ELDRADOR CREATURES Shadowfall from Wild River Games and schleich brings us a turn-based strategic combat game on PS5 based on the figurines line of the same name. Learn more in our Eldrador Creatures Shadowfall review!
ELDRADOR CREATURES Shadowfall from Wild River Games and schleich brings us a turn-based strategic combat game on PS5 based on the figurines line of the same name. It follows ELDRADOR CREATURES, which was released back in 2020 on PlayStation 4. For this new release based on the beloved figurines franchise, you’ll be diving into the land of Eldrador, which is split into four rival worlds: there’s the Stone World, home of the Stone Creatures led by the Stone Dragon; you also have the Ice World, ruled by the powerful Ice Dragon; there’s the Jungle World, where the Jungle Dragon rules supreme; and the last one is the Lava World, with the mighty Lava Dragon ruling over all. It’s in the Lava World where your journey will begin and where you’ll meet the dreaded shadow creatures, who are led by the evil Shadow Dragon.
The game can be played in one of four difficulty settings: Easy, Normal, Hard, and Very Hard. If you choose to play in the Easy difficulty setting, then enemy damage will be reduced to 60%, enemy health will be lowered to 60%, and you’ll receive 90% of experience points. If you go with the Normal difficulty setting, then you’ll get to experience a standard challenge. Jump to the Hard difficulty setting, and enemy damage will be increased to 130%, enemy health will be boosted to 130%, and you’ll receive 110% of experience points. And if you want to dial things up to 11, you should go with the Very Hard difficulty setting. This one will have enemy damage increased to 160%, enemy health will be boosted to 160%, and you’ll receive 120% of experience points. Which path will you choose?
Since this one is a turn-based strategy release, you’ll be using the left analog stick to select each character on the battlefield to choose where they’ll move within their range. You can move a creature and then move another one before choosing how each one will attack. Each creature can move and attack unless it’s under the effects of a status such as frozen, which makes it so that the creature can either move or attack, but not both. Once all of your creatures have acted, you can end your turn as you prepare for what your opponents will do. If an enemy is within your skill range, press the L1 button to choose it and then press the X button to execute it.
What skills can you use? Take Lava Smasher as an example. Lava Smasher can use Smash, which will punch a creature near it while knocking it back a square. This can be very useful if you, say, punch an enemy into the lava, where it will receive additional damage during its turn! You could also use this to smash one enemy creature into another one, which will end up damaging both of them in the process. Some skills are more powerful than that but will require Mana to activate them. This is why you must collect the blue Mana orbs on the battlefield, especially so that you can keep your opponents from doing the same!
Going back to Lava Smasher, the special skill you can activate with Mana is called Comet Smash. This one will allow it to jump to an empty tile while dealing damage to all adjacent creatures upon landing… while also setting tiles around it on fire! Another one is the Lava Hyena’s Firewall. By activating the Firewall skill, the Lava Hyena will be able to quickly dash in a straight line while setting on fire all tiles it dashes over. As a quick tip, you should know that the Mana that is collected will be shared by all members of your team. This means you can use one creature to collect Mana while having another one use it to activate a skill that can turn the tide of battle.
The gold you collect along the way can be used to purchase upgrades. Upgrades are very important since each one that you get will be applied to all creatures on your team. You can spend your hard-earned gold to boost your creatures’ overall health, increase the damage they can deal with their skills, increase how much Mana you have at the start of each battle, or increase your team size so that you can add more creatures. As you complete battles, each of the creatures in your team will gain experience points based on their performance. Once they accumulate enough to level up, they will receive a stat boost, such as 10% more health or being able to deal more damage. Level up some more, and you’ll unlock additional skills for a creature!
What about the game’s trophies? This one is a Cross-Buy release with a full trophy list with a Platinum trophy. That means that you’ll be able to download the PS4 and PS5 versions of the game to your PlayStation 5 console at no extra cost, and each one will have its own trophy list. Each list is split into 35 Bronze trophies, 10 Silver trophies, and 2 Gold trophies. What objectives will you need to complete for that shiny Platinum trophy? The first trophy that will pop will be for completing the tutorial. From there, you’ll have to work on defeating 100, 500, and 1,000 creatures in total, winning a battle with creatures from four different worlds, collecting 200 Mana in total, winning a battle with one wounded creature remaining, setting 30 enemies on fire, freezing 30 enemies, poisoning 30 enemies, setting enemies on fire 8 times in a single battle, freezing enemies 8 times in a single battle, and, you guessed it, poisoning enemies 8 times in a single battle. On top of that, you must defeat 20 or 40 enemies with each of the 20 creatures you can unlock for your team, obtain your first upgrade, recruit all creatures, and complete all levels.
ELDRADOR CREATURES Shadowfall brings us a turn-based strategic combat game on PS5 based on the figurines line of the same name. It follows ELDRADOR CREATURES, which was released back in 2020 on PlayStation 4. For this new release based on the beloved figurines franchise, you’ll be diving into the land of Eldrador, which is split into four rival worlds: there’s the Stone World, home of the Stone Creatures led by the Stone Dragon; you also have the Ice World, ruled by the powerful Ice Dragon; there’s the Jungle World, where the Jungle Dragon rules supreme; and the last one is the Lava World, with the mighty Lava Dragon ruling over all. It’s in the Lava World where your journey will begin and where you’ll meet the dreaded shadow creatures, who are led by the evil Shadow Dragon.
You’ll need to try out each of the creatures that you unlock so that you can find the right combination for each battle. Creatures will have different values for their health and movement range while also having additional traits for you to consider. For example, the Lava Hyena can move through enemy and friendly creatures, which can come in very handy! The game is also fully voice-acted, which is a nice touch that helps to bring the characters to life. ELDRADOR CREATURES Shadowfall is available as a Cross-Buy title, so your $19.99 purchase will allow you to download the PS4 and PS5 versions of the game at no extra cost, and each one will have its own trophy list for you to work on.
Disclaimer
This ELDRADOR CREATURES Shadowfall review is based on a PlayStation 5 copy provided by Wild River Games.
