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It's hard to find the right words. Combat Heaven has been a little but of an obsession of mine ever since close to I learned about the Internet. From finding the game's old trial version, learning it had a complete version, experiencing the brand new Combat Heaven Next on Game-Pure... then finding yet another new website that had an incredible prototype of a new game.

I checked Tonowi's blog time after time, anticipating the new game and seeing its updates. But one day, seven years ago, was the last post. Days turned into months, months into years... every time I checked the blog, there was nothing new. But as long as the site didn't die, I kept trying. Around every two, three, or four months, for the past seven years, I've checked the blog. Nothing but a few comments popping up rarely... some believing Tonowi was gone. But for some reason, I always checked, whenever I was bored and long periods of time had passed.

Well, I was at a moment of disbelief when I revisited Tonowi's website last night, and saw some updates and a new picture. Combat Heaven... is alive. I missed this news around two months ago, but... Combat Heaven is reborn! And with a brand new game to boot! That title screen almost had me in tears the first time... and the game's music is also great, some old themes are back and remastered.

So, I actually have mixed feelings. This game isn't the prototype from eight years ago. It's similar in some ways, but this is a phone game. It does still play like the real thing, though.

Controls are simple. All you do now is move. Attacking is automatic. You move by dragging and swiping around, so now you have a lot more control over your speed and direction. The auto aim and attacking makes the game feel pretty fast, though it does remove a lot of the original difficulty, But it's also satisfying because the game feels a lot more actiony, or cinematic. You can disable weapons you don't want to use, and reload manually.

You can equip two weapons at once, they'll attack once in range, including swords. But with swords, if you click when very close to an enemy, you do the good old spinning slashes. Missiles are now shot down automatically, too, and even slashed. Dual swords are pretty flashy and potent, you can just waltz through missiles and deal tons of damage.

Of course, this game has some armors and upgrading, too, most of which seem new. Many weapons are still the nice classics. Including CP, missions now dropped colored cubes, which act as materials for buying or upgrades.

This game is free, of course. However, being free on the Google Play Store, it does mean that there are ads. Luckily, they can be either closed instantly, or after five seconds. A bit annoying, but what can you do? It's just five seconds. A small price to pay for it on phone, and there are zero microtransactions. When you die, you can actually revive by watching 30 second ads... it's optional, you should probably just take the loss anyway (you still keep your loot), but it's nice for more casual players who just want to power through. I had to use Bluestacks to emulate a phone to be able to record, it seems to work the best, but has weird graphical glitches in the menus. Mostly tolerable, and all the gameplay works perfectly.

Overall, this game feels like Combat Heaven Next blended with the Combat Heaven 0.2 prototype. I want to say I'm a little let down, as it's a simplified phone game, and I really miss the much 'cooler' tone of the prototype with the deeper gameplay, but I don't know. It's actually a very fluid take on the game, fun, has lots of original things, and the new controls lend to the game having a lot of aerial combat. Mobility and evasion are much more integral, you don't have to worry about aiming at stuff not on screen, or tiny targets as you're both moving around very fast. In a way, I think this captures a certain spirit of the game better. It's pretty fun to mix the two equippable weapons around and feel so efficient.

And this also means Combat Heaven is now a game you can play wherever you are, when waiting in a bus ride, waiting on an appointment... Besides, the only way to go from here is up. Combat Heaven has returned.


Long time no see.
good evening everyone.
If someone who has been watching from long ago comes, it will be a long time.
It is tonowi.

http://tonowi.com/index.html

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=air.CombatHeavenTrialver