Battle of Guardians Crypto Game: The WORST NFT Fighting?
NFT games are a seemingly easy way to make money while you enjoy your favorite hobby. Nevertheless, not all NFT games today are good, and playing some can be a barely enjoyable experience.
Long story short: I tested the Battle of Guardians gaming product, so you do not have to. What place does it have among the other play-to-earn crypto games? Let’s see…
Overview of Battle of Guardians
The Battle of Guardians review starts right now! The NFT game’s whitepaper gave me much hope, and my tests revealed rather interesting features of this title. But first, let’s dive into an overview.
The genre
Battle of Guardians (BTW, created with the power of Solana) is the best fighting game in the crypto and NFT gaming plane since this is the FIRST legit product of this genre in this space. So, NFT enthusiasts who appreciate legends like Tekken, Mortal Kombat, Injustice, and Street Fighter seem to get the top play-to-earn PVP fighting in real time.
It is also great that the NFT gaming industry explores new genres and creates more diverse offers.
Storyline time
According to its lore, the world was inhabited by people and those Guardians who were much more powerful than an average person. Guardians’ supernatural strength, legendary magic, and unbeatable durability made them gods in the eyes of regular folk. Still, technological revolutions and industrial advancement gave people what they used to need from the Guardians.
The Guardians disappeared after humanity adapted to the new, more technological world order. Their protection was not needed anymore. Until…
People needed a new energy source and opened the gate to Hell (DOOM moment). Entities and creatures of the underworld unleashed terror and claimed lives, and the Guardians raised their weapons to protect humanity.
Gameplay
Of all blockchain games, this is the only multichain AI-powered fighting game that has fights ONLY and no other activities. Like in Injustice, you pick a character, wait for your opponent, and then fight twice or thrice until one of you wins.
Several combinations let you hit faster, use special moves, etc. You can see them and practice in the training room. Please note that you cannot use some attacks until upgrading your character by merging NFTs (I will elucidate this later).
Regarding characters
The Guardians NFT game has various playable characters serving as non-fungible tokens. Three races are:
- Guardians (best for DPS): Most powerful and well-trained, these battle-born protectors have high-damaging attacks, average health, and average intellect.
- Humans: Physically weaker, people of this universe are the smartest creatures, and their intelligence surpasses everyone else.
- Demons: The beasts of the underworld and bloodthirsty vagabonds of Hell will not knock you out instantly since their damage is average; they are not the brightest regarding intellect, too. Still, they have more life force (HP) than anyone else.
And also there are three tiers:
I must say that Battle of Guardians is one of those play-to-earn crypto games that only allow PVP battles between players of the same tier. So, you will not encounter someone much stronger or weaker than you, and all rounds remain competitive and make you rely on your skills only.
And you can enter three game modes:
What Are $FP and $BGS?
Many play-to-earn crypto games have two and more currencies where one is more valuable than another. FP and BGS are the two currencies that let you do… stuff. In brief:
- BGS is the more valuable cryptocurrency you can earn, stake, and use to buy other characters. This one’s main purpose is governance.
- FP is the lesser in-game currency that lets you purchase and merge your characters to strengthen them (aka synthesizing NFTs). It also lets you pay the tournament entrance fee.
So, these coins are necessary for…
NFT synthesis
This play & earn game has a Pokemon-like system where you can merge two or more identical characters. For instance, you have several elite NFTs with the same Guardian/human/demon. You can combine them and get one character of a higher tier, which will be Legendary in this example. So, it is like getting constellations in Genshin Impact or upgrading your fighters in Pocket Mortys.
NFT marketplace
Bro does not work now, in case you are wondering. But there is a plan for creating it. Like any other NFT marketplace, it must be a unique hub to browse, analyze, and obtain characters.
Renting an NFT for fights
The gaming NFTs you do not use that much can become more effective tools for those players who want to play with them. Your friends or random gamers can rent those characters and earn rewards while paying you a fee.
Scholarships
There is a program built into BOG smart contract. The system lets scholars and guilds get a share of leasing characters. The automatic system splits all rewards between the participants.
Staking
First and foremost, yes, there is $BGS staking in the Battle of Guardians gaming product. Second, staking activities open the gate to special events and NFT drops.
The visuals
That is the moment where our Battle of Guardians review can praise and criticize the game simultaneously. On the concept level, this is one of the best play-to-earn crypto games regarding visuals, graphics, and aesthetics. Yes, it looks great!
