I have to say that some of the negative reviews do seem a bit harsh.

Firstly, you can play the game without paying anything if you are a reasonable player at matching games. It does cost 50-60 gold to battle but you can earn a basic return of 25+ gold back each fight, over 100 gold if its PVP plus 4-5 gold everytime you get 4 or 5 in a row. I can easily break even or make a profit in the majority of fights.

The game matches PVP players which I have found to be very reasonable and well balanced.

Secondly, if you complete all of a cities quests you win that cities hero card so it is possible to build a team of 4 good monsters/heroes. I think it took me about 5 days to gain the first city hero card without paying anything. I have no doubt as you progress the top players will pay to play but you can still have a really good experience without doing so if you really want.

After about 6 days of playing i bought some keys and the return was very good compared to other games I have played. I did get several high quality cards.

No doubt the guild system requires a lot more work but again you can play without a guild quite easily.

So give it a go its a really good game and it is free to play :)

Fun little game, nice concept, nice art.

BUT.

Besides the fact that the reward is half as much as you have to pay to fight a battle, this game has the
worst.
cheating.
AI.
EVER.

The AI always gets the extra turns, always gets the skulls, always gets a great combination of gems and/ or skulls just as it's about to lose and turns the tide of the battle. Always.
One of the best examples I came across: I was just about to win a battle the enemy had one card with I dunno 3 health? it plays one random row of 3 gems, and all of a sudden the new gems that came on screen gave it 4 extra turns and twice 4 skulls. It destroyed all three of my cards with one move. For crying out loud FIX THIS.

Until then it's recommended, give it a try, but at the same time, no I don't recommend it. It will only piss you off.

I like Gems of War. I dont know why specifically. If I were to describe the game to someone who had never played I would probably say something along the lines of it being like Bejeweled and Hearthstone had a baby. Though I know this is actually pretty far from accurate, its the first feeling I had when I started playing the game.

I personally feel that Gems of War being a mobile game has little effect on me enjoying it. Yes there is a cash shop, and there is a type of currency you need to keep playing, but I have seldom run in to any situations where I need more and cant get any, or have to pay. I have to say overall I enjoyed what I played of Gems of War, and while I will admit its not a game for everybody. I feel that it could very much have a playerbase large enough to sustain it.

simple, easy to understand, and fun.

Gems of War is a match-3 game with RPG and card collecting elements. If you've enjoyed the Puzzle Quest games, then this one is up your alley. It's free to play and even with the Gold "energy system", it's still a blast to play without having to spend a dime.

• Your team consists of 4 members which is usually your hero and 3 other Troop cards.
  
• Troops can be earned from Iron Keys (random chance, 1000 gold, guild tasks) or Magic Keys (real money).
  
• Troops level up by enchanting them with Souls. Max level as of now is level 10.
  
• Souls are gained by killing enemy Troops, completing Kingdom challenges, disenchanting duplicate Troop cards, PVP rewards, and guild tasks.

For every Kingdom quest line that you complete, you are awarded with the Epic card for that kingdom so no need to spend money on Magic Keys unless you really want a chance at those Legendaries.

Things will start out a bit slow since you only have 1 Kingdom and a basic team but hang in there. Once you unlock more kingdoms and join a guild, Iron Keys will become frequent and gold won't seem like a huge deal.

Read on for more tips on Gold and maximizing it. WARNING wall-o-text inc.

In Gems, Gold is used to initiate battles and unlock new kingdoms. Each unlocked kingdom will produce Gold for you if you complete up to a certain point in their quest lines, however, you can set one kingdom as your home kingdom to give you bonus gold and mana. Your home kingdom will produce for you 500 gold per 24 hours, or 525 gold if you completed the quest line for it.

If you log in once a day, you will receive a daily log in bonus. The bonus begins at 50 gold and then maxes out at 300 gold. The day resets at 7pm EST/6pm CST.

Gems also runs PVP events that will rotate every 2 weeks. So far, the events give you an additional 200 gold per day.

