Recently I had the pleasure of reviewing two awesome blockchain trading card games: Relentless and Gods Unchained. At their core, the two games are extremely similar in their mechanics, but there are some subtle differences between the two that will be addressed. Let’s get started on this review and see which is the better game.
Disclaimer: Both games are still in their beta stages. Some features may not be complete and some problems may be attributed to the game’s current stage.
Game Age
Relentless was originally known as Zombie Battleground. The alpha release for Relentless opened on August 15th, 2018. At the time, it was the first ever blockchain based trading card game.
Gods Unchained released its close beta on November of 2018, a few months after Relentless’ open beta release. The open beta released on July 8th and the full game is anticipated to launch in October of 2019.
In this category, Relentless does have Gods Unchained beat, and their claim of the first ever blockchain based trading card game does live up to their word.
Game Users
For Gods Unchained, since it’s a dApp hosted on the Ethereum network, we could look up daily user statistics on State of the dApps. According to them, there are: 170 daily, 405 weekly and 1,130 monthly users.
Relentless on the other hand, has a listing on dApp Radar. They showed a total of 89 daily and 508 weekly users.
Game Design
There is no denying that both games are modeled after Hearthstone, however Relentless and Gods Unchained have their own unique takes on the concept.
Relentless has more of a hearthstone type feel with the animations, the card design, and especially the battle ground design. My favorite part of the design is the way Relentless integrated the green color into their palette, it’s extremely aesthetic and pleasing to the eye.
Gods Unchained has a more unique design than both Relentless and Hearthstone. It features a more “medieval” type theme integrating a more yellow / golden color into their design.
Other than having the mana count location in a slightly different spot, the rest of the game’s functions are virtually in the same place as Hearthstone.
Both game’s designs are extremely intuitive and pleasing to the eye. However, in my opinion I prefer Relentless’ design as it almost seems simpler. Maybe that’s because it’s so much more similar to Hearthstone’s layout, it seems more familiar.
Game UI
When it comes to the games’ user interface, we will be judging based on how smooth the controls are during gameplay.
When I was playing Relentless, if I made my moves too fast the game would lag and some moves wouldn’t execute. I would have to redo the same move after an animation would complete. It almost seemed like the animations were blocking me from taking any actions which really affected my gameplay experience negatively.
When I was playing Gods Unchained, I never had any issues with a lagging UI during animations. I could make fast moves even when the animations are playing without any delay.
When it comes to the user interface, I have to go with Gods Unchained on this one. At the same time, keep in mind that Relentless is still in beta and these are features that can be fixed in the final release.
Game Price
Since both Relentless and Gods Unchained are free, we can compare each game’s price based on how expensive the cheapest card is and how much the card packs cost.
Looking at Relentless’ marketplace, there are plenty of cards that cost $0.01. If you wanted to build a deck you could definitely do so for under $10.
When it comes to the card packs, the prices are as follows:
25 Packs: 0.19 ETH ($34.26) – $1.37 per pack
Looking at Gods Unchained, there’s no marketplace yet but you can buy card packs. The card packs increase in price as the guaranteed rarity increases. At the time of writing, the pack prices are as follows:
Rare: 0.012 ETH ($2.16)
Epic: 0.075 ETH (13.52)
Legendary: 0.112 ETH ($20.19)
Shiny Legendary: 1 ETH ($180.31)
Each card pack includes a total of six cards, one of which is guaranteed to be a Rare or better.
Comparing the two, it’s obvious that Relentless cards are cheaper than Gods Unchained. At the same time, while the price of cards may be higher for Gods Unchained, the game also has almost double the amount of users. Moreover, Relentless packs don’t guarantee a certain rarity card which is another reason they are cheaper to begin with.
Verdict
Each game has its own pros and cons, one game might have cheaper cards while the other has more users. To judge which open beta version of the game is better, we have to look at playability.
Since I had a hard time finding another player to match with when trying out Relentless, I have to choose Gods Unchained as the superior game at this time. Because it has more users, I had no problems matching with a player and playing a draft.
Moreover, the website design of Gods Unchained is superior because it integrates with Metamask. Unfortunately Relentless doesn’t integrate with Metamask even though they have an Ethereum checkout option on the website.
Overall, if I had to choose one game to invest time and money in it would be Gods Unchained. It’s important to mention that both games are still in beta and there are a lot of features / fixes that will be implemented. If you’re looking to play a blockchain based trading card game give both Relentless and Gods Unchained a try and decide for yourself.
To get started with Relentless, simply visit Loom.games and sign up for an account.
To get started with Gods Unchained, you need a beta access link which you can find below:
https://godsunchained.com/?beta-key=TPQzrjdMJw
If you want to know more about each game, check out our in depth review of each game below:
Gods Unchained Open Beta Review
Image(s): Shutterstock.com