Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes is a collection based RPG available for download on Apple and Google Play for phones and tablets. When you start a new account, you are given a three-star Jedi Consular and a three-star Clone Sergeant. You use them to fight the first couple of Light Side Battles, where you learn that you can use training droids and gear you’re rewarded with to power up your characters. Soon, hard battles are unlocked.
Gathering award shards allows you to activate and use other characters. Unlocking new characters is especially important because, although all players have three fighters by that point, they still have an incomplete team, since one team includes five fighters each.
Over time, more modes become available, like Cantina Battles that award not only shards, but occasionally ability materials that you can use to improve the abilities of your fighters. In addition, winning Cantina Battles earns you Cantina tokens that you can use to buy shards in packs of five.
Competition in Galaxy of Heroes starts with Arena Battles. You fight your opponent’s team, and if you win, you climb the ranks. The higher the ranks, the greater the rewards, which include arena tokens that you can also use to buy shards. There are also championships where you fight another player with your teams.
Success is rewarded with promotions that award you crystals and championship tokens you can use to buy powerful pieces of gear. Crystals can be used for refreshing energy and battle cooldowns, or for buying gear pieces and shards outright. They’re essentially the bread and butter of Galaxy of Heroes players.
Beyond Light and Dark Side Battles and Cantina and Mod Battles, casual play also takes the form of Galactic Wars. Galactic Wars allow you to use all of your teams to fight a dozen random teams roughly between levels 60-85. They’re not overwhelmingly difficult, but they’re still challenging. Galactic Wars are a great way to experiment with new teams and get a feel for how they work and how much they can handle in combat.
Soon, you’ll also gain the privilege of joining a guild. Guilds are also competitive because they take on raids together, including the Rancor, the AAT and the Sith Triumvirate. Whoever does the most damage in the guild gets the most rewards, which in heroic raids, include shards for legendary fighters such as Han Solo, General Kenobi and Darth Traya. And it is the special event characters that can hook many players on to the game for the long run.
Not all characters are earned by using energy or tokens to farm shards — not directly, anyway. There are other powerful characters whose shards can only be obtained through special events. The exact requirements vary, but all of them require players to use at least five of the seven-star characters to make it through roughly six to eight tiers of combat. Winning all the tiers allows you to activate and use the character. There are a couple exceptions, but generally, these special characters fit into one of three categories: legendary characters, journey characters and galactic legends.
Legendary events tend to have looser requirements. For example, R2-D2’s event, “Daring Droid,” requires five of the seven-star Empire characters to activate; in other words, anyone within the Empire faction is eligible at seven stars. However, journey characters like Commander Luke Skywalker have stricter character requirements: Stormtrooper Han, Princess Leia, Old Ben Kenobi, Farmboy Luke and R2-D2.
The “Daring Droid” event serves as a stepping stone toward Commander Luke, who is needed in order to fight through “The Journey Continues,” so you can activate Jedi Knight Luke. Then Jedi Knight Luke is needed to fight through “The Journey’s End” and activate the GL Jedi Master Luke.
The “Hero’s Journey” isn’t just a couple rounds of RPG fights, however. There are also cutscenes that play during journey events that have the same graphics as the game. In that way, classic “Star Wars” stories are retold using a combination of gameplay and cinematics. Luke’s “Hero’s Journey” takes players through key battles in “A New Hope,” “The Empire Strikes Back” and “Return of the Jedi.” Fans of the original trilogy may be compelled to go through all the requirements of the journey just to experience the events they love through the lens of the game.
However, going through these journeys won’t happen overnight. Just farming enough shards to get fighters up to seven stars can take a couple of months. It used to be that these special events would only appear every couple of months, but now, most of them can be accessed and played through via the Journey Guide as soon as you’re eligible. It also allows you to keep track of your progress toward meeting the requirements necessary.
Still, the special character events give players incentives to build powerful faction teams. A lot of the special characters are no pushovers either. Commander Luke excels at stopping enemies before they attack with stun, counter-attacks and turn meter reduction. Darth Revan can use his Insanity ability to afflict all enemies with Fear if targeting the leader, or if the leader is already defeated. Fear makes enemies skip a turn as long as they aren’t attacked.
There are almost three dozen special characters to activate and a little over 200 characters in total, excluding ships, from many different areas of the “Star Wars” universe (both Canon and Legends) including the movies, TV shows and video games. Recently, characters from “The Mandalorian” were added, as well as a “Hero’s Journey” for the Beskar Armor Mandalorian.
Not all of the “Star Wars” media is included in the game yet. No characters from Fallen Order have been included, no Imperial Inquisitors or popular Legends characters like Kyle Katarn. However, there is little doubt that more will be added in time, especially with so many other “Star Wars” TV shows, video games and movies coming. Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes is a game that takes time and gets better the longer you play. There is always something new to work toward, and it leaves plenty of room for improvement. The game caters to casual and competitive players, and in my opinion, Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes is a must-have for fans of RPGs and “Star Wars” alike.
