Slugeterra: Dark Waters

Slugterra: Dark Waters is a freemium sci-fi action-adventure game based on a TV show where players control a variety of characters through alien worlds using weapons that shoot a variety of cute slug-like creatures as ammunition. It's possible to play through the game without ever spending any real-world cash, but players will probably have to watch plenty of advertisements and grind through the same battles many times to earn enough coins to buy power-ups. The game's violence is cartoonish and doesn't feature any kind of gore, but it's impossible to play without killing some enemies. Be sure to take a look at the app's privacy policy for information on the kinds of data are collected, stored, and used by the developer.
Slugterra: Dark Waters is one of the best conversions from other media I have played on Android.

For those unaware, Slugterra is a cartoon series starring a character called Eli Shane and featuring an assortment of weaponised slugs that form the basis for the show. Much like Pokemon, this popular show is ripe for a game version, and that is exactly what we have here.

Apps Ministry have brought us a top down, pseudo isometric action game with light RPG elements. The game plays well, and the action has a satisfying feel, with the slugs having the correct amount of impact as they hit your enemies. The developer has got the balance between difficulty and the player feeling powerful just right, which automatically lends the levels a certain sense of natural replayability.
If you heard nothing about Slugterra, you are most likely older than 13 or don’t follow your kids’ interests. My nephew is obsessed with slugs, and when I asked him what was so special about them, he said they were bad-ass and introduced me to Disney XD’s Slugterra TV show that is already airing some sixth season, no more no less.

For those who need a reminder or may not be familiar with the series, Slugterra follows a story line based on an underground world deep under our feet. This subterranean location has people, villages, amazing technology and slugs.

What are slugs? These creatures are cute little pets, but they are much more than they seem. They are also living ammo, as you can shoot them out of your blaster and use their unique abilities to protect the underground world.
Story

The first appeal of the game is it does not really require you to know the story of the eponymous animated TV series. You can, of course, watch an episode or two if you like, but it won’t affect the gameplay, unless you want to know what the slugs are and what is the big idea with the dark water.

Slugterra is an underground world made of 99 caves, and even though the land looks bright and sunny, it is still located somewhere at the core of the planet.
The protagonist is Eli Shane, a youngster who has been trained to tame slugs and fight other folks on the arena. The slugs are thankfully not the kind you’d see consuming human flesh in Hannibal, but nonetheless may induce a shiver down your spine when you think of what they are. However, despite being slugs, they are also supercharged weapons, and when you load them in your blaster, they deal a variety of damage effects on your enemy and on their slugs. They were also made very cute. Their powers are based on the energy and the four forces of the planet – fire, water, air and ground.

Now, the bad guy is some Doctor Blekk, who has build many factories to produce the dark water, which would enable him to capture all the slugs and turn them into his mindless slaves. So, Eli and his companions have to fight Blekk’s thugs and protect the 99 caves from the oppression.
Here, straight from the developer, are the app’s best features:

* 13 levels
* 4 duel arenas
* 10 unique enemies
* 3 types of gameplay – isometric action, third person shooter, fighting.slugterra android
* Controllable slugs
* Intuitive and user-friendly interface
* Unique graphics and gameplay
* Frequent upgrades and new in-game content

There are 13 campaign levels to play through, as well as 4 one on one dueling areas. The real meat of the game is in the ability to customise your loadout, with many options and unlockables to find and use, and it is here that players will find the game starts to keep calling them back for more, to try new items and stats.

I would like there to be a few more levels to play in, but the developer has promised new regular content so lets hope more is on the way.

In this high-tech world beneath your feet, the ammo's alive and only the quick survive. Play as Eli Shane and assemble your team of slugslingers to protect the citizens of Slugterra. Collect an arsenal of little critters called slugs — when you fire them at 100 MPH out of your high-powered blaster, they transform into powerful battle beasts!

With the help of your friends, your slugs, and your cool high-tech gear, defend Slugterra from the clutches of Dr. Blakk, who seeks to control the 99 caverns. The crux of his plan? To ghoul all the slugs with a substance called Dark Water, transforming them into mindless weapons! Track down and destroy each of Dr. Blakk's Dark Water stations before he can conquer the 99 caverns!

this is a successful action game, but it's not as exciting or innovative as other options. The game's story is fleshed out enough to drive the missions, but it ultimately feels pretty shallow and a bit self-contradictory: Eli's fighting to keep the slugs from being weaponized, all while using weaponized slugs himself. Combat doesn't take much skill, which makes the game pretty accessible but doesn't give the same satisfaction as something more complex. The game's art and environments are well done, but everything feels a bit like we've seen it before. In short, it's solid enough and no doubt will delight fans of the series, but newcomers might get bored quickly.
Gameplay

You play as Eli, and before you can get to the action the game will lead you through a tutorial and teach you how to move, shoot, battle on the arena. It’s all very intuitive, but don’t swear because of the tutorial – the game wants to grab a wider spectrum of the audience, including the younger players.

Next, you are presented with three parts of the gameplay – 13 levels, 4 arenas, customization, and each part is thoroughly entertaining to keep you coming back for more.
The developers at Apps Ministry knew well the non-Slugterra audience would be downloading the game, so thankfully we don’t have to know the ABCs of the Slug universe, and the game is a faux isometric 3D action platformer with some enjoyable RPG elements and accessible difficulty.

You walk along different areas destroying the thugs and all sorts of crates and boxes. You do so by firing your blaster at them, or by manually throwing slugs at them. Each item and each enemy you take down convert into a handful of coins – collect those.
But before you get to the missions you need to go through the customization part, and it’s not overwhelming, but fun enough not to bore those who do not like the extensive skill trees and too much micromanagement. You have the Companions, Blasters, Ammo, Slugs, and Consumables to configure.