My recommendation is to join a guild. The guild will give you an initial daily gold bonus of 5% and of course, the percentage bonus will be higher the higher ranked the guild is.

This is what it looks like so far on a Day 7+ log in with one completed kingdom:

• Home Kingdom: 525 gold
  
• Day 7+ Daily Bonus: 300 gold
  
• PVP Event: 200 gold
  
• Guild Bonus (5% to daily): 25 gold

Total: 1050 gold / 24 hours for just logging in

Other ways to maximize Gold is to play smart. Matching 4 or 5-in-a-row will give you 4 gold and 5 gold respectively. If you are decent at match-3 games and setting up moves for those 4 & 5-matches, you will seldom, if not never, run out of Gold. Out of my playtime on Gems, I have yet run out of Gold once.

There are also several Troop cards that give you Gold as their ability such as the Alchemist:

Alchemist
Transform a selected Mana color to Yellow. Gain [3+Magic] Gold.

At Level 10, he will give you 8 Gold and then you can choose a color to change to yellow and net yourself easy 4 or 5-in-a-row matches.

Tip: The maximum gold you can earn per battle from Troop skills and 4 & 5-matches is 105 gold.

With Troops like the Alchemist, you can come out of a battle hitting the 105 gold cap easily. And when battles cost 50 gold - 80 gold, you've made profit every battle.

The biggest gold costs are unlocking kingdoms. It costs 250 gold to unlock your first kingdom and then every kingdom after that costs 250 gold extra (e.g. 500, 750, 1000, etc). There's really no way to lessen the blow so just save up :)

Very straight forward, but addicting game. Not a fan of how the primary way to get free cards is random key drops, but otherwise it's a fun way to kill some time.

I really enjoy playing this game. I like the gameplay and the idea of matching the different colored gems to attack your opponent and gaining mana to use special effects. The graphics are nice and the game is pleasant to look at. It’s easy to lose track of time while playing all the quests – if you have the coins to do them.

It’s got many nice features, but I do have some suggestions for it. Most of these are small changes or additions I’d like to see, but there are a couple of issues I’ll be addressing as well. I feel bad about giving this game a negative review (because it is a good game), but there is an issue that needs to be fixed before I can recommend this game.

There isn’t too much variety on how your character appears – 6 different races and your gender. So there are really only 12 different appearances your character can have, not including the two types of free armor and (the other ones you have to pay real money for). I’d like to see more variety in customizing your character.

The gem "hints" can be useful, but not always. Many times it's suggested that I make moves that would not help me and it would help the computer by setting up a combination for its next turn. You can turn these hints off, but I prefer to keep them on for when they actually are helpful.

There’s a place where you can type to your guild under the announcements button, but none of the users in my guild ever use it and its unclear whether that is supposed to be a guild chat or not. It would be great to have a specific place to chat with your guild that is different from the announcements so they don’t get lost in the chat. It would also be nice if we could have more than 10 members in a guild.

The coins you earn are used to unlock new content and every time you want to battle, you have to pay coins. You do earn coins every day you log on and your cities do generate coins, so it isn't impossible to play without paying (at least where I am currently in the game). So it hasn’t bothered me that much yet, but it does limit what you can do.

If there were some changes made to this game (specifically the problems I’ve mentioned), it could be very great. I understand that because it’s a free game they need to try to make money somewhere, but there are so many places, it would be better to just eliminate them and charge for the game.


The main problem I have about this game is how the computer plays against you. I've been in battles where there's not much I can do, and then the AI will get a bunch of combinations. Some of the times I don't see them, which was my fault. But many other times, the way the gems fall into place after you've made a move will cause the computer to make more combos. I've seen them get multiple in a row - like six or more - just because of the way they fall into place. This also happens with the skulls, which are used to attack. If there's an open spot between two of them, more often than not I've noticed that a skull will fill in. The way it's set up is for the AI to win.

