When comparing Shadow Era vs Crashlands, the Slant community recommends Crashlands for most people. In the question“What are the best cross-platform PC/Android games?” Crashlands is ranked 1st while Shadow Era is ranked 40th. The most important reason people chose Crashlands is:
For just the medium difficulty setting there is hours upon hours of content, and that's even if you skip all the side quests and just focus on the main story. Plus there are two harder difficulties to try and in the near future a tool will come out which will let you build your own adventures as well as play other people's.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Good deck balance
Many TCGs often have unbalanced decks where one specific deck can trump most others, with devs being slow to correct this. Shadow Era does not have this issue as the devs spend a great amount of time making sure all the deck combinations have good balance and even have a player run team for testing before new releases.
Pro Unique Sacrifice Mana system
Shadow era tests its players by having them decide which cards to sacrifice in order to gain resources (mana) one time at the start of each turn. No easy buildup of resources (mana) here. You want to make plays, you have to plan it out strategically.
Pro Over 600 cards (approx 250 legal per hero)
The card pool has grown to a very decent size, spread across Neutral, two factions (Human/Shadow) and seven classes (Warrior, Mage, Hunter, Priest, Rogue, Wulven and Elemental). Each of the 32 heroes belongs to a faction/class combination, where they can use Neutral cards and cards from the faction or class. This gives each hero access to approximately 250 cards, which allows for great variety of decks.
Pro Free-to-play done well
The game is free to play but all cards in the game can be earned with free play, there is no need to purchase cards if one does not want to. Though it can speed up being able to build a better desk.
Pro Amazing artwork
The card artwork is of a very high standard and all cards are available in a full-art foil version too.
Pro One account usable across Android/iOS/PC/Mac
Whatever platform you register on, you can grow and access your collection and decks on any of the platforms, so you can use whichever you prefer at the time.
Pro Truly free to play if you want
The in-game currency rewards for playing are very generous and card prices in that currency are low.
Pro No rotation of sets (all cards still legal)
In all modes, all your cards are legal. No cards are rotated out of Standard play and the developer has said they have no intention to bring in rotation ever.
Pro Very limited RNG
Aside from a handful of cards from the original set that had "at random" on them, the developers have gone out of their way to bring more control into the hands of players. Effects will specify they damage "the ally with the lowest health", for example, and on a tie there is a Standard Resolution Order (the ally closer to the hero takes priority), so always know which one will be affected. Sometimes on other games you might think the RNG is skewed/faked, but that can't happen in Shadow Era. This means the main element of randomness and luck is the shuffle of the deck, which is how a card game should be.
Pro New free Single-player Campaign mode being updated regularly
There are already 120 missions to play through with dialogue, telling the story from the very beginning, for 10 Human heroes and 2 Shadow heroes (at the time of writing). Over time, more dialogue is being added to other missions for the remaining 6 Human heroes and 14 Shadow heroes, and then more maps with more missions will be added in future. The campaign mode is completely free and gives generous rewards for playing.
Pro Vibrant Tournament scene with prizes
A variety of player and developer organized tournaments, with prizes rewarded by devs, in both competitive and casual formats provides opportunities for players of all skill levels. It all culminates in the annual World Championship, a brilliant display of skill and deck building.
Pro Devs listen and interact with community
Main developer, Gondorian, is often commenting on questions in the Official forums as well as interacting with our player community on the Telegram messenger app.
Pro Hours of content just in the main quest alone gives the player plenty to do
For just the medium difficulty setting there is hours upon hours of content, and that's even if you skip all the side quests and just focus on the main story. Plus there are two harder difficulties to try and in the near future a tool will come out which will let you build your own adventures as well as play other people's.
Pro Pleasing graphics that show off a well designed and polished game
The graphics look nice and you can tell time has been put into designing them. While not the most flashy, there is a certain style to the whole game that makes for a very cohesive experience.
Pro Pick up from your last save, no matter the device you are using, thanks to the built in cloud saving
Playable on Android, iOS and PC you're able to transfer the one game between multiple devices (on same or different operating systems) and take it with you anywhere you go. with a Butterscotch ID (the devs self implemented cloud save system).
Pro Excellent progression system where you never feel like you are grinding too much
Progression never feels sluggish or rushed, everything has a good pace to it from the farming of materials and grinding out the various components for the tons of items, to the incredibly unique combat/interaction system, it all blends well into a long gaming experience.
Pro Hundreds items to craft in a deep and varied crafting system that will keep the user busy for hours and hours
There are over 500 items that can be crafted in the game, giving the player quite a lot to experiment with and explore when it comes to crafting items.
Pro Great soundtrack that suits the humor and setting of the game quite well
A great mix of chill and energized music, that fits the setting of the game at all times. A pleasure to listen to on its own as well.
Pro Multiple game modes
Once you've finished the basic mode there's also a challenging and insane mode for replayability.
Pro Good writing
You don't need to read everything to enjoy the game but the writing is very good and really adds to the enjoyment.
Pro Lots of entertaining pop-culture references
Cons
Con Poor design
The graphics often seem like they are a less priority over other aspects of the game, the UI often falls into this problem too, which can make for a frustrating experience in that it can be difficult to know how to do certain tasks due to a poor layout and graphics.
Con Cloud saves not through Google services
An extra account will need to be used in order to take advantage of the cloud saving as it does not work with Googles solution to cloud saves. While this does allow for the cloud saves to work cross platform, people may not want to take the extra step to make a new account with Butterscotch Shenanigans.