The default companion is Pronto, a sort of a fat squirrel with a gun. You can unlock four more companions as you play, and that’s why you need to collect the coins. Pronto is goofy but quick, so he can stay up and running for quite a long time if you don’t get him shot by a direct hit too many times.
I must mention the effort that has gone into designing the look of the game, as it is very impressive. The animations are good, the frame rate very stable and the worlds are colourfully designed and seem to be faithful to the TV show. The developer has even managed to nail the character animations and unique stylings from the original as well. If you are a fan of the TV series, you will be in heaven here.

Overall, I have come away from Slugterra: Dark Waters suitably impressed. For fans of the show, this is a no-brainer. For everyone else, this is a good-looking action game with a few RPG elements and decent customisation options, so is still very much worth checking out.

You never know, this game could be good enough to create a few new fans of Slugterra and send them rushing to Google to find out more about the show. Highly recommended.
The unlockables make for another fun part of the gameplay because the faster shoes or the stronger alloy make a difference in the gameplay, as well as the better blasters and upgraded slugs. The best part here is you can unlock the things you want without paying in real money, more on that later.

The slugs come in a great variety. The default Infurnus is an extremely rare and powerful fire slug that sets the enemy on fire. Arachnet is a mix of a slug and a spider, so it shoots green web around its prey and immobilizes it for a while. Geoshard is a special slug that will power Eli while Neotox poisons the target.
you can’t just fire the slugs all the time – they have a cool down timer to rest and recharge. Even though it’s not too long, some 5-10 seconds, but you can speed it up by giving them food. Provided the cool down timers are short and some critical situations need quick acting on your part, the snack packs don’t always save the day. You can find the slug food packs in the Consumables part of your Arsenal, along with the Health Kits, and those do save the day.

When you take hits your health bear decreases and you may not make it till the end of the mission. So, a small or large pack of health kits is always a handy consumable recommended for every mission.

Health kits seem imperative and more important than the ammo upgrades, but the latter sure look good. However, the key to success is in the controls.
Simply tap to move and to target enemies. Customize your armor and blaster, equip your favorite slugs and upgrade them for maximum power. The more you play, the more gear and slugs you unlock!

* 18 levels
* 5 duel arenas
* 10 unique enemies
* 3 types of gameplay – isometric action, third-person shooter, fighting.
* Controllable slugs
* Intuitive and user-friendly interface
* Unique graphics and gameplay
* Frequent upgrades and new in-game content
Controls

While in the Missions, you play from the third-person perspective and you move by tapping where you want to move. It’s easy because you see exactly where you’ve tapped thanks to the blue arrow. Likewise, you tap on a target to shoot at it, and here comes the tricky part. Your blaster does not just auto-fire non-stop, there is a slight delay between the shots, some kind of cool down timer. So, make sure your target has not moved from the spot it was on by the time you fire that second or third shot. Otherwise, you can miss.

At the same time, if you choose to manually launch a slug, it will auto-aim and hit the target for sure – just remember they have to recharge. Sometimes, the companion does a great deal of your job, if he doesn’t get shot directly too many times.
Arena is different – here you play from the first-person perspective and besides moving left and right by touching the onscreen buttons or by swiping left and right, you launch the slug and direct it to the moving target. Sometimes it is not so easy to achieve and the slug can miss, but it surely is fun to direct it as it flies.

In fact, the Arena battles make moving one of the most important aspects to dodge the enemy slugs, while directing your slugs is essential to hitting the moving target.
Sometimes, two slugs, yours and that of your opponent, meet in mid-air and that’s when a mini-game, or a mini-battle between them occurs and you have to tap as fast as you can to energize your slug to defeat the enemy slug.

Design

There is enough variety in the missions locations and the arena battles to keep that exploration interesting and visually appealing. You might not expect this kind of polish and depth from a free game, but Dark Waters proves there can be quality behind a freemium title that does not give you peptic ulcer with its IAPs. The game looks gorgeous and obviously a lot of love has been invested in its art.
Pros

    Addicting gameplay
    Accessible difficulty
    Intuitive UI
    Great visuals
    Variety in the gameplay when you play from a third and first-person perspective
    Smooth controls
    Interesting slug mechanics
    No need to watch the kids show to enjoy the game
    A mild approach to the RPG elements, when customizing and upgrading is fun instead of being a tedious bore as in the hardcore RPGs – and if that sounds like your cup of tea, you might actually play this game to its full upgrade and customize level without spending real money, unless you want to support the developers

    A very just freemium model – the ads are optional, no paywalls, moderate grinding, fair rewards

Cons

    Before you upgrade your blaster, your character will be somewhat slow to fire
    The game is a bit short, but considering it’s free and gets updates frequently you will still have a good time with it
    Dry dialogues
    May seem simplistic to the hardcore RPG fans

Even though the gameplay does not introduce any novel ideas or mechanics, Dark Waters is quite an engrossing and accessible action platformer with a few RPG elements that make unlocking all the gear and slugs a challenge you would want to accomplish. Some might complain 13 missions and 4 arena battles aren’t enough, but provided you can play them for free and the developer suggests there would be frequent expansions, it is well worth playing. You do not need to study the story line of the TV show to play it, nor will the game tempt you to watch it, but the gameplay is nonetheless fun. More so, if you are a Slugterra fan. Do not expect any depth from the dialogues, but the visuals are impressive and the game is very well optimized for mobile, even the older models.