Review Fix Exclusive: Inside Primal Legends

Review Fix chats with Paul Evrard, Primal Legends Producer, Kobojo, who discusses the nifty PvP combat game that adds a ton of levels and deck building to create a deep and immersive fighting/puzzle experience.

About the Game:

Blending classic Match-3 mechanics, deck building and turn-based strategy combat elements, Primal Legends has players battle their way across 150 levels and 8 game modes; discover more than 50 heroes; and fight online opponents through real-time PvP combat.

Review Fix: What was the inspiration behind Primal Legends?

Paul Evrard: The inspiration behind Primal Legends came from a vision to create a fun and innovative multiplayer PvP game on mobile — bringing occasional Match-3 and TCG/RPG players together. With Primal Legends, we set out to bring the best of our culture and experience — taking lessons from both our successful track record and the action RPG game Mutants Genetics Gladiators. That experience led us to go for a simple and fun to play, yet deeply strategic game — with a high skill-cap. Adding deck building, hero synergies and board alteration mechanics closed the deal!

In terms of references, Might & Magic Clash of Heroes would be the main one: a tactical game with Match-3 elements. Still, this game is not really a perfect fit for the dynamic free-to-play mobile community. Hearthstone was also very inspirational for us (deck-building and card-collecting mechanics).  Lastly, Best Fiends gave us a lot of ideas on how to combine addictive Match-3 gameplay with interesting characters and RPG elements.

Review Fix: What has development been like?

Evrard: It’s been a blast and a great challenge. Specifically, we’ve been hard at work delivering the best real-time synchronized PvP experience possible on mobile — something we technically didn’t do on any of our previous games. We have a team of 20 people constantly balancing the game using in-game data and community feedback. They’re fully committed to creating a true evolution of popular mobile game types — bringing PvP with deep strategic layers to a Match-3 foundation.

Review Fix: Who did the artwork and how does it play a role in the game?

Evrard: All art is done in-house at Kobojo by our art team leads Alexandre Le Saux, and Aurélie Warszawski. Kobojo has always been at the cutting edge of hand-drawn 2D art — and we’re very proud of our creative department’s talent.

The main challenge for our artists was to create a rich lore, with strong and recognizable characters — each with a unique personality often tied with the animal species represented. Characters evolve visually as they break through level thresholds — growing with players as they progress through Quests and PvP. We also made sure players can fully experience each map in Primal Legend’s universe.

Review Fix: What games do you think Primal Legends borrows from?

Evrard: It has been said that Primal Legends is what you would get if Hearthstone and Candy Crush had a baby, which is actually quite on point. We aim to get the best of both game types: Match-3 swap mechanics for two players — each controlling a distinct board, battling in synchronized PvP against each other in real time, managing decks to compete with a synergized team of heroes.

Review Fix: With all the puzzle and strategy games on mobile devices, what makes this one special?

Evrard: What makes Primal Legends special is the “board against board” synchronized PvP gameplay. None of the Match-3 / RPG games out there offer two distinct boards — and PvP on other games is also not synchronized. We think synchronized real-time PvP is the most fun aspect of Primal Legends, and our playtest results confirmed that. Furthermore, dropping a Hero’s body on the Match-3 board to alter possible matches makes Primal Legends truly unique — with results in hero placement becoming a key feature. On other games, heroes have abilities they can use that do not physically impact the board.

Review Fix: Who will enjoy Primal Legends the most?

Evrard: Anyone can have a great time with Primal Legends because it’s super easy to pick up and play. The questing challenges — along with collecting and leveling up heroes — will probably appeal to beginners and newcomers. We expect that more competitive, hardcore players will become invested in deck-building — finding synergies between heroes, and developing strategies to outplay the competition. During playtesting, we’ve observed that players of all ages were having fun — regardless of whether they were eSports enthusiasts or more casual players.

Review Fix: Bottom line, why should people try it?

Evrard: Gamers should try Primal Legends because it’s a unique and innovative mobile game — easy to learn and enjoy but with deep strategic and tactical layers. Collect, level-up and assemble the strongest team of heroes — while exploring the wonderful universe of Theria.

Review Fix: What’s next for you guys?

Evrard: Production on a free-to-play game almost never ends. Our first goal is to polish and enhance every component to deliver the best experience possible to mobile players — fine-tuning and balancing Primal Legends thanks to great feedback we get from our beta testers. In the long run, we have a lot of ideas for developing the game and its community further — and adding new features and content for both PvE and PvP segments. The adventure has just begun.

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About Patrick Hickey Jr. 13819 Articles
Patrick Hickey Jr. is a full-time Assistant Professor of Communication & Performing Arts and Director of the Journalism program at Kingsborough Community College and is the chairman of the City University of New York Journalism Council. He is the Founder and Editor-In-Chief of ReviewFix.com. He's also a former News Editor at NBC Local Integrated Media and National Video Games Writer at Examiner.com where his work was mentioned in National Ad campaigns by Disney, Nintendo and EA Sports. Hickey was also the Editor-In-Chief of two College Newspapers before he received his BA in Journalism from Brooklyn College. Hickey's work has been published in The New York Daily News, The New York Times, Complex, The Hockey Writers, Yahoo!, Broadway World, Examiner, NYSportScene Magazine, ProHockeyNews.com, GothamBaseball.com, The Syracuse Post-Standard, Scout.com and the official sites of the Brooklyn Aces and New York Islanders. His first book, The Minds Behind the Games: Interviews With Cult And Classic Video Game Developers was released in April 2018 and is chock full of interviews with legendary developers. His second book in the series, The Minds Behind Adventures Games, was released in December 2019. His third book, The Minds Behind Sports Games, was released in September 2020. His fourth book, The Minds Behind Shooter Games, was released in March 2021. The Minds Behind Sega Genesis Games and The Minds Behind PlayStation Games were released in 2022 and The Minds Behind PlayStation 2 was published in January 2023. Hickey is also a contracted comic book writer, currently penning his original series, "Condrey," as well as "The Job," "Brooklyn Bleeds" "Dem Gulls" and "KROOM" for Legacy Comix, where he serves as founder, owner and Editor-in-Chief. Hickey Jr. is also a voice actor, having starred in the 2018 indie hit and 2019 Switch, PS4 and Xbox One release, The Padre (also serving as English language Story Editor), from Shotgun With Glitters. The sequel, The Padre: One Shell Straight to Hell was released in February 2021- Hickey also served as a Story Editor and Lead Voiceover performer. He has also done narration and trailers for several other titles including The Kaiju Offensive, Relentless Rex and Roniu’s Tale. Hickey is also the lead voiceover performer on Mega Cat Studios’ upcoming title WrestleQuest, responsible for nearly 90 characters in the game, as well as Skybound's Renfield: Bring Your Own Blood, where he voices both Dracula and Renfield, as well as several other characters. He also stars in Ziggurat Interactive’s World Championship Boxing Manager 2, where he performs the VO of nearly every male character in the game. He also worked on the Atari VCS’s BPM Boy.

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