The AI will make the best possible moves available (often that were a result of how the gems fell in after my turn). So it allows the computer to gain more mana and attack more often. The AI also has better troops, because they want you to buy them. I’ve gotten some by playing the game, but the best troops are available by buying a magic key (to unlock the chest) to increase the rarity of the cards won, which are random. You can level up your troops by spending souls, which are won by each opponent you defeat. However, if you keep being beat, your soul count goes up very slowly or doesn’t change.

The game is set for the AI to win. It’s as simple as that. If that problem was fixed and the game wasn’t relying quite as heavily on paying, I would give this a positive review.

Now then, This is a game which has been released apparently as a cellphone game originally but has been later converted to steam and works multiplatform ( nice! ). That isn't something I personally mind in any way, and would even encourage... Assuming that the game is actually good. In this case, the answer is rather mixed. But has certain things draging it down harder than an anchor stuck on a giant blue whale.

The good parts about the game are still quite impressive, and I will summarize them first, as to not discourage everyone.

-The game has ( in my opinion ) more than good enough art for its purpose. The sound effects are rather nice and the variety from what I have seen is quite good. Nothing dragging it down here at all even if it -could- use a bit of polish.

-You get a fair amount of energy per day, at least for the first few hours you play. ( more later in negatives )

-Lovely concept, I myself have puzzle quest, and this feels more polished as something you could play with friends with in a guild for weeks IF they expanded upon it. It has amazing potentional, however, for now, that is all it is. ( potentional ) But still is the reason I intend to keep it in my library.

-As I already mentioned, multiplatform, as well as from what I have seen quick support / help when I looked for how well people were helped.


However, the negatives outweight the positives. For very BIG and OBVIOUS reasons.

-The SINGLE and most ANNOYING negative drawback is that the computer will ALWAYS cheat ( edit: Cheat in this case means unreasonably perfect play, even when you intentionally play WITH it in mind. And worse, it often gives you FAKE INFORMATION. Often TRUSTING the pc advice hurts you. ). The robot simply DOES NOT make human errors. If there is a 4+ combo you might have ever missed, you can bet the AI will take it. And if another one exists? He will take that too. Combine that with the feeling that whenever you play around this, the game places skeletons in the most unfair positions and this feels less so like a fun game and more so a "find the 4 combo" or be completely screwed. Another big issue of the game, is that the AI not only has the benefit of never making a mistake, but the monsters it has at disposal will also be "higher level". This simply drains any casual fun out of the game, which I find odd since this game seems to be targeted for a more relaxed group and not the groups which would stress themselves to death over each combat. If anything, to separate "long staring contests with the screen" type of raids that actually reward you with simply expecting "above average but not perfect" play from your opponents might gain more support for the game. And if turning off the overpowered AI is not acceptable then at least making sure that there is a fun mode with at least average rewards ( Super rant. But really, play this game enough and you will feel the pain regarding this. )

-You get more than enough energy in the start... However, the 500 energy needed for an extra town and the 50 energy for tasks quickly turns into 750- then even 1000+ energy for more towns. More downs barely give you more energy, so you would need a long time to pay it off. The same for tasks, which continue to increase in price but the rewards remain shallow. This makes progression forcefully slowed when the game already has little else to offer past exactly those things.

-PvP is PVE against PVP accounts. This is not directly 'wrong', and I do understand that you cannot have pvp without removing the "infinite time between turns" it currently has now. But if I invested far more time ( and possibly even money ) into this I imagine only fighting vs AI would kill it a little, unless they expand in other areas to fill the much needed gap for either cooperation on a more personal level or competition. I will personally edit this away when that happens.

-THE SHOP IS BROKEN! I have tried to purchase coins, just to test a few things but it denied me every single time. I checked and it appears that on the cellphone version this isn't an issue. So if someone else is having this issue they would have to link their accounts, download onto their iphone the game, and then buy the coins over that. Which sounds like an awful hastle. Especially since this would be the main income for them. I suspect it is because my steam uses "kr" instead of "$" but even so it is quite a big flaw. ( I charged my wallet, and even with more than two times the needed amount it simply gave me an error )

-----

Tl;dr : The game feels unfinished, with big unfun flaws but has crazy potentional. I want to love it, and you should want to love it too. Assuming they fix it.

