Raid Shadow Legend, developed by Plarium Games from Israel, is a TBRPG offering easy to play – hard to master gameplay. The game opens with an informative tutorial that will introduce us to the gameplay mechanics. Raid Shadow Legend's core is, of course, its turn-based combat. Our goal is to collect champions and defeat enemies on instanced stages. Each champion can perform one action during their turn – a standard attack or a special ability.

The game offers five combat modes. If you want to make the game easier, you can use the auto mode – the game fights for us, using the most beneficial strategy for us (even when we are using the speed up animation option).

Campaign consists of twelve stages during which we follow the game's storyline. Each location consists of seven stages – the cost of each stage is 4 energy points, with the exception of the last which costs 5 points (a boss fight). Each stage is divided into 3 rounds in which you face different opponents. You get the biggest bonuses for completing a fight with only two champions (without losing any of them). Depending on our score (rated on a scale of 1 to 3 stars), we will receive attractive prizes.

Dungeon is a typical place where we encounter a large number of monsters while we are searching for rewards. The game offers eleven locations, each of them consisting of fifteen stages. Dungeons are also a great place to gain experience. But remember that you have to pay for individual stages with energy points.

The Campaign and Dungeon modes have a Multi-Battle mechanic that allows us to automatically replay the same stage. We have 30 replays per day for both modes.

Faction Wars are crypts where only champions of the same faction as the crypt itself can fight (e.g. High Elf Crypt is intended only for High Elf champions). The prizes here are chests with Glyphs that will help us develop our champions. To enter a Crypt, we need to pay a Crypt Key. They are limited to 12 per faction and are refreshed every day.

The arena is a place where we can compete with teams belonging to other users. Here we will find a list of players who put up their champions, and the game will calculate the level of the opposing team and ours. Thanks to this, we can find out what are actual chances of winning against a particular team. To participate in arena battles, you have to spend Arena Tokens. One fight with the chosen opponent costs us one Token. Their limit is 10, but they get updated every hour.

Clan boss is available only after we join a clan. We face stronger opponents together with our clan members.

Raid Shadow Legends also requires a bit of strategy and smart investment. Besides combat, we also have to prepare our champions and get new ones. In the Portal, one of the available locations, we use the collected Shards (vessels containing the souls of dead warriors) to summon new champions. There are four types of them available:

• green Mystery Shard, with which we can summon (randomly) Common, Uncommon or Rare champions (summoning costs 500 silver coins),
• blue Ancient Shard and purple Void Shard, with which we can summon (randomly) Rare, Epic or Legendary champions (summoning costs 20,000 silver coins),
• golden Sacred Shard, with which we can summon (randomly) Epic or Legendary champions (the cost is 100,000 silver coins).

This location also allows us to do fusions – by collecting lower-ranked heroes, we can use the Fuse option to summon a higher-ranked champion, sacrificing those of lower rank.

Each champion has its own rank (1-5), rarity (Common – gray, Uncommon – green, Rare – blue, Epic – purple, Legendary – gold), type (Magic Spirit, Force, Void) and skills (Attack, Defense, Health Point, Support). We can equip them with gear obtained during battles. Weapons also have their own rank, rarity and upgrade options which will allow us to increase their statistics. All types have their own weaknesses and advantages, following the paper-rock-scissors principle – Magic is strong against Spirit, Spirit against Force, Force against Magic. The exception is Void, which is the only one that isn't particularly strong nor weak against other types.

The Tavern, unlocked at level 12, allows us to upgrade individual champions faster. To do this, we can use a specific type of potion or sacrifice less important champions. Each champions rank has a certain number of levels, so when we max out a favorite hero, we can raise their rank and start leveling them again, at a higher level. Upgrading a rank requires sacrificing champions or chickens of the same rank. Here we can also upgrade skills using Skill Tome (they come in various rarities: rare, epic, legendary). We can also improve our champion with special elixirs (earned in dungeons etc.) – the Ascended option gives them new skills and increases statistics.

At level 15, we unlock Sparring Pit where we can train our characters. This allows us to level up lower-level champion without decreasing team strength, for example, during a campaign.

The game offers many opportunities to get resources and items. Logging in every day gives us Daily Login Rewards. When we join Raid Shadow Legends for the first time, we receive New Player Rewards for 7 days, regardless of the daily strike. Also, every 5, 20, 40, 60, 90 and 180 minutes we can receive receiving Playtime Rewards. They are worth collecting – by doing this, we can get more items by completing daily quests and challenges. Referral Program is yet another way to get additional packs. To put it simply, we get packs by convincing our friends to log into the game with our referral link (up to three invites). In addition to Daily Rewards, we can also complete weekly and monthly challenges, achievements, Progression Rewards, and Challenge (Champion, Artifacts, Dungeon, Arena).

Despite the fact that Raid Shadow Legends is a free-to-play title and gives us a lot of opportunities to get resources, the game also has a premium store for those who want to boost their gameplay even further. It offers attractive packs, limited special offers, or daily deals. Of course, we can also purchase the in-game currency – both crystals and gems. We also get free Mystery (one per day) and Ancient Shard (one per week). Besides traditional purchases, there is a tab where you can buy individual items with gems. The store also offers Raid Cards (Silver and Gold), which will give us additional victory bonuses. Despite the fact that the store offers many attractive offers, all game content is available for free and the premium currencies aren't required to get full satisfaction from the gameplay.

Raid Shadow Legends is an interesting title that certainly deserves your attention. You don't have to spend long hours on monotonous grinding – the gameplay is pleasant and intuitive. The game also offers beautiful dark fantasy graphics. This is a perfect choice for all fans of turn-based jRPG games!