Soul of Heroes: Empire Wars Review for iPhone

Soul of Heroes: Empire Wars is a tactical RPG for mobile devices. Created by Korean developer Entermate, Soul of Heroes: Empire Wars promises fast paced action with tactical gameplay.

The bulk of gameplay consists of inventory and character management. Not only do characters level up upon completing quests, but the player can also level up the specific skills that each character possesses. There is no skill tree that most RPG’s are famous for, but what it lacks in that department the game more than makes up for in other ways. There are 8 slots to apply gear into, and gear can be upgraded and forged to become more powerful. Evolving characters allows access to new skills which are then upgraded via gold currency. There always seems to be enough gold in the bank to upgrade all characters to their highest available level. Character progression is very fast. There’s almost always a new piece of gear to equip, upgrade, sell, or salvage at which point could lead to upgrading your character’s abilities even further.

Progression doesn’t stop with your characters either. The player takes the role of Lord for an entire town that provides you with items and upgrades. There is also multiplayer in the form of joining an alliance of other players, which seems to be really popular in the mobile market. You can fight other players in your alliance or provide support to them. Fighting other players mostly just consists of finding someone with a lower rank and demolishing them. It’s there, but not very rewarding because the combat doesn’t require much skill.

The combat seems to be mostly just a backdrop to all of the constant progression and inventory management. It is possible to pause and select which enemies you want to attack, which doesn’t really make all that much difference. For the most part, all you have to do is make sure that you’re strong enough to complete the level and just put it on auto mode. Which is rather disappointing because a turn-based RPG combat system would work very well on a mobile platform. Instead, you get to mostly watch as they mercilessly smack each other around until their health drains. Also, the enemies don’t really have much variety outside of the standard melee and ranged enemies. It would have been nice to see enemies with armor or shields that need to be taken down with certain attacks, rather than just being meat bags with more or less HP that can do various amounts of damage.

Difficulty doesn’t really amp up until about the third world. It is recommended at that point to replay old levels. When replaying old levels, it’s possible to increase battle speed by 1.5%. Doing this will allow growth and making the current level a breeze. This formula is used throughout the entire game making it quite the grind-fest hidden under the veil of being an RPG.

The presentation in Soul of Heroes: Empire Wars is mostly good, besides the occasional mistranslation in sentences. It doesn’t make it impossible to know what is going on, but it can make certain dialogue within the game unintentionally humorous. There is a story, but it’s your typical fantasy story that won’t be the reason you keep coming back. The 3D models are well rendered, and the action during combat has an animesque flair. The music is your basic flutes and stringed instruments that can easily be turned off (thankfully).

Soul of Heroes: Empire Wars is a good mobile game for those who mostly care about constant character progression, and inventory management. Gamers looking to find a challenging RPG should look elsewhere, because this game is mostly just a grind-fest. Soul of Heroes: Empire Wars gets 5 out of 10.

Here is the Soul of Heroes: Empire Wars Trailer:

Soul of Heroes: Empire Wars is available on iOS and Android. The game is free-to-play with in-app purchases.

Matthew Davis

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I was born and raised in a town so small there were more cows than people. I joined the USAF as soon as I could, and I currently reside in San Antonio. I am a singer/songwriter on the side, but I've been a gamer since birth. I grew up with PlayStation and Nintendo, though, I don't discriminate between consoles and PC. I have a PC with a 3080, Steam Deck, and a PS5.

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