Updated: 09.23.24
If you had asked me about a ‘Hero Collector’ genre of games years ago, I’d have literally laughed at the concept. A game designed around collecting & building heroes, where one of the main objectives is to set up team compositions to ‘auto run’ through dungeons and content for you? It sounds boring. Yet here I am, having played several of them over the years. At one time it evolved into one of my absolute favorite game genres. I did return to Summoners War: Sky Arena for a decent amount of time, but I’ve since retired from this genre of gameplay. I think I’ve found the amount of dedication these kinds of games require, is just a bit more than I have available to me these days. Or perhaps a bit more than I care to dedicate to them. Even still, I enjoyed all the games listed in this genre, albeit, I didn’t play Dragon Cliff much, and it’s not really on the same level as Summoners War and Raid Shadow Legends.
Hero Collectors, sometimes referred to as ‘Idlers’, focus around the collection and building of units for the purpose of making it through the game content. Typically this will be things such as: dungeons, campaign stages, boss fights, and arena. Generally speaking in early game play you have to manual some things similar to how you would in a RPG game, but the goal is to gear your units in a manner that will allow you to eventually ‘auto’ or ‘idle’ your way through the content. This process is desired because farming the dungeons for the gear (runes, glyphs, etc…) that the units will use takes time, and the less you have to manual the easier it becomes to farm in the background while you are doing other things. It can come off as a boring process to most, but it certainly appeals to a large crowd today. It is a perfect game genre for all those ‘min-maxers’ out there. On that note, there is plenty to do in terms of gearing and maximizing units, setting up compositions of units for teams, etc…
Summoners War
Website: Com2us
Current Status: Retired
Summoners War is easily one of the best Hero Collector games to date. While it is certainly getting up there in terms of age, it stands the test of time with a very strong gaming community comprised of both a loyal fan base, content creators, and company based community representatives. Having played numerous other Hero Collector based games out there, I have yet to find one that grants as much quality of life for gameplay and still offers so much to free-to-play players. The events reward players very well for their efforts, and while some of the summoning packages can be expensive, Summoners War certainly has plenty of deals to cater to low spenders too. Prior to retiring, I had played SW on and off a few times over the years. If I were to play one of these style games again, I’m almost positive it would be SW.
Raid Shadow Legends
Website: Plarium
Current Status: Retired
Raid Shadow Legends was one of the more popular Hero Collectors among our group here. It boasts amazing graphics and game play for a Hero Collector based game. Raid has soared in terms of popularity in its young life span, and doesn’t appear to show any signs of stopping on its rise to the top. It certainly has its fair share of loyal fans, content creators, and company based community managers. At its current stage it is a bit behind on features and quality of life, however Plarium has definitely made improvements, and promises even more is on the way. If Hero Collector games are your thing, you might consider giving Raid Shadow Legends a look. Just keep in mind, that of the Hero Collector genre, it is by far one of the hardest to do Free to Play. It also tends to take up the most of amount of time for any that I’ve played to date. Ultimately the time crunch required to keep your account competitive became more than our group was willing to commit, and we have since moved on to other games at this point.
Dragon Cliff
Website: Meta Interaction
Current Status: Not Completed
Dragon Cliff holds promise as more of a hybrid kind of Hero Collector Game. There is a unique style of gameplay in terms of hero collection, although it doesn’t quite take the same approach as the typical Collector genre. On my last play through it appeared to focus more on classes than unique heroes or units, where there is actually a quality level of said classes that can be collected over time. It does still host the same min-max features a lot of these games offer, and is certainly worth a play through for those interested in similar style games.