[Qoo Review] A Close Look at gumi’s Smash & Magic

Co-developed by gumi and Angoo, Smash & Magic is a pinball/slingshot mobile RPG which features 3D model for both players and enemies.

The core of the game is like any other pinball/slingshot RPGs, assemble a team of different characters and take on stages and dungeons. Players will be able to collect characters from different races with different jobs and shoot them at enemies and create chain combos.

▍Gameplay

Smash & Magic is incredibly fast pace in both single-player mode and co-op. The game doesn’t have a stamina system, with an exception of Dungeon and certain Event stages, meaning players can easily play for a long duration of time without having to wait for stamina recovery or spending crystals to refill stamina.

Unlike Monster Strike which allows players to co-op on every stage, Smash & Magic’s main campaign, World (ワールド), is purely single-player. Completing all the normal World quests will unlock Dungeons (ダンジョン), another single-player exclusive content where players will have to clear stages to dive deeper into the dungeon for better rewards.

Events will frequently open different stages for players to farm. Some of the stages will be available in both single-player and co-op mode, but there will also be exclusive single-player events and exclusive co-op events. Typically, exclusive co-op events will feature boss raids which are significantly more difficult that other in-game contents. Events will also feature stages that will drop weapons exclusive to a specific player.

Much like the title suggests, players will able to smash enemies with physical damage dealers and cast magic with mages, but there’s more to the game than that. Characters are separated into seven different Jobs: Archer, Knight, Magician/Mage, Priest, Swordsman, Thief, and Warrior.

Melee: Knights, Swordsman, Thief, Warrior
Range: Archer, Magician/Mage
Support: Priest

Depending on their play styles, players can freely build a team of four characters.

Each character will have different active skills and passive skills that can be unlocked in their skill tree. Archers will also have an additional free active skill that allows them to shoot normal arrows.

▍Graphics

To be fair, the graphics in Smash & Magic isn’t the best you can find. The models aren’t incredibly detailed, but they’re not at a level that makes it seem bad. The background for the stages are only so-so-, but what the game lacks in graphics, it does a decent job of balancing it out with the gameplay.

▍Conclusion

Smash & Magic is one of those rare free-to-play games that doesn’t feel pay-to-win. The absent of stamina allows players to really dive in to the game and farm what they need, for once, effort can trump cash abusing. Of course, luck is still a dominating factor.

Smash & Magic’s co-op is fairly stable, but its not perfect. The game makes it quite friendly to players to open private rooms to play with friends. The difficulty of boss raids makes co-op surprisingly engaging, from dodging AoEs to stunning bosses by dealing certain amount of damage, raids are a lot more sophisticated that other mobile games from the genre.

The best part of the game is the how effort is rewarded. Through investing time, players will be able to progress further into the game and obtain better weapons to further improve their characters. Character balancing has also been handled quite well. Without a PvP system, players don’t have to constantly worry about meta team combinations and really pick out their own play style to play the game.

In conclusion, Smash & Magic is one of those rare games that has deep content for players to dive into, but also simple enough for casual players to have a go. Most features of the game works well enough to really keep players engaged for a long period of time. Definitely worth a picking up!