Let me start by giving a few positives about Shadow Fight 2:
-It is fun after the first few fights (after aquiring better gear)
-It has some nice twists here and there, story-wise
-A variety of weapons and enchantments, including set-specific enchantments as well
-A fun game to play as a leisure
-Free to play
Now for the inevitable negatives of Shadow Fight 2:
-The A.I. is very cheap most of the time and will dodge your attacks
-Ranged weapons are not unlocked until after the first boss, and even a few levels after (Personal complaint)
-Magic does no damage in tournaments or boss fights, and the A.I. usually dodge it anyway
-Gems are bought with money and are not plentiful if you are earning them for free
-Challenges are most of the time very cheap and do not give you much of a chance (lest you spend money on the game)
-The game goes on way too long (no spoilers but its over about 30-40 hours total if you’re playing without spending) [Personal complaint]
-Late into the game (final boss) you are not given little, if any, credits for completing a survival
Now that I’ve gotten those points across, I want to talk about why I am not giving this game a 5 or 4 star, while at the same time not a 1 or 2 star. The game itself is fun most of the time in the beginning. But when the A.I. get ranged weapons and magic, the game becomes a bit less tolerable. Slowly from there, I found myself hating the challenges more and more, since logically the game should make them harder. But eventually, it felt like they were more and more about luck, rather than skill.
On to boss fights. I honestly loved the boss fights (aside from the first 2 bosses) because they felt challenging but were not cheap like the first few. However, those are the only fights I personally enjoyed in this game aside from a few missions here and there. There is too much wrong with the game in terms of the missions’ designs for me to thoroughly enjoy it like I would other games on the App Store. Currently, I am stuck on a challenge mission that is based off of luck, rather than skill (like I mentioned before) where you have to dodge magical geysers that shoot up from the ground “periodically”. And yes, because I put those quotations there I mean that is completely false, in the sense that they shoot up every 3 seconds while you’re attacking. But that’s not the main thing holding this game back. The main thing holding this game back is its difficulty level later on, and I’m not talking about the final boss. The final boss area had some of the most tedious replaying I’ve seen in the game so far (but there are some very bad parts aside from this area). The length of this game felt forced and was not needed.
Although I didn’t give this game a 1 or 2 star, it is not worth the download if you don’t enjoy farming simulators that, in the end, don’t offer enough to keep you going. I am at my breaking point with this game.
[As a side note, some of these difficulties are from MY personal experiences, however I’m not garbage at the game and I can basically tell when a game is on the verge of cheating you out of every cent you spend, whether it be real money or in-game currency.]