Transformers Legends is powered by Mobage Games and is a card based rpg for mobile formats.

Hasbro at least must have been impressed, as they have an upcoming G.I.Joe Game in the works that is sad to be more similar to one of their other games, blood brothers, than the Transformers Legends.

The main portion of the game is collecting cards via opening the space bridge. You can equip the weapon cards and transcan the vehicle and robot modes into single cards boosting their power. You can choose to battle other players or play a mission that involves card battles as well and other scanning and tapping activities.

While scanning a boss of the opposite faction (you may play as either Autobots or Decepticons) may appear and you will need tap their rockets to knock them down, this earns you points that levels you up. Each level has additional rewards such as more energy to spend.

The card battles themselves are ultimately on auto pilot, you can skip every battle if you desire. That should clue you in to what kind of strategy game this is. There is indeed a strategy element  in selection your cards,  and leveling them and their weapons up, but ultimately the heart of this game is more about collecting.

I can’t help but compare any card game to Magic The Gathering, with it’s great turn based tap and play system. This is far more easy and casual friendly. For an IOS game that you may need to stop frequently that has it’s benefits, especially in player vs player combat, but because of it’s lack of depth it can also grow old quickly.

This is a free to play game and it should be noted that you are going to be slowed if you are playing for free. The game wants you to spend cash in two ways, to buy energy to make moves in the game, and to buy better cards or at least buy a chance to draw additional cards with higher rates for the better cards than the daily free draw.

You can still get a hold of plenty of cards for free. You can open up the “Space Bridge” daily to get a random card, and as you play through the missions you can collect cards.  The game also has “Episodes” with bosses  and additional  chances at cards.  As you compete in these episodes you will  earn additional points and medals you can trade in for cards.

The card mechanics are somewhat interesting. The unwanted cards can be feed to the cards you using to level them up or sold. i think this is an excellent way to keep cards moving. the transcan option can be confusing. The game alerts you as soon as it is possible to transcan and seems to really encourage you to do so, yet after playing for awhile i began to see tips that waiting to transcan untill each card is maxed out gets you a better bonus.  I’m not sure I like the transcan mechanic anyways, why not take advantage of the digital nature of the cards and allow them to not only to be flipped over to transform, but allow that to make a different mode. Since it’s done digitally there is no need for a uniform real back of the card.

Speaking of more information on the cards info on the characters is non-existent, wouldn’t it be nice if an an additional flip provided bios? remember it’s digital, in a digital world you can flip a card 100 times for a flat image.

In summary, the games mechanic are mostly simply, don’t feel instinctive but aren’t offensively bad either. The main draw is obviously looking at transformers art and that classic appeal of all rpgs, the reward of leveling up your characters and seeing them win.

I would give the game a 6 out of 10, and for an IOS Game, that’s not bad.

Let us know your thoughts in the comment section below.