There is no real pvp. -> You only play against the AI which uses the troops other players have.

There is no Pay to Win. -> Its all about the legendaries. I spend 10 Euro in Magic keys and only got crap cards. Another guy spent 40 Euros and received only one or 2 Legendaries. If you spend 80 Euros it does nott mean that you receive 4 legendary cards, I mean automaticly. You can get a lot of crap cards instead. So never pay money!

You cant get to 100 Percent -> You need 100 troops.. But there are only 99 troops in it. And you need all legendaries and that becomes very expensive, because it has to do with luck and buying magic keys for real money.
Edit: Okay, after the X-Mas Event there are 100 troops now ingame. But obtaining all the legendaries makes it still impossible.

AI is cheating -> I would not use this word, but it is weird. Sometimes the AI matched gems he does not need. Than you matches gems which you need and than 3 Skulls come into field in that order that the AI can match them. Or your ♥♥♥♥ing monitor exlodes because the AI have one 4 in a row after another. You can avoid it a little if you dont use the suggested moves of the AI. Sometimes I feel insulted, because its obvious that the suggestion leads you into your certain death. Escpecially if the AI has some OP cards.

I dont know, it begins to get boring.

I'm wondering why there is such a lot of hate around this cute little game. Yes, it has ingame shop and purchases but every single free to play game has it, this is how that kind of games rolls. There are enough free coins and resources to progress and have fun in this game, no one gonna rob your wallet or force you to pay. This is smooth and relaxing kind of a game. I will definitely recommend this game to all Candy Crush lovers.

I'll leave here some Captain Obvious's tips and tricks:

• Do not suck. Yas, this is pretty simple
  
• Use your brain. Think carefully before every step, look at the whole bunch of gems and at the each one of them at the same time, wake an eagle that sleeps inside of you, your personal inner concentration.
  
• Be logical. Do not pull randomly gems to the left and right, find the right combination and go for it, remember, every step counts.
  
• Form your team. This game has a lot of different troops with unique abilities, choose wisely, who will end up in your team or who will rest in peace.
  
• Be patient. Instead of useless frustration about loss of your coins, go and enjoy your life, do something useful and fun.
  
• Do not act like a chicken that lived through nervous breakdown This is not gonna end well

EDITED

At first this game seems fine and all... then later on the AI can really cheat bad. Don't belive what the devs tell you until you can experiance it first hand. I have even streamed this game and people agree this game is heavily pay to win with poison everybody + straight to HP damage troops. With patch 1.0.3 coming soon ( http://gemsofwar.com/patch-preview-1-0-3/ ) I have instantly lost what little faith I had in "PvP" (AI controlled players' troops) balancing, and the game becomes more of a money grab than anything. The puzzle aspect is way more luck than actual puzzle.

What is really dumb about the PvP is that it really isn't PvP; It's pseudo PvP with players' troops that the AI controls. You would think the makers of Puzzle Quest wouldn't regress like this, but it seems like they did with this mobile port.

I really wanted to like this game, and gave it more than a fair shot to show me any redeeming factor after putting a lot of hours into it. They should feel ashamed for hunting for microtransaction "whales" in this "PvP" game. Really sad that they wanted to butcher what worked pretty well in Puzzle Quest 1, but all they kept was the broken AI.

I would've rather paid 5-10 bucks for a game with a decent economy structure. The art and sound are nice, but the pace is slow, and the AI starts to cheat with lucky drops, forcing you to spend money.

Don't waste your time.

A very good game to kill time. I love the way how you're able develop your hero. The puzzle system of battle is very interesting to me... but so little gold yet. Though it's not a problem since the game is free and donating system is very polite to gamers. I really enjoy the graphic and the engine. If you are looking for some nice MMO puzzle game so this one is for you.

