Magic Pang / 매직팡

This game is based on the simple 3-match puzzle standard, seen in many games such as Candy Crush and Bejeweled, but with focus on doing battle. This means you will need more than just skill or luck to get ahead. You'll need experience to level up your characters, but each time a game starts, you automatically use up one of your five life bottles.

The basics
Each 3-match you make is made into an action. There are 5 different items you can match: Magic (attack), Sword (attack), Coin (game money), Blue potion (some HP) and Red potion (more HP). If you match 4 of the same item, one strong version of that item will appear. If you match 5 of the same item in a single row, one Special item will appear. When you click the Special item, all of one item type will be used at once.

The faster you make combos, the faster your Power gauge will fill up. If you're fast enough, you will also trigger a Fever mode, which turns every match into an explosion, activating all nearby items. When the Power gauge is filled, a Special Attack item appears on screen. You can have a maximum of three Special Attack items on screen at once. Click to use, but make sure to refill the Power gauge a bit first, or you will take some damage.

If there are no matches to be made, the board will automatically reset and you will be presented with a new set of items.

Experience
For each game you play, no matter if you win or lose, you gain star experience, shown at the top right. This experience will eventually give you a level up. Each time you level up you get a few Rubies, plus you get all of your used up life bottles back. When you have reached a certain level, you gain access to more playable characters. You can always buy a new character with Rubies, but Rubies are rare and I recommend that you save them for special characters which can only be unlocked with Rubies. Sometimes, there are competitions where you can win Rubies! Keep your eyes open in the menu.

All Coins you match during game will be saved to use for item and HP upgrades. They are pretty cheap at first, but after level 5 you will need to invest a lot of time to gain more and more Coins. HP and Special Attack strength are always more expensive.

Boosters
Before each game, there are four boosters to choose from which can gain an advantage. You buy a booster using Coins. The first one is a magnifying glass, which is fairly cheap and is usually worth the money, if you want to feel more confident during battle. It helps you out to look for possible matches when you get stuck. The second booster is to start with a Special Attack item. The third let's you start in Fever mode. The forth and most expensive booster is to start the game with extra HP and could be worth it if you want to win at all costs and always lose by a hair's breadth!


Offline vs Online
You have two modes to choose from: Offline or Online. In Offline mode, you play against CPU controlled opponents, divided into stage groups. Each stage has 5 opponents: 4 helpers and 1 boss. These bosses are the same characters as you can use to play yourself, which makes it similar to games such as Puzzle Bobble and Puyo Puyo. The difficulty rises quickly, so you will need to gain more experience, preferably by Online battles, to make more progress in the Offline mode.

The Online mode has its own experience system and features a Ranking system based on the number of games you've won. An opponent is randomized and you can get a hint of his or her strength by looking at the Rank Badge, but if you level up after playing a lot of Offline battles, you may still have a low online Rank, so you can never be sure of your opponent's true strength.

A game starts when both users accept their challenger. For each online game you win, you gain a few Ranking points, which are shown in numbers after each battle. Ranking points may vary depending on your opponent's Rank. If you win a number of games in a row, you will win extra life bottles. Otherwise you will gain a new life bottle automatically after 5 minutes.

Helpers
At first, you could only see them in Offline battles, but in a more recent game update, playable helpers were added to the game! These little fellas help you during battle in various ways and can also be upgraded by using Coins. They are divided into three ranks: A, B and C. The easiest way to get a helper is to fill up the Treasure Chest gauge in the main menu. To do this, all you need to do is Log in to the game each day, and the gauge will raise by 10/100. More things you can do to fill up the gauge is to give a life bottle to a friend or to invite your friend to a VS game. These actions will raise the gauge by 5/100 each. When the Treasure Chest gauge is filled, it will say "1" inside the Treasure Chest icon, and you will be able to use this to buy a random Helper from rank B or C. To gain an A-ranked helper, you will need to use 10 Rubies. But you could also end up getting a B-ranked helper, so it's risky. If you gain the same helper twice, it automatically levels up.

Evaluation
The graphics are super cute and the sound effects are satisfying. The music is OK but can easily be turned on and off in the menus. The controls are very responsive but I recommend Android 4.0 or higher to avoid lag. I did experience some technical troubles from time to time, but I am unsure if it's due to my Mobile Phone Operator or the game server. Either way, no matter how frustrating this game can be at times, Magic Pang will eat up your time, especially at first when you level up more often. What's so great about this game is you cannot go from bottom to top over night. But as long as you keep winning more frequently than you lose, you will never have to wait those 5 more minutes to play "just one more game".

Trivia
There is a "western" version of this game, called Witch Wars. Personally, I think it sucks. It's nowhere near as good as the original, and I'd rather learn Korean than to play a cheap copy.

Download
You will need Kakao Talk to play this game. See my previous blog entry.
You can download Magic Pang on Google Play here, or from App Store here.
Magic Pang is created by Com2Us Korea so all credits to them!

PLEASE NOTE: I did NOT get paid to make this blog entry, this is entirely my own initiative. I decided to blog about Kakao Games to make more people outside of Korea to notice them.