In late 2013 Kiz studios released a free-to-play MOBA on Steam called Smashmuck Champions. After a year of updates and support the developers decided to switch platforms to PS4 and re-brand the game to Trans-Galactic Tournament. Still free-to-play the game has just entered limited-beta and can be downloaded by entering a code on the developer’s website. If you live in the US or Canada hop on over there now and get your hands dirty!
Now betas are always a tricky thing to talk about. We see most of what the game will be but based on feedback and some trial and error we can also see the developer make a lot of changes before the final product hits the market too. As it stands, TGT is a 4v4 team based game that sits somewhere between Fat Princess and League of Legends on the MOBA spectrum. Each player controls one of the game’s ten champions and heads into the arena to duke it out in one of the objective based modes. It’s got the modes one expects from a game like this: Plunderball (capture the flag), Conquest (king of the hill), and Annihilation (team deathmatch). Unfortunately, they don’t do anything interesting with the modes; this is just some straight up objective based chaos.
And the game is quite chaotic. To the point where it can be difficult to make sense of what’s happening. That’s par for the course with most MOBAs though. It usually takes some time to figure out the language of the game. That being said, the game feels simple. Positioning is a huge part of most MOBAs but battles in TGT seem to devolve into running towards a group of enemies and slamming on the shoulder buttons until you kill something or you yourself die. Hopefully the developers will be able to make the combat more dynamic and interesting for launch (feedback!).
In its current state all the champions play almost identically which is a huge bummer. Each champion has three unique skills but essentially all of the skills are a high-damaging nuke (or a buff) plus a status effect which makes all the champions feel quite samey and stale. Also, there’s no in-game leveling which further adds to the dullness. The champion you start the match with is going to be the champion you end the match with; which at this point should be a cardinal sin in MOBAs. Even if skills could be upgraded slightly (more range, bigger radius, etc) it would add a lot to the game (feedback!). I have to mention that I haven’t played against any human opponents yet, there aren’t enough players online to get a match going. So some of my complaints about the general combat could change if I were up against smarter humans.
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“TGT is a 4v4 team based game that sits somewhere between Fat Princess and League of Legends on the MOBA spectrum. Each player controls one of the game’s ten champions and heads into the arena to duke it out in one of the objective based modes.”
Aside from the core game, TGT has some notable customization options. It has a similar rune system to League of Legends where you can buy passive upgrades for the champion of your choosing. Things like attack buffs, skill cooldown reduction, movement speed are all available for purchase with coins, which is the in-game currency, or with “chips” which is their real-money option. By default, half of the champions are locked and must be purchased with coins or chips but if you’re hoping to buy a champion you’re looking at a $10 investment. Which is pretty outrageous considering what you get (feedback!). It is still a beta though and the prices could be rebalanced. Also, like most F2P games of this nature, it has an account levelling system. The more games you play, the more you unlock. Weapons eventually become available for each champion — again purchasable for coins or chips — and those weapons further buff your attacks or cooldowns.
The positive here is that it isn’t all bad news and TGT definitely has potential. Champions like Rook have interesting powers such as creating walls on the battlefield and teleporting. Stuff like that is actually quite interesting and rewards players skill and teamwork. I hope the developers focus more on those sorts of things that will separate their game from the multitude of other good MOBAs on the market. Only time will tell but this is still a MOBA worth keeping an eye on as it leads up to release.
*** Beta code provided by the publisher ***
