Review: Destiny of Spirits

Posted by Chris K on April 21st, 2014 | 3 Comments | Tags: Destiny of Spirits

There are a few genres of games which I will check out no matter what. One of those is anything that has to do with collecting cards or monsters. So when Destiny of Spirits was announced you could say my interest was piqued. While Destiny of Spirits isn’t everything I wished it was, it does offer a fun and engaging battle system that is very easy to pick up. It follows the basic rock-paper-scissors rule set, much like Elemental Monsters Online Card Game. I delve deeper into that and many systems of the game in the below video.

Since recording that video I been utterly frustrated by the game’s constant need for an internet connection and what seems like daily maintenance. Either Sony and Q Entertainment completely underestimated the popularity of the title or it is just straight-up broken. There was a three day stretch where I could not even get passed the title screen. We have seen “emergency maintenance” on an almost weekly interval (not to mention the scheduled weekly maintenance). This has made my user experience filled with frustration and makes playing the game almost a chore.

There are also some key features that are missing from the game like a monster/summon encyclopedia (which is promised to be added in a future update). I would love to track which creatures I have seen, summoned, etc. I also really wish the title did not require an internet connection to play. Sure you can do some things if you already had the game launched but there are many features which you can not access at all. I was really looking forward to playing this on my cross-country flight to Boston for PAX, but after closing the numerous and repeated error prompts and not being able to doing important parts of the game like summoning new creatures or merging monsters… I just quit and played something else.

All of this just has me disappointed in which could be a stand-out title on the Vita, a free-to-play beacon. However, currently it is just an always on-line broken mess.

A copy of this game was purchased for review purposes. For more info on our review policy click here.