DomiNations (review)

Posted By Puching Zhang in Features, Gaming, Reviews

BreakingModern — Warriors, advance against the tower! Archers right flank. Don’t go for the loot. Aim for the towers!

War cries like these are familiar to anyone who’s played Clash of Clans. And now Nexon M has released DomiNations, a game that’s basically a cross between Civilization and Clash of Clans. Not only does it enable you to join an alliance and attack other players’ cities, but it also lets you advance your civilization across many ages.

The premise of the game is very similar to Clash of Clans with a fully populated village, army barracks and accompanying buildings. Instead of magic and coins, DomiNations relies on food and coins. Food is used to train your soldiers and upgrade troops, while coins are used to upgrade defenses and to expand your civilization.

That all seems like a rehash of Clash of Clans, doesn’t it? But there’s a difference. Instead of simply leveling up your troops, DomiNations allows you to progress via time and technology.

That’s a huge bonus because it mitigates some of the game’s repetitiveness. Plus, it adds a cool touch from Civilization along with a pinch of sophistication. Also, like the Civilization franchise, a player can choose to adopt a nation like China, France, or Germany as they move forward in time.

The game includes an awesome single-player campaign that lets you raid your way through various nations. During each raid, a player gains a certain amount of gold and food, and this allows Clash of Clans veterans (like myself) to strategize easily.

Multiplayer and Alliances

However, the real question for Clash of Clans enthusiasts looking at this game is how does the multiplayer hold up? In DomiNations, a player can join alliances with other players and earn medals to further both the player and the alliance’s prestige. The more medals a player gets, the higher league he or she can reach, which in turn means increased loot during raids.

Joining an alliance also means that you can engage in wars against other alliances (basically proxy wars). While you don’t need to be in an alliance to conduct a raid, alliances increase the loot you get. But be careful. If you raid someone’s village, most likely they’re going to retaliate.

The alliance feature puts the game over the top because there’s both a single-player civilization dimension to the game, as well as a Clash-style alliance feature for multiplayer. In many ways, Nexon M has reinvented Clash of Clans. And that gets my creative approval.

Overall, I would give this game a 9/10. It combines both the addicting mechanics and extensive multiplayer of Clash of Clans, along with the concept of ages of time found in Civilization. Graphics-wise, it has the same quality of Clash of Clans, and keeps the same gameplay too. DomiNations improves upon the existing mechanics of Clash of Clans and combines it with a new advance through time mechanic for an awesome game. It is free to download for Android on Google Play and Apple iOS.

For BMod, I’m Puching Zhang.

All Screenshots: Puching Zhang