Heroes of Paragon

Casual games are usually designed for mobile devices, given the fact that non-gamers do not own a powerful desktop PC. However, they seem to slowly creep onto PC territory lately, mainly because modern game development engines make it so easy to port projects on multiple platforms. Unfortunately, these ports are usually not very well-designed, which makes them difficult to enjoy.

Heroes of Paragon is a top-down strategy game that allows you to build a base, upgrade it and use the units you produce in order to defend yourself against a variety of monsters. Later on, you can even battle other players and put your offensive skills to the test, although you are always free to expand by tackling monsters instead, even if it’s not easy to survive sometimes.

You start with only a handful of buildings and some resources, and the goal is to expand as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, most buildings and upgrades take time to complete, and the amount of time increases as you get further into the game. Naturally, this can be bypassed with the help of real money, which is as annoying as it sounds. Hence, you either need a lot of money or a lot of patience.

The tutorial in the beginning shows you everything you need to know in order to get started, and it can actually be quite annoying at times, given the fact that you cannot disable it. Most of the features are straightforward enough even without an annoying guide, but it shouldn’t take long to get through it. Everything is a few clicks away, including the upgrades, spells and units.

The interface is clearly designed to work best on a tablet or a smartphone, but it’s not horrible with a mouse either. It’s a bit of a bother that you cannot move around the map by dragging instead of simply moving the cursor to the edge of the screen, but you can get used to it after a while. The graphics are pretty good too, and you can even zoom in or out as you please to get a better view.

All things considered, Heroes of Paragon is not the kind of game that makes a lasting impression, but it can be the perfect time waster. It’s still very annoying that you have to deal with time limits, especially since others can bypass them with real money.