Genre: Client games, Online shooters
Features: MOBA, Beautiful, Sci-fi, PVP
Status: CFT
Payment: Free-to-play
Developer: Epic Games
Publisher: Epic Games
Website: Go
Paragon
Paragon – a network shooter from the creators of Unreal Tournament and Bulletstorm, focusing on class differences and team play
Paragon – MOBA with a third-person view, WASD-management, card system for pumping characters and cool graphics. Taking as a basis the classical architecture of a map with bases, three lines and a forest, the authors created a mix of shooter and MOBA running Unreal Engine. It turned out unusually, beautifully and unwieldily.
Wanted MOBA, but it turned out as always
In Epic Games can do shooters – this can not be argued. It’s enough to remember Unreal Tournament and Gears of War. Therefore, it is not surprising that the Americans did not get the usual MOBA, but rather an action with its elements, remotely similar to SMITE.
Experienced “dater” quickly figure out what is happening. Here is the base, here are the protective towers, here is the forest with neutral creeps. We take the character, we stamp on our line and begin to thresh the creeps who than much. The highlight is that we are watching what is happening from behind the hero’s shoulder, and aiming at the pens.
The third person view seriously affects the gameplay. You do not see what is happening behind your back, so you are carried away by the dismantling of the enemy tower, you risk getting a pair of deadly cuffs from the enemy’s “kerry” who has run out from the dense thickets. It is necessary to constantly “mow the mauve eye” on the map, which, however, is typical of all MOBA games.
Who lives in Paragon
At the dawn of early access to Paragon there were about a dozen characters: a couple of tanks, one and a half support and a handful of short and long-range damage. Today, the situation has radically changed – the pool of heroes has significantly expanded and continues to grow. He is not particularly original, but the authors try to make each character unique. And it’s great for them. There are mobile killers, popping up like a devil out of a snuffbox behind the enemy, heavy tanks that can break into the crowd and survive, deadly snipers, AOE-Damage with heavy damage.
The emphasis in Paragon is made on team fights. Whichever you pumped, you were not, close contact with the enemy group will send you straight to the base. On the other hand, the game does not yet have the synergy of skills. Each hero in action acts on his own in the best of his abilities: the tank is tanking, the carrie is killing, the support tries to help the others. The skirmishes in the game are very spectacular, but they are stretched in time. With the release of the update “Monolith” the situation has changed for the better, but the dynamics are still not enough.
Card fever
Pumping characters in the Paragon is markedly different from the classic MOBA. In the game there are no traditional objects, instead of them – cards that increase one or several characteristics: mana or health regeneration, violent strength and frequency, impact speed, vampirism and so on. There are cards with active skills (treatment, shield, teleport), but they are very few, which is especially distressing. Access to new cards opens as the base level of the character increases, and this is another controversial issue – beginners are deprived of the opportunities that players with experience have.
On the other hand, creating a deck is an interesting process, as it opens up a wide scope for character setup. With the help of suitable cards, you can turn a tank into a killer, a mage in support or vice versa. By the way, nobody forces you to use default sets – in Paragon there is a full-fledged constructor, in which you can create maps with any set of bonuses.
There are no direct competitors for this project. Dota 2 and League of Legends in a slightly different format, and the same SMITE significantly loses Paragon as graphics. This gives some optimism: the game has all the chances to occupy its own niche and permanently settle there.
