEY

X.D. Network Inc.

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