Neat game, but like others have said the AI get exceptionally and coincidentally lucky a good portion of the time. It doesn't matter how strategic you are, the AI gets lucky drops way too often. Of course, if you like a challenge, this can be fun. Another thing, you're unlikely to earn back the gold you spend for each game.

This is starting to look like a pay to win game, or at the very least pay to play. For every kingdom you purchase the price goes up for the next kingdom. They do run weekly events where you earn extra gold and glory, but it really does start to drag on soon as the price for a new kingdom is in the 1-2+k range.

You can earn keys by random drops to unlock new cards or purchase keys with gold, but a lot of the cards are duplicates.

This game is addictive and will keep you occupied until you run out of gold.

It is an aesthetically pleasing game, but unless you feel like spending money or have the patience of a saint, it's probably not going to be a very enjoyable experience. It certainly isn't for everyone.

I don't even know where to start.

If I ever wanted to make someone hate the original Puzzle Quest, this would be the game I'd make, I guess.

As a lot of people already mentioned here, one of the most obvious and frustrating gripe with the game is the enemy AI. The game does not revolve around the player trying to make good matches. It revolves around the player trying to avoid creating matches for the AI. But resistance is futile, if you don't create matches for the enemy, the board will make sure to create it for you from outside of the table. You think you made a good skull match? Hah! Think again, because you just created two other for the opponent. It really downplays any kind of strategy.

Then there is the "progression system".

Your currencies are gold, souls, and gems.

Gold being your primary resource, is used to "purchase" Towns, towns which will generate you additional money. However gold is also used and is constantly being drained from you through Invasions (PvP of sorts, although still AI controlled) and Quests. A quest has multiple objectives, each objective eats up 50 gold, which ramps up as you advance.) The return of gold on the other hand is very small, always less than the amount you invested. It cripples progression and obviously tries to force microtransactions.

Your abilities from Puzzle Quest are replaced here with Cards, these are unlocked by accidentally stumbling onto a key every 10 years. 1 card/character provides 1 ability. You level up these individually for Souls. Which is yet another gripe with the game. The amount of Souls required to level cards are substantially more every time, while your Soul income from quests is significantly less. And then you are supposed to level more than one cards, but you can barely (if at all) can keep up with one. Not to mention that each levelup feels underwhelming, resulting in 1 statpoint increasing.

TL;DR

The game does not feel rewarding. At all.
It weighs towards the frustrating side.

Oh, and the writing is brilliant. *sarcasm*
Examples of your character's lines:

"Okay."
"Great."
"Good!"
"What?"

Yep.

There are other means of getting cards, and other "currencies", but I don't think I'd have to patience to even get there.

seriously this game may be free and all. but ♥♥♥♥ it. the dumbest ♥♥♥♥ will happen to you all the time. new gems drop in and your god damn opponant will get 6 ♥♥♥♥ing extra turns. ♥♥♥♥ this stupid ♥♥♥ game

At first I thought I was just unlucky, but there's just no way. This is the cheapest AI I have ever played against. Shame too, because the game is actually quite friendly for a free to play title.

Fantastic game.

The cards are great, the battle system is fun and enjoyable and the developers are on the ball with their responses when support is needed. Although the game is in it's early stages I can't get enough of it. There is more then enough content to keep you busy for some time.

I see complaints about the AI in some of the negative reviews and although they do tend to get lucky sometimes, it isn't outrageous like the reviewers state. The game is more than fair and if you pay attention and have a good team you're going to have a good time.

It takes a while to get off the ground, but the game truly can be free to play. I've unlocked all the kingdoms and gotten up to rank 4 with a solid team of units, all without paying anything. I'm likely to make a small purchase for some vanity stuff just to support the game, but it really isn't necessary.
If you liked puzzle quest, this game is in a very similar vein, and virtually the same.
That said, the strategy and options are much deeper, and although it can be played casually, there's some pretty neat combos in there for those who like to think about their choices.

Good game, easy to play, great way to kill time