When comparing N.O.V.A. 3: Freedom Edition vs Merchant, the Slant community recommends Merchant for most people. In the question“What are the best free games for Android?” Merchant is ranked 2nd while N.O.V.A. 3: Freedom Edition is ranked 5th. The most important reason people chose Merchant is:
The game has a nice retro pixel art style. From the menus to the dungeons or shop there is a very familiar aesthetic to the overall design that would have fit in quite well on consoles in the 80's.
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Pros
Pro Not in-app-purchase oriented
You can play through the whole game without feeling that you are missing anything.
Pro Available in "HD" and "standard" visual settings
There are HD and SD settings so that any device can play this game, be it an older device with low specs or a high end device.
Pro Easy to control
The control layout and sensitivity is adjustable for your optimal gaming experience.
Pro Great multiplayer
Multiplayer is fun, active, relatively balanced, albeit challenging to newcomers.
Pro Tons of replay value
The missions are fun, and by completing missions and earning credits, you can unlock new weapons and upgrade abilities in single-player, leading to a great amount of replay value.
Pro Great story line
Although the fps style is not always very flashy when it comes to story lines, Nova 3's interesting story line comes as a pleasent surprise, even if it does not grant the user any choices.
Pro Pixel art
The game has a nice retro pixel art style. From the menus to the dungeons or shop there is a very familiar aesthetic to the overall design that would have fit in quite well on consoles in the 80's.
Pro Fun resource management mechanic
The player can sell their loot (gathered from a dungeon) for in game money, to then be spent on needed equipment or can equip their loot to try harder dungeons to get better loot to sell for new equipment. Each action is a gamble and may or may not pay off for the player.
Pro In active development
Merchant is still in a very active development phase, which means there will be plenty of bug fixes and new features and tweaks to the gameplay added.
Pro Dedicated subreddit
Merchant has a dedicated subreddit page where users can discuss the game, strategies and bugs.
Pro Completely free and zero permissions
Merchant is a completely free game that also has zero permissions.
Cons
Con Not playable in 2018
License has expired
Con Occasional lag
On lower-end devices, due to the extensive lighting and high resolution graphics, the game can lag and suffers from occasional framerate drops. This is only a problem on older devices, though.
Con No gamepad support
Con Gets very hard
The more you progress in the game, the harder it gets. Although some people enjoy the challenge, many others just stop trying and give up.
Con Current version has both ads and in-app purchases
Con Wait times
There are wait times in the game for both crafting and adventuring. This makes it impossible to sit and play for any length of time and makes the user have to come back to the game often in order to make any significant progress.
Con Lag/delay of action
When pressing buttons in the menus there is a noticeable delay until the requested action actually takes place.