And the characters LOOK LIKE THIS when you enter the game. When I was testing it, I expected some lame low-poly versions of these concepts, but I got what I was promised. I mean, look at this one!
Nevertheless, it becomes worse when you get into action. This crypto game needs much better work on animations and smoothness. So far, the movements are rather abrupt. I would have zero arguments against it if this game was for mobiles only, but this is meant to be a PC experience.
And also, must I highlight it looks like Street Fighter to a 99% extent?
Alright, let us let this one slip. Battle of Guardians crypto game is not the first case when a game has SUSPICIOUS similarities with other products. There are even good cases, like Dead Space which is the old Resident Evil with a sci-fi world and another plot. But this case is more like Genshin Impact when we have The Legend of Zelda.
What about the soundtrack?
After playing this game for the first time, I thought the soundtrack was alright. It is good music for a workout, and gamers can appreciate some powerful melodic metal. Still, the Battle of Guardians game’s soundtrack gets repetitive too soon.
This Battle of Guardians review can only advise diversifying music in this project.
Reception and Criticism
This game is barely 3/10 for people on Steam since many more mainstream fightings are available, and gamers usually seek only entertainment here without prioritizing cryptocurrencies. This Battle of Guardians review pretty much summarizes my feelings after an hour of playing:
The fact that this crypto game has many characters is appreciated. Nevertheless, many other negatives make it a boring experience. Yet again, it would be alright if the game was for mobile phones; the simplicity would make it a great casual fighting app with pretty charas to collect.
This Battle of Guardians review mentions many more lazily created things that deteriorate the gaming experience:
This person has great arguments about pay-to-win, and this game will be right about that when the marketplace is available. From a Steam gamer’s perspective, they are 100% correct. From a play-to-earn crypto game enjoyer’s perspective, the situation differs, but only a bit.
After testing this product, I want to say that it will be a pay-to-win where the wealthier holders will purchase the most powerful NFT gaming offers and abuse the system. Those seeking a play-to-earn NFT game experience will have to start with more challenging conditions, and their wins will get them minimum because only God-of-War levels get good rewards. Given that the game is still in development, we can expect new systems with upgrades that might change how it is played, empowering its pay-to-win nature. If not, then the game will merely remain boring. Both scenarios are rather pessimistic.
Yet! We can also find some positive comments on the project, like this:
I can agree with this Battle of Guardians review. The game is unchallenging (for now), and you can easily enjoy it for mindless chill purposes. Still, it would be much better if this was primarily a game for mobile devices.
NFT Integration Challenges
Another problem the developers face with this project is that Battle of Guardians NFTs have very limited use cases.
The project does not have meaningful gameplay, and players do not own anything except a character. In contrast to crypto gaming projects like Gold Fever, where you can own lands, vehicles, pets, and many more non-fungible tokens that let you advance and evolve, BOG NFTs seem (and are) meaningless.
As art pieces, they are cool, but the aesthetics are everything they have. Given that the game is unpopular and might fail, the value of BOG NFTs will also decrease.
Furthermore, we already have a game but cannot access the marketplace, which will be in development for an uncertain period.
Developer Efforts
The company that works on this project focuses on interactive and competitive experiences for players and creates more characters. I must say that their character concepts are STUNNING. While that is undebatable, the game does not seem to have any updates regarding the marketplace, lore improvements, and other necessary things that can make this game more meaningful.
BGS Coin…
The data on the BGS coin is unclear, and reputable resources have not verified this asset’s supplies. There are no numbers on its market cap, circulating supply, and other significant metrics that can let us analyze it better. So far, the only verified fact is that its trading volume is under $100.
No discussions or news are present as well. Recently, the BGS coin surprisingly leaped up and was X2.5 of its current price, but this success lasted for less than one day:
And these are somewhat mysterious circumstances because no posts, events, or information explains what made this happen. There haven’t been any significant partnerships, no burnings, no nothing.
Lessons Learned ✏️
I will recap everything here based on my experience:
Final Words
Battle of Guardians gaming project can still be one of the more successful cryptocurrency games. The team has made a mistake by releasing the product too early and getting too much “inspiration” from other companies.
Amazingly and masterfully drawn characters are their strongest achievement for now. The NFT synthesis system is also interesting. Yet, everything else needs more work, especially the marketplace, which IS NOT THERE.
I’m not discarding this game because it has a chance to improve. Maybe it will be better in 2024.
